"Cliff Notes - Grapes of Wrath, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

Why Steinbeck assigns a turtle characteristics normally reserved for people is an issue worth pondering. If the turtle has symbolic significance, we haven't yet read enough to determine what it may be. Usually we talk of a turtle as an "it." Here Steinbeck uses the pronoun "he." Maybe there's something in that, too.

We'll have to come back to the turtle later.

^^^^^^^^^^THE GRAPES OF WRATH: CHAPTER 4

Out of the truck, Tom removes his shoes. What a joy it is to feel the land under his feet again! As he walks barefoot toward home, he spies a land turtle in the dust and wraps it up in his jacket--a gift for his kid brother. Possibly this is the same turtle we met in the previous chapter.

Later, after Tom meets Jim Casy, the turtle tries to escape. Casy's comment reveals still another quality of turtles: they can't be penned in; they always run off.

Casy compares himself to a turtle. He, too, has "escaped," for he has given up being a preacher. The spirit and "the heart ain't in it," he tells Tom. In former days he howled out the name of Jesus and delighted in baptizing and bringing God to the people. His sermons aroused folks against sin. He aroused himself, too, but in another way. For after his preaching he would grab any willing girl and lay her down in the grass. Is it any wonder he began to feel like a hypocrite? Taking stock of his life, he finally decided that the old-time religion no longer suited him.

Does Casy sound like a philosopher? Although his language is crude, his ideas show that he is a thinker. He's been thinking particularly about his own faith. To Casy, the "Holy Sperit" now means love. Not love of God, however, but love of people. "Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus?" he asks, "maybe it's all men an' all women..., maybe all men got one big soul everbody's a part of."

What can we make of Casy's words? Tom is a bit embarrassed by them. He's not used to such naked truth. We might conclude that Casy, like Tom, has been released from prison, a prison of fundamentalist religion. But what of that? Again, we probably have to wait until we've read more of the book to understand fully what Casy means.

In contrast, Tom is more interested in down-to-earth matters. He wants to go home to his family, whom he hasn't seen for four years since he was imprisoned for killing a man in a drunken brawl at a dance. As the two men walk along, Tom tells Casy (and the reader, too) a little about his Pa and Ma and other members of the Joad family. When they reach the crest of the hill overlooking the Joad's farm, Tom stops in disbelief. His home has been abandoned.

^^^^^^^^^^THE GRAPES OF WRATH: CHAPTER 5

Why the Joads have deserted their farm becomes apparent in this chapter, a dramatized essay about the economic conflict between the tenant farmers and landowners. Steinbeck uses an imaginary dialogue, with each speaker representing the beliefs of his group. The owners send agents to speak for them. The banks, which Steinbeck aptly calls the Monster, must make a profit, say the agents. If the farmers can't pay, they have to get off the land.

Times are bad; the soil's too dry, the farmers reply.

Then grow cotton!

Can't do that, say the farmers. It'll kill the soil for good.

Too bad, then. Get off the land.

But we've been here for generations. Besides, where'll we go?

That's your problem. Get off!

To make sure the farmers move, the bank sends in bulldozers to knock down the houses. Tractors, like land-eating giants, tear up the land.

The drivers are farmers, too, often friends of the family. Why do they engage in such destructive work? They have to. It's a job, and they need a few dollars to feed their own hungry families.

NOTE: Steinbeck compares the drivers to their machines. In effect, they have become a machine part, no different from a cog or bolt. They lack feeling and sense. They don't think. Perhaps they don't allow themselves to think about their cruel deeds. They have given up their humanity, have sold themselves to the bank and, like the dispossessed farmers, have also become victims of the Monster.

^^^^^^^^^^THE GRAPES OF WRATH: CHAPTER 6

Tom and Casy rummage through the remnants of the Joad farm. Tom thinks Ma may be dead. What other cause would drive his family away?

He is set straight by Muley Graves, a neighbor. The Joads left just two days earlier and have gone to Uncle John's place eight miles away.

Why? The landowners say they can't afford to support small tenant farms any more. Large, mechanized farms might make a profit, so the tenants have been "tractored out."

"How'd my folks go so easy?" inquires Tom. He knows that it's hard to push the Joads around.