Show:
Theme
Characters
Plot
Symbols and Figurative Language
Historical Context
100
This theme is developed in the novel in the cruel ways that the Joads and other migrant farmers are treated by other human beings.
What is "Man's Inhumanity to Man"?
100
The main character of the novel. He completes the Jesus Christ figure in the novel by "resurrecting" Jim Casy.
Who is Tom?
100
The first chapter of the novel describes it, and it is just one of the reasons the Joads cannot stay on the land.
What is The Dust Bowl?
100
It is what Rose of Sharon's pregnancy throughout the novel symbolizes.
What is new beginnings or fresh hope?
100
It was caused primarily by drought, bad soil, and heavy winds.
What is The Dust Bowl?
200
The chapter in which the Joads stop at the diner and Mae, the waitress, has a change of heart and chooses to be kind rather than cruel exemplifies this theme, because once Mae is generous, the truck drivers in the diner are as well.
What is "The Multiplying Effects of Altruism and Selfishness"?
200
He got drunk and tried to abandon the family, because he is tormented by his own guilt.
Who is Uncle John?
200
Ma shows her tremendous strength and shocks the family by making this sacrifice to help them get to California.
What is riding through the night with Granma after she's passed away?
200
Jim Casy's (and John Steinbeck's) personal belief system
What is the "oversoul" or the "human spirit"?
200
John Steinbeck was from this city.
What is Salinas, California?
300
This evidence exemplifies this theme: "In the evening a strange thing happened: the twenty families became one family, the children were the children of all. The loss of home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream" (Steinbeck 193).
What is "The Saving Power of Family and Fellowship"?
300
She holds the family together, even though her character dramatically changes thoughout the novel.
Who is Ma Joad?
300
The first place the Joads stay when they get into California. This place shows the hardships and abject poverty in which the migrant farmers are living.
What is the Hooverville?
300
Chapter five, throughout which the tractors, tractor driver, and bank are described as monsters is an example of one of these.
What is extended metaphor?
300
These people work land that does not belong to them.
What are tenant farmers?
400
The ways in which the farmers took the cruelty and hostility and continued to fight on exemplifies this theme.
What is "The Dignity of Wrath"?
400
She tries to do what she can to help the family, but she is on an emotional roller-coaster from the beginning and becomes easily frightened.
Who is Rose of Sharon?
400
This is the reason Jim Casy is arrested.
What is taking the blame for Tom beating up the officer?
400
Jim Casy coming to California to benefit the people, then dying for their good, and then being "resurrected" in Tom creates this kind of figure.
What is a Jesus Christ figure?
400
This technological advance in the 20s and 30s greatly affected farmers because it could do ten times the work of plowing the fields in half the time.
What is the tractor?
500
This evidence exemplifies the theme: "The women watched the men, watched to see whether the break had come at last. The women stood silently and watched. And where a number of men gathered together, the fear went from their faces, and anger took its place. And the women sighed with relief because they knew the break would never come as long as fear could turn to wrath" (Steinbeck 434-435).
What is "The Dignity of Wrath"?
500
He saves Tom from possibly returning to prison and ends up sacrificing his life for the good of the people.
Who is Jim Casy?
500
It is why the Joads must flee in the end of the novel, which results in them discovering the starving, dying man in the barn.
What is the flooding?
500
John Steinbeck creates an ironic twist when he begins and ends the novel with completely opposing forces of this.
What is weather?
500
The migrant workers in America (and other countries) could be greatly taken advantage of because of these reasons.
What is no worker unions, no minimum or set salary, no guidelines on how they had to be treated?