Wednesday, July 26, 2006
The Grapes of Wrath Questions
THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck
STUDY GUIDE
Chapter 1 Pages 3-7
1. Chapter 1 gives a description of the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma. Write down 10 phrases that describe the Dust Bowl.
2. Why do the women know that no misfortune was to great to bear?
3. What were the men doing at the end of Chapter 1?
4. Why does the first chapter deal with the effect of natural disasters on the country folk?
5. What is the significance of the title?
Chapter 2 Pages 8-19
1. Give a description of the truck driver.
2. Why does the truck driver let the hitchhiker wide with him?
3. What are the man’s dogs?
4. Give a description of Tom Joad on page 9.
5. Why do truck drivers stop at joints?
6. What does Tom pull out of his side coat pocket?
7. Where is Tom coming from?
8. How long has he been in prison?
9. Where is Tom going?
10. What was Tom in for and how long?
11. What is the significance of the slot machine?
12. What is the role of the truck driver?
Chapter 3 Pages 20-22
1. What is Chapter 3 about?
2. What is the significance of the turtle?
Chapter 4 Pages 23-41
1. Where does Tom Joad put the turtle?
2. Why is Jim Casy not preaching anymore?
3. Why did Tom pick up the turtle?
4. Where is the preacher going?
5. Why was the preacher a hypocrite?
6. What advice does Tom give the preacher?
7. What is the preacher’s new philosophy?
8. What could the Holy Spirit be according to the preacher?
9. How many letters did the father write to Tom in prison?
10. How did Tom end up in prison?
11. What are the conveniences of prison life?
12. What is the story about Tom’s house and how it was built?
13. What is the story about Uncle John, the shoat and the Joad family?
14. When Tom and Jim get to the top of the hill what do they see?
15. Why does Tom break his cap to make it look older?
16. What is the significance of Casy’s song
17. What is implied by Tom’s remark that he should have been a preacher himself?
18. What is Casy’s new moral code?
19. How does the recollection of the Christmas card reinforce this feeling?
20. Compare Pa and Uncle John.
Chapter 5 Pages 42-53
1. What does the Bank or Company say?
2. What did the Bank want?
3. How can a man hold land?
4. How does he lose his land?
5. What is another name for the bank?
6. What makes it live?
7. What is the new system?
8. What makes ownership of the land?
9. What can’t men control?
10. Where do the owner men say the tenets can go?
11. How much does Joe Davis’s boy make a day?
12. What did the bank tell Joe Davis’s boy?
13. What do people from the East tell the bank?
14. Who does the tenant man want to kill?
15. What does the tractor destroy?
16. What hierarchy is established here?
17. What point does Steinbeck make about qualifications for ownership?
18. How is the tractor described?
19. What is the significance of the conversation between the farmers and the driver?
20. Why does Steinbeck use the phrase “I got to figure”?
Chapter 6 Pages 54-82
1. What is growing all over the Joad land?
2. What did the pig once do?
3. What direction did the turtle move?
4. Where is Tom’s family?
5. How much do they make for chopping cotton?
6. What are they saving for?
7. Where did Muley’s family go?
8. What will Tom, Muley, and Jim eat that night for dinner?
9. What did the cat eat?
10. How does Muley live?
11. What is Muley generally talking about on pages 67-71?
12. What is the one thing Jim Casy never asked for?
13. How mean was Muley before and now?
14. Who dug the cave in the bank and why?
15. Why does Tom mention, for the second time, that the Joads weren’t people to write?
16. What is the significance of the turtle’s release?
17. What is the function of Muley Graves?
18. What is Casy’s reaction to Muley’s tale?
19. How does Tom describe the prison?
20. Why does Tom refuse to sleep in the cave?
Chapter 7 Pages 83-89
1. This chapter, in the beginning, describes what?
2. How is the car dealer dishonest?
3. What is the significance of the car dealer?
Chapter 8 Pages 90-116
1. How much family does Uncle John have?
2. How did Uncle John’s wife die?
3. What is the description of Pa on page 96?
4. Who is Noah?
5. How did the family get the money to move?
6. How much did the truck cost?
7. How much money will they have to start the trip?
8. What question does everyone seem to ask Tom?
9. What is the significance of the dogs?
10. How are Ma and Pa Joad described?
11. What is the meaning of the reference to Pretty Boy Floyd?
12. What change does Tom notice in Ma?
13. What message does Casy bring to the family?
Chapter 9 Pages 117-121
1. You’re not buying only junk you’re buying what?
2. What did the tenants do with the treasured items they couldn’t take with them?
3. What “bitterness” is being bought?
4. What is the significance of Pilgrim’s Progress?
Chapter 10 Pages 122-156
1. Why does Tom’s mother fear going to California?
2. What advice does Tom gives his mother on page 123?
3. What is preachin’ according to Casy?
4. What cut Uncle John off from people?
5. What was the most active thing the family met by?
6. Why did Al suggest the Joads buy the Hudson?
7. Who scraped the pigs?
8. Why did she do this?
9. Why does Tom want to move up the departure time?
10. Who finishes salting the pork?
11. What did Ma do with her letters?
12. Why does Grampa refuse to go?
13. What will the Joads use to get Grampa in the car?
14. What foreshadowing emerges from the conversation between Tom and Ma about California?
15. What characterization is given of Ma?
16. What is the significance of the preparations?
Chapter 11 Pages 157-159
1. Who takes over the house?
2. What is important in the placement of this chapter?
Chapter 12 Pages 160-166
1. What is Highway 66?
2. Who are the people on it and where are they going?
3. What happened if something breaks on the truck?
4. What contrasts emerge form this chapter?
Chapter 13 Pages 167-204
1. Who does Al think the Joads should have left behind?
2. What is Ma’s philosophy about the future on page 168?
3. A car killed what or whom?
4. Where did the family find Granma sleeping?
5. Who died and how did he die?
6. How much will it cost to bury this person?
7. What does Pa decide about the burial?
8. What will the family bury with this person?
9. What is wrong with Wilson’s car?
10. What is the significance of the gasoline attendant’s complaint?
11. What is revealed as the Joads make camp the first night?
12. What changes occur as a result of Grampa’s death?
Chapter 14 Pages 204-207
1. What two things does a tractor do?
2. How does Steinbeck view man in this interchapter?
Chapter 15 Pages 208-221
1. What makes a hamburger stand along Route 66 successful?
2. Why does Steinbeck include the rich people in the car?
3. What is the significance of Mae’s generosity?
Chapter 16 Pages 222-263
1. Why doesn’t Ma want to leave on page 230?
2. What are two things that will help stop the bleeding?
3. What did Tom tell the one-eyed man to do with his life?
4. How much does it cost to stay at the camp?
5. What did the ragged man’s children die of?
6. What happens when the car breaks down?
7. Compare Tom and Casy at this point.
8. Why does the proprietor call the ragged man a liar?
Chapter 17 Pages 264-273
1. Where did families go in the evenings?
2. What Biblical parallels can be drawn form this chapter?
Chapter 18 Pages 274-314
1. What is the first thing the men do when they get to California?
2. What do they use for soap?
3. What did the term “Okie” mean in the past?
4. What does the term “Okie” mean now?
5. How many acres does the newspaper fella’ have near the coast?
6. According to the preacher, why does a man need a million acres?
7. Who wants to pray for Granma?
8. Why do they want to pray over her?
9. Who decides to live by the river and exist only on fish?
10. Why didn’t Wilson and his wife continue with the Joads?
11. The Okies are not a lot better than the want?
12. When did Granma die?
13. What is Casy’s reaction to the story of the man with a million acres?
14. What facets of the family’s life are stressed here?
15. What is revealed in Ma’s encounter’s with the religious woman and with the law?
Chapter 19 Pages 315-326
1. California once belonged to whom?
2. How many tenants streamed into California?
3. Why is the historical background of California included here?
Chapter 20 Pages 327-384
1. How many tents and shacks were in the first camp on page 329?
2. What is the name of the camp?
3. Define bull-simple on page 332.
4. What happens to the leaders who try to organize the pickers?
5. According to Casy (p341) what does prayer do?
6. Almighty God never did what?
7. Where does Tom almost wish he were?
8. Connie feels it would have been better to do what?
9. Who runs the nice camp with toilets, and tubs?
10. How much does gas cost a galleon?
11. Why can’t Uncle John eat his supper?
12. Where could they pick prunes and pears?
13. Who is the deputy going to arrest for making trouble?
14. Who knocked the deputy unconscious?
15. Who is going to take the blame for the unconscious deputy?
16. Who want to tell Ma and Pa about his sins?
17. Who is missing from the group?
18. Why did the preacher give himself up?
19. Why do they have to move out of the camp?
20. How many times did Tom hit Uncle John?
21. What is the significance of Granma’s funeral?
22. What elements of society’s attitude toward migrants emerge during their experience in Hooverville?
23. What is the truth about the handbills?
24. What hints of future events are provided?
25. How does the family react to the incident between Floyd and the deputy?
Chapter 21 Pages 385-388
1. The moving people were not called what?
3. What were people searching for on the road?
4. What emotions are investigated in this chapter?
Chapter 22 Pages 389-443
1. Where were they living in the government camp?
2. How much does the campsite cost?
3. What happens to a fellow who is quarrelsome in the camp?
4. Why did Wilkies sell his car?
5. How much are the men going to get paid an hour?
6. What is a “Red”?
7. Who is coming to visit the Joad’s?
8. What are the names of the committeewomen?
9. What sanitary unit is using too much toilet paper?
10. What kind of work did Pa, Al and Uncle John find?
11. What is the fundamental difference between Hooverville and Weedpatch?
12. Is this Steinbeck’s version of Paradise? Is it realistic?
Chapter 23 Pages 444-451
1. Who did people listen to:
2. What three instruments do people play?
3. Why does this interchapter stress the pleasures of the migrants?
Chapter 24 Pages 452-472
1. Who was chairman of the Central Committee?
2. What is a two-bit man?
3. What kind of fight started at the dance?
4. What facts emerge from the scene in which the attempt is made to break up the dance?
5. What impressions are given by the conversations about wages?
Chapter 25 Pages 473-477
1. What season is beautiful in California?
2. What aspect of human ability is discussed here?
Chapter 26 Pages 478-553
1. How many days has Tom worked?
2. How much gas do they have left in the truck?
3. Where do they not want to live?
4. When they leave the government camp, which direction will they be heading?
5. What is Roseasharon missing in her diet?
6. Why did Winfield bite a kid in the nose?
7. What did they have for breakfast the morning they left camp?
8. Where does a man tell them they can find work?
9. Pretty Boy Floyd wasn’t a bad person but what happened to him?
10. What numbered house are they to live in?
11. When they arrived at the Hooper ranch what feeling fell upon them?
12. What fruit is the Joad’s picking?
13. How much did all the groceries cost Ma?
14. How much did they get paid for picking a box of peaches?
15. How many boxes did all seven of them pick?
16. Who are the crazy pickets?
17. Who does Tom see in the ravine?
18. What makes all the trouble according to Casy?
19. After the strike gets busted how much does Casy say the people will get to pick the peaches?
20. What two men get killed?
21. Who killed Casy?
22. Who killed George?
23. Where were Tom’s injuries?
24. What is the story the family will say about Tom?
25. What is the posse going to do when they find the person who killed George?
26. Who takes the lead now?
27. What realization does Tom reach?
28. How is the theme of fellowship extended in the activities of Tom and Al in the car?
29. What is the significance of Tom’s take of the convict?
30. What aura pervades the Pixley camp?
31. What happens during the interview with the storekeeper?
32. What is the importance of Casy’s conversation with Tom?
33. What is the symbolic value of Casy’s death?
34. What is Rose of Sharon’s attitude toward Tom?
35. What report do the men bring about the day’s work?
Chapter 27 Pages 554-557
1. How much does a cotton picker make a day?
2. What kind of meat are they going to eat that night?
3. What changes does this interchapter reflect?
Chapter 28 Pages 558-588
1. What did the Joads buy in town?
2. What does Roseasharon need?
3. What do Ruthie and Winfield want to buy?
4. Who told about Tom?
5. Where did Ma go on page 565?
6. Where is Tom hiding?
7. How much money does Ma offer Tom?
8. What does Tom want to do?
9. What can a woman do better than a man on page 577?
10. What happened to Roseasharon after picking cotton?
11. What is the significance of the boxcar?
12. What mood is evoked at the beginning of the chapter?
13. What scriptural passages does Tom quote?
14. How does the chapter end?
Chapter 29 Pages 589-592
1. What did the people in the tents do when the rain formed puddles?
2. What did the water do to the cars?
3. How long do the migrants have to live in the area to get relief?
4. What was the greatest terror?
5. What were the three feelings people felt for the migrant workers?
6. What prevented the break in men on page 592?
7. What emotion characterizes this final interchapter?
Chapter 30 Pages 593-619
1. What does Pa want to do to prevent a flood?
2. How can Roseasharon help in having here baby?
3. What does Roseasharon’s screams remind Uncle John of?
4. What happened to Roseasharon’s baby?
5. Who buries the dead baby?
6. Who decides the family should leave the boxcar?
7. Who doesn’t go with them?
8. Where did the family find shelter?
9. What did Roseasharon do for the starving man?
10. What is the significance of the levee?
11. What meaning is evoked in the baby’s birth?
12. What is implied in the ending of the novel?
13. How does the Joad flight have parallels to the Old Testament?
EXTRA CREDIT
--Extra Credit must be well done, in color where applicable.
--It must be well written where writing is demanded - Typed, double space in 12 point
print, New Times Roman at least 5 pages.
--Research must be documented using research paper style documentation.
--Extra Credit must be presented orally if time permits.
--Do extra credit like you really want an A+
1. Draw a map of the Joad’s journey across America (in color), marking with an asterisk those spots were important events occurred. Include a key to explain the markings.
2. Read another work by John Steinbeck and evaluate its theme in the light of the attitudes expressed in THE GRAPES OF WRATH.
3. Using he periodical section of your library, prepare a study of contemporary problems faced by migrant workers. Note any similarities or differences in goals, life-style, and organizations.
4. Using the periodical section of your library or reference books, write a report on:
a. The “dust bowl”
b. The early history of the labor movement in America
5. Read the lyrics of the song, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” from which the novel’s title was taken. What other lines from the song might apply to the books’ theme and why? Report your findings in a well-written report.
6. Read Carl Sandburg’s poem “The People Yes” and compare its theme to that of THE GRAPES OF WRATH. Report your findings in a well-written essay.
7. How do the modern “communes” springing up in the 1970s compare with Steinbeck’s theme? Would he have approved? Report your findings in a well-written report?
8. Chapter 15 of the novel is often presented by itself as a short story in anthologies. Considering it as a total artistic effort, rather than as part of a whole, can you analyze it in literary terms of characterization, setting, and plot? Does it fit the requirements of a well-constructed short story? Report your findings in a well-written report?
9. Role-play a conversation between Tom and Grampa in which Tom defends the stratagem by which they forced Grampa off the land. This is an oral and written report.
10. The novel was published in 1939 and war broke out in 1941. Assuming that Tom Joad had gone to war, what might have been his reactions to army life? Would he have found it the ideal of communal living or, remembering his reaction to prison, an autocratic, oppressive regime? This may be acting out and written.
11. Write a descriptive essay describing the natural beauty of California.
12. Furious editorials appeared in Oklahoma newspapers objecting to the image of Oklahoma farmers as ignorant, naïve and vulgar. Write a letter to the editor refuting this charge. Please document your research.
13. Write descriptions of each member of the Joad family and their lives, as Ma might have entered the facts in the family Bible.
STUDY GUIDE
Chapter 1 Pages 3-7
1. Chapter 1 gives a description of the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma. Write down 10 phrases that describe the Dust Bowl.
2. Why do the women know that no misfortune was to great to bear?
3. What were the men doing at the end of Chapter 1?
4. Why does the first chapter deal with the effect of natural disasters on the country folk?
5. What is the significance of the title?
Chapter 2 Pages 8-19
1. Give a description of the truck driver.
2. Why does the truck driver let the hitchhiker wide with him?
3. What are the man’s dogs?
4. Give a description of Tom Joad on page 9.
5. Why do truck drivers stop at joints?
6. What does Tom pull out of his side coat pocket?
7. Where is Tom coming from?
8. How long has he been in prison?
9. Where is Tom going?
10. What was Tom in for and how long?
11. What is the significance of the slot machine?
12. What is the role of the truck driver?
Chapter 3 Pages 20-22
1. What is Chapter 3 about?
2. What is the significance of the turtle?
Chapter 4 Pages 23-41
1. Where does Tom Joad put the turtle?
2. Why is Jim Casy not preaching anymore?
3. Why did Tom pick up the turtle?
4. Where is the preacher going?
5. Why was the preacher a hypocrite?
6. What advice does Tom give the preacher?
7. What is the preacher’s new philosophy?
8. What could the Holy Spirit be according to the preacher?
9. How many letters did the father write to Tom in prison?
10. How did Tom end up in prison?
11. What are the conveniences of prison life?
12. What is the story about Tom’s house and how it was built?
13. What is the story about Uncle John, the shoat and the Joad family?
14. When Tom and Jim get to the top of the hill what do they see?
15. Why does Tom break his cap to make it look older?
16. What is the significance of Casy’s song
17. What is implied by Tom’s remark that he should have been a preacher himself?
18. What is Casy’s new moral code?
19. How does the recollection of the Christmas card reinforce this feeling?
20. Compare Pa and Uncle John.
Chapter 5 Pages 42-53
1. What does the Bank or Company say?
2. What did the Bank want?
3. How can a man hold land?
4. How does he lose his land?
5. What is another name for the bank?
6. What makes it live?
7. What is the new system?
8. What makes ownership of the land?
9. What can’t men control?
10. Where do the owner men say the tenets can go?
11. How much does Joe Davis’s boy make a day?
12. What did the bank tell Joe Davis’s boy?
13. What do people from the East tell the bank?
14. Who does the tenant man want to kill?
15. What does the tractor destroy?
16. What hierarchy is established here?
17. What point does Steinbeck make about qualifications for ownership?
18. How is the tractor described?
19. What is the significance of the conversation between the farmers and the driver?
20. Why does Steinbeck use the phrase “I got to figure”?
Chapter 6 Pages 54-82
1. What is growing all over the Joad land?
2. What did the pig once do?
3. What direction did the turtle move?
4. Where is Tom’s family?
5. How much do they make for chopping cotton?
6. What are they saving for?
7. Where did Muley’s family go?
8. What will Tom, Muley, and Jim eat that night for dinner?
9. What did the cat eat?
10. How does Muley live?
11. What is Muley generally talking about on pages 67-71?
12. What is the one thing Jim Casy never asked for?
13. How mean was Muley before and now?
14. Who dug the cave in the bank and why?
15. Why does Tom mention, for the second time, that the Joads weren’t people to write?
16. What is the significance of the turtle’s release?
17. What is the function of Muley Graves?
18. What is Casy’s reaction to Muley’s tale?
19. How does Tom describe the prison?
20. Why does Tom refuse to sleep in the cave?
Chapter 7 Pages 83-89
1. This chapter, in the beginning, describes what?
2. How is the car dealer dishonest?
3. What is the significance of the car dealer?
Chapter 8 Pages 90-116
1. How much family does Uncle John have?
2. How did Uncle John’s wife die?
3. What is the description of Pa on page 96?
4. Who is Noah?
5. How did the family get the money to move?
6. How much did the truck cost?
7. How much money will they have to start the trip?
8. What question does everyone seem to ask Tom?
9. What is the significance of the dogs?
10. How are Ma and Pa Joad described?
11. What is the meaning of the reference to Pretty Boy Floyd?
12. What change does Tom notice in Ma?
13. What message does Casy bring to the family?
Chapter 9 Pages 117-121
1. You’re not buying only junk you’re buying what?
2. What did the tenants do with the treasured items they couldn’t take with them?
3. What “bitterness” is being bought?
4. What is the significance of Pilgrim’s Progress?
Chapter 10 Pages 122-156
1. Why does Tom’s mother fear going to California?
2. What advice does Tom gives his mother on page 123?
3. What is preachin’ according to Casy?
4. What cut Uncle John off from people?
5. What was the most active thing the family met by?
6. Why did Al suggest the Joads buy the Hudson?
7. Who scraped the pigs?
8. Why did she do this?
9. Why does Tom want to move up the departure time?
10. Who finishes salting the pork?
11. What did Ma do with her letters?
12. Why does Grampa refuse to go?
13. What will the Joads use to get Grampa in the car?
14. What foreshadowing emerges from the conversation between Tom and Ma about California?
15. What characterization is given of Ma?
16. What is the significance of the preparations?
Chapter 11 Pages 157-159
1. Who takes over the house?
2. What is important in the placement of this chapter?
Chapter 12 Pages 160-166
1. What is Highway 66?
2. Who are the people on it and where are they going?
3. What happened if something breaks on the truck?
4. What contrasts emerge form this chapter?
Chapter 13 Pages 167-204
1. Who does Al think the Joads should have left behind?
2. What is Ma’s philosophy about the future on page 168?
3. A car killed what or whom?
4. Where did the family find Granma sleeping?
5. Who died and how did he die?
6. How much will it cost to bury this person?
7. What does Pa decide about the burial?
8. What will the family bury with this person?
9. What is wrong with Wilson’s car?
10. What is the significance of the gasoline attendant’s complaint?
11. What is revealed as the Joads make camp the first night?
12. What changes occur as a result of Grampa’s death?
Chapter 14 Pages 204-207
1. What two things does a tractor do?
2. How does Steinbeck view man in this interchapter?
Chapter 15 Pages 208-221
1. What makes a hamburger stand along Route 66 successful?
2. Why does Steinbeck include the rich people in the car?
3. What is the significance of Mae’s generosity?
Chapter 16 Pages 222-263
1. Why doesn’t Ma want to leave on page 230?
2. What are two things that will help stop the bleeding?
3. What did Tom tell the one-eyed man to do with his life?
4. How much does it cost to stay at the camp?
5. What did the ragged man’s children die of?
6. What happens when the car breaks down?
7. Compare Tom and Casy at this point.
8. Why does the proprietor call the ragged man a liar?
Chapter 17 Pages 264-273
1. Where did families go in the evenings?
2. What Biblical parallels can be drawn form this chapter?
Chapter 18 Pages 274-314
1. What is the first thing the men do when they get to California?
2. What do they use for soap?
3. What did the term “Okie” mean in the past?
4. What does the term “Okie” mean now?
5. How many acres does the newspaper fella’ have near the coast?
6. According to the preacher, why does a man need a million acres?
7. Who wants to pray for Granma?
8. Why do they want to pray over her?
9. Who decides to live by the river and exist only on fish?
10. Why didn’t Wilson and his wife continue with the Joads?
11. The Okies are not a lot better than the want?
12. When did Granma die?
13. What is Casy’s reaction to the story of the man with a million acres?
14. What facets of the family’s life are stressed here?
15. What is revealed in Ma’s encounter’s with the religious woman and with the law?
Chapter 19 Pages 315-326
1. California once belonged to whom?
2. How many tenants streamed into California?
3. Why is the historical background of California included here?
Chapter 20 Pages 327-384
1. How many tents and shacks were in the first camp on page 329?
2. What is the name of the camp?
3. Define bull-simple on page 332.
4. What happens to the leaders who try to organize the pickers?
5. According to Casy (p341) what does prayer do?
6. Almighty God never did what?
7. Where does Tom almost wish he were?
8. Connie feels it would have been better to do what?
9. Who runs the nice camp with toilets, and tubs?
10. How much does gas cost a galleon?
11. Why can’t Uncle John eat his supper?
12. Where could they pick prunes and pears?
13. Who is the deputy going to arrest for making trouble?
14. Who knocked the deputy unconscious?
15. Who is going to take the blame for the unconscious deputy?
16. Who want to tell Ma and Pa about his sins?
17. Who is missing from the group?
18. Why did the preacher give himself up?
19. Why do they have to move out of the camp?
20. How many times did Tom hit Uncle John?
21. What is the significance of Granma’s funeral?
22. What elements of society’s attitude toward migrants emerge during their experience in Hooverville?
23. What is the truth about the handbills?
24. What hints of future events are provided?
25. How does the family react to the incident between Floyd and the deputy?
Chapter 21 Pages 385-388
1. The moving people were not called what?
3. What were people searching for on the road?
4. What emotions are investigated in this chapter?
Chapter 22 Pages 389-443
1. Where were they living in the government camp?
2. How much does the campsite cost?
3. What happens to a fellow who is quarrelsome in the camp?
4. Why did Wilkies sell his car?
5. How much are the men going to get paid an hour?
6. What is a “Red”?
7. Who is coming to visit the Joad’s?
8. What are the names of the committeewomen?
9. What sanitary unit is using too much toilet paper?
10. What kind of work did Pa, Al and Uncle John find?
11. What is the fundamental difference between Hooverville and Weedpatch?
12. Is this Steinbeck’s version of Paradise? Is it realistic?
Chapter 23 Pages 444-451
1. Who did people listen to:
2. What three instruments do people play?
3. Why does this interchapter stress the pleasures of the migrants?
Chapter 24 Pages 452-472
1. Who was chairman of the Central Committee?
2. What is a two-bit man?
3. What kind of fight started at the dance?
4. What facts emerge from the scene in which the attempt is made to break up the dance?
5. What impressions are given by the conversations about wages?
Chapter 25 Pages 473-477
1. What season is beautiful in California?
2. What aspect of human ability is discussed here?
Chapter 26 Pages 478-553
1. How many days has Tom worked?
2. How much gas do they have left in the truck?
3. Where do they not want to live?
4. When they leave the government camp, which direction will they be heading?
5. What is Roseasharon missing in her diet?
6. Why did Winfield bite a kid in the nose?
7. What did they have for breakfast the morning they left camp?
8. Where does a man tell them they can find work?
9. Pretty Boy Floyd wasn’t a bad person but what happened to him?
10. What numbered house are they to live in?
11. When they arrived at the Hooper ranch what feeling fell upon them?
12. What fruit is the Joad’s picking?
13. How much did all the groceries cost Ma?
14. How much did they get paid for picking a box of peaches?
15. How many boxes did all seven of them pick?
16. Who are the crazy pickets?
17. Who does Tom see in the ravine?
18. What makes all the trouble according to Casy?
19. After the strike gets busted how much does Casy say the people will get to pick the peaches?
20. What two men get killed?
21. Who killed Casy?
22. Who killed George?
23. Where were Tom’s injuries?
24. What is the story the family will say about Tom?
25. What is the posse going to do when they find the person who killed George?
26. Who takes the lead now?
27. What realization does Tom reach?
28. How is the theme of fellowship extended in the activities of Tom and Al in the car?
29. What is the significance of Tom’s take of the convict?
30. What aura pervades the Pixley camp?
31. What happens during the interview with the storekeeper?
32. What is the importance of Casy’s conversation with Tom?
33. What is the symbolic value of Casy’s death?
34. What is Rose of Sharon’s attitude toward Tom?
35. What report do the men bring about the day’s work?
Chapter 27 Pages 554-557
1. How much does a cotton picker make a day?
2. What kind of meat are they going to eat that night?
3. What changes does this interchapter reflect?
Chapter 28 Pages 558-588
1. What did the Joads buy in town?
2. What does Roseasharon need?
3. What do Ruthie and Winfield want to buy?
4. Who told about Tom?
5. Where did Ma go on page 565?
6. Where is Tom hiding?
7. How much money does Ma offer Tom?
8. What does Tom want to do?
9. What can a woman do better than a man on page 577?
10. What happened to Roseasharon after picking cotton?
11. What is the significance of the boxcar?
12. What mood is evoked at the beginning of the chapter?
13. What scriptural passages does Tom quote?
14. How does the chapter end?
Chapter 29 Pages 589-592
1. What did the people in the tents do when the rain formed puddles?
2. What did the water do to the cars?
3. How long do the migrants have to live in the area to get relief?
4. What was the greatest terror?
5. What were the three feelings people felt for the migrant workers?
6. What prevented the break in men on page 592?
7. What emotion characterizes this final interchapter?
Chapter 30 Pages 593-619
1. What does Pa want to do to prevent a flood?
2. How can Roseasharon help in having here baby?
3. What does Roseasharon’s screams remind Uncle John of?
4. What happened to Roseasharon’s baby?
5. Who buries the dead baby?
6. Who decides the family should leave the boxcar?
7. Who doesn’t go with them?
8. Where did the family find shelter?
9. What did Roseasharon do for the starving man?
10. What is the significance of the levee?
11. What meaning is evoked in the baby’s birth?
12. What is implied in the ending of the novel?
13. How does the Joad flight have parallels to the Old Testament?
EXTRA CREDIT
--Extra Credit must be well done, in color where applicable.
--It must be well written where writing is demanded - Typed, double space in 12 point
print, New Times Roman at least 5 pages.
--Research must be documented using research paper style documentation.
--Extra Credit must be presented orally if time permits.
--Do extra credit like you really want an A+
1. Draw a map of the Joad’s journey across America (in color), marking with an asterisk those spots were important events occurred. Include a key to explain the markings.
2. Read another work by John Steinbeck and evaluate its theme in the light of the attitudes expressed in THE GRAPES OF WRATH.
3. Using he periodical section of your library, prepare a study of contemporary problems faced by migrant workers. Note any similarities or differences in goals, life-style, and organizations.
4. Using the periodical section of your library or reference books, write a report on:
a. The “dust bowl”
b. The early history of the labor movement in America
5. Read the lyrics of the song, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” from which the novel’s title was taken. What other lines from the song might apply to the books’ theme and why? Report your findings in a well-written report.
6. Read Carl Sandburg’s poem “The People Yes” and compare its theme to that of THE GRAPES OF WRATH. Report your findings in a well-written essay.
7. How do the modern “communes” springing up in the 1970s compare with Steinbeck’s theme? Would he have approved? Report your findings in a well-written report?
8. Chapter 15 of the novel is often presented by itself as a short story in anthologies. Considering it as a total artistic effort, rather than as part of a whole, can you analyze it in literary terms of characterization, setting, and plot? Does it fit the requirements of a well-constructed short story? Report your findings in a well-written report?
9. Role-play a conversation between Tom and Grampa in which Tom defends the stratagem by which they forced Grampa off the land. This is an oral and written report.
10. The novel was published in 1939 and war broke out in 1941. Assuming that Tom Joad had gone to war, what might have been his reactions to army life? Would he have found it the ideal of communal living or, remembering his reaction to prison, an autocratic, oppressive regime? This may be acting out and written.
11. Write a descriptive essay describing the natural beauty of California.
12. Furious editorials appeared in Oklahoma newspapers objecting to the image of Oklahoma farmers as ignorant, naïve and vulgar. Write a letter to the editor refuting this charge. Please document your research.
13. Write descriptions of each member of the Joad family and their lives, as Ma might have entered the facts in the family Bible.
# posted by Sister Pat / English @ 1:53 PM 
