Friday, September 18, 2015

The Grapes of Wrath (1)

Name of book: The Grapes of Wrath
Names of group members: Brittany Geilear, Loren Williams, Kaylee Collins
Number of pages: 581
Chapters reviewed in this blog post: Chapters 1-7
Genre: fiction
Author: John Steinbeck
Publisher & date published: April 14, 1939

Summary of chapters 1-7:
Joad gets out of prison after 4 years for manslaughter. He hitches a ride from a truck driver while walking home. He talks to the truck driver about where he's been and where he's going. The truck driver is polite and tells him he doesn't judge people. The truck drivers lets Joad out near his home. Joad approaches his former preacher and talks about the past. Muley, an old family friend, tells Joad about how the bank or "the monster" is running people out of their houses because people cannot pay for their farms. There crops are failing because of all the dust in the air.

Individual reflections and connections to the book:
Brittany: I think this book portrays a good understanding and image of how the dust bowl/great depression was in the U.S. and how the people were affected by it.
Kaylee: This book shows the reader an inside look on the Great Depression and dust bowl. Also in the way that in today's world people couldn't otherwise understand.
Loren: Honestly this book does not interest me so far, this time period was a very sad time in our history. Although it connects with many themes I would've wanted to do something more to date.

Group Discussion:
We think that this book shows a great understanding of the past and how people handled it. We also thought about the present and how now, we might be prepared for some things because we learned from the past. But, we also think in today's world we could still be hit with something like the Great Depression and not be as well prepared for it as we thought.

Presentation for our final project:

Questions:
Will Joad find his family?
Will Casy start Preaching again?
What will Muley do?

We will either do a commercial-sales talk
Or maybe make a newspaper

2 comments:

  1. Do you think the author has a political agenda, or is he just trying to tell us what it was like for a particular family? Does it matter that this book was written before the beginning of WWII?

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  2. We think he is using the family as an example to show how a lot of other families were being effected by the Dust bowl the same way as "The Joads." The Joads are a representation of the hardships faced by many Americans during this time period. WWll made many Americans want to help their country and see their country succeed after such a hard time, they showed great strength.

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