Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Dirty, Ignorant, Sexual Maniacs who Remain Optimistic
In their poverty, filth, and inability to alter their standard of living, the displaced agricultural families became no better than animals in the eyes of Californians.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AlyssaSanow/2009/02/dirty_ignorant_sexual_maniacs.html

"Tom, I ain't a goin' on." Tom sat up. "What you mean?" "Tom, I ain't a-gonna leave this here water. I'm a-gonna walk on down this here river." "You're crazy," Tom said. "Get myself a piece a line. I'll catch fish. Fella can't starve beside a nice river." (284)

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AliciaCampbell/2009/02/self-sacrifice.html

"Well, the Association don't like the government camps. can't get a deputy in there. The people make their own laws, I hear, and you can't arrest a man without a warrant. Now if there was a big fight and maybe shooting - a bunch of deptuties could go in and clean out the camp."..."Don't you ever tell where you heard... There's going to be a fight in the camp Saturday night. And there's goign to be deptuties ready to go in" (Steinbeck 404).

Thomas = probably one of the nicest people they have met so far in the book

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/ChelsieBitner/2009/02/thomas_the_tank_engine.html

"The one-eyed man watched them go, and then he went through the iron shed to his shack behind. It was dark inside. He felt his way to the matress on the floor, and he stretched out and cried in his bed, and the cars whizzing by on the highway only strengthened the walls of his loneliness."

Steinbeck, chapter 16 page 181

Perhaps the worst prisons of all are not those forged of iron and sandstone, but those errected by the walls of loneliness and/or ignorance.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/ChristopherDufalla/2009/02/prison_walls_and_scrap_piles.html

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/RosalindBlair/2009/02/are_you_smarter_than_a_joad.html

..."I like to hear some more 'bout this," Pa said.
"Me too," Tom added. "Why these folks out west hate ya?"
The man looked sharply at Tom. "You jus' goin' wes?"
"Jus' on our way."
"You ain't never been in California?"
"No, we ain't."
"Well, don' take my word. Go see for yourself."
"Yeah," Tom said, "but a fella kind a likes to know what he's getting' into."...
-The Grapes of Wrath p. 205

"'There's going to be a fight in the camp Saturday night. And there's going to be deputies ready to go in.'
Tom demanded, 'Why for God's sake? Those folks ain't bothering nobody.'
'I'll tell you why,' Thomas said. 'Those folks in the camp are getting used to being treated like humans. When they go back to the squatters' camps they'll be hard to handle.'"
~page 404

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JenniferPrex/2009/02/humans_treated_like_humans_now.html

"'You're fixin' to make a speech," Tom said. "Well, go ahead. I like speeches. Warden used to make speeches all the time... What you tryin' to roll out?'
...'They's stuff goin' on and they's folks doin' things. Them people layin' one foot down in front of the other, like you says, they ain't thinkin' where they're goin', like you says--- but they're all layin' 'em down the same direction, jus' the same. An' if ya listen, you'll hear a movin', an' a sneakin', an' a rustlin', an'--an' a res'lessness..."

"Yeah, but the kids was hungry. It's Stealin'. though." (Steinbeck 237).

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JoshuaWilks/2009/02/crime_and_punishment.html

"Here's me that used to give all my fight against the devil 'cause I figured the devil was the enemy. But they's somepin worse'n the devil got hold a the country, an' it ain't gonna let go till it's chopped loose. Ever see one a them Gila monsters take hold, mister? Grabs hold, an' you chop him in two an' his head hangs on. Chop him at the neck an' his head hangs on. Got to take a screw-driver an' pry his head apart to git him loose. An' while he's laying' there, poison is drippin' an' drippin' into the hole he's made with his teeth." (175)

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/NikitaMcClellan/2009/02/animals.html

Apparently Tom is a communist, according to the people in charge that is.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AndrewAdams/2009/02/red.html

"'They was too old,' he said. 'They wouldn't of saw nothin' that's here. Grampa would a been a-seein' the Injuns an' the prairie country when he was a young fella. An' Granma would a remembered an' seen the first home she lived in. They was too ol'. Who's really seein' it is Ruthie an' Winfiel'.'"
--The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 18, page 230

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MatthewHenderson/2009/02/another_one_bites_the_dust.html

"We're Joads. We don't look up to nobody."
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JessicaBitar/2009/02/were_joads.html

"Well, Okie use' ta mean you was from Oklahoma. Now it means you're a dirty son-of-a-bitch. Okie means you're scum. Don't mean nothing itself, it's just the way they say it."

and then... "You're in California, an we don't want you goddam Okies settlin' down."

and again... "Them goddam Okies got no sense and no feeling. They ain't human."

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AjaHannah/2009/02/racism_and_sex.html

"Seems like the man ain't got no say no more. She's jus' a heller. Come time we get settled down, I'm a-gonna smack her" (400).

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JulianneBanda/2009/02/gender_roles.html

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/CarlosPeredo/2009/02/hidden_love.html

More Biblical Imagery in The Grapes of Wrath
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/RebeccaMarrie/2009/02/more_biblical_imagery_in_the_g.html

"A big swift car whisked, near, tires squealed. The dog dodged helplessly, and with a shriek, cut off in the middle, went under the wheels. The big car slowed for a moment and faces looked back, and then it gathered speed and disappeared." (Steinbeck 130)

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/SueMyers/2009/03/treatments-of-a.html

Hey guys, I wanted to let people know that my blog has been fixed, I don't know if anyone visited or tried to comment in the past. You have to click on blog anoymously and then the leave a comment box (the one I'm writing in right now) will come up. My blog is sitting around all lonely, so come visit :)

'"Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lif' up his fellow, but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up.'"
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/AprilMinerd/2009/03/two_versions_are_better_than_o.html

When Wilson was describing his car troubles to the Joad family, Al explains,"I think you got a plugged gas line. I'll blow her out for ya" (Steinbeck 200).
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JustinIellimo/2009/03/collective_interests.html

"The great companies did not know that the line between hunger and anger is a thin line" (Steinbeck 388).
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/JustinIellimo/2009/03/revolution_in_california.html

One person's kindness can affect others to do something nice for more people.
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MarieVanMaanen/2009/03/first_signs_of_humanity.html

Chapter 28
Tom becomes a man

"Can't tell, an' that ain't no insult, neither. Folks that lived here all their life can't tell. If the rain can git in the way of a crop, it'll rain. Tha's what they say out here."

Tom Bolshevisky
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/QuinnKerno/2009/03/tom_bolshevisky.html