Most families, he says, including his own, have headed to California to look for work. The next morning, Tom and Jim set out for Tom’s Uncle John’s, where Muley assures them they will find the Joad clan. Upon arrival, Tom finds Ma and Pa Joad packing up the family’s few possessions. Having seen handbills advertising fruit-picking jobs in California, they envision the trip to California as their only hope of getting their lives back on track. The journey to California in a rickety used truck is long and arduous.
Explore the ways Curley and Curley’s wife are presented in the novel ‘Of Mice and Men’ Curley and his wife are minor characters in the novel, however their presence in the novel has a far-reaching effect on the other characters and also the reader. The novel is set during the Great Depression in the 1920’s/30’s when racism, migrant workers and the American Dream were at their peak. The author, John Steinbeck, lived through these times and was a native of California where the story is set. In the passage where Steinbeck first introduces Curley’s wife, he uses many technical skills to show what Curley’s wife was like. He uses symbolism when she is first introduced; “Both men glanced up, for the rectangle of light was cut off.” The reference to the light can suggest that she cuts off the light because she is a negative character, and/or she takes away anything, which is good.
So as they begin to migrate across America, a great metamorphosis occurs to the migrants and they unite to become one family. As the families travel on a transcontinental trip to California they begin to unite with themselves, with others, and with mankind as a whole. The Joads unite with themselves when Grampa Joad dies of a stroke. Towards the beginning of the novel the Joads suffer a death in the family when grampa Joad dies of a stroke. Out of this tragedy the Joads become a single unit, no longer eleven family members, but a single unit.
Steinbeck found this to be a turning point in the actions of Americans—to either join together and work through it as a whole, or take advantage of others and push yourself forward and not care about those you may leave behind. John Steinbeck’s works were heavily influenced by the depression and the impact it had in the current struggles of the common man; they were reflected in his works Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath. John Steinbeck was born in 1902 in Salinas Valley, California. Once he completed high school, he went off to Stanford University for five years but never earned a degree. While he was off at college he was able to have a job on a farm.
04/07/2013 Sacred Memories In N. Scott Momaday’s essay, “The Way to Rainy Mountain” and the 1985 movie The Trip to Bountiful the main characters of each, Scott Momaday and Mrs. Watts are each seeking their roots. A pursuit to live happier based on memories of the past in the case of Mrs. Watts and a replication of the migration the Kiowa’s, Mr. Momadays ancestors, took that landed them at Rainy Mountain. Mrs. Watts and Mr. Momaday both reach the end of their journeys but realize that without the people who were a part of these communities nothing is the same. The two works start their plots with the main characters, Mrs. Watts and Momaday already having made up their minds that they want to go back to each of their family homes. Momaday has a void in his life from missing his grandmother’s final days and her funeral, but he takes a specific path to her grave that he may have felt would help him understand things like customs and stories of the Kiowa people.
Summer Reading Assignment; When the Emperor was Divine When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka is a historical fiction novel that takes place during the hard times of World War II in America. The story is centered around a Japanese American family living in California, that is forced away to an internment camp during the war. This novel does not only tell the story of a typical Japanese family in the 1940s, but it expresses the deep, and heartfelt emotions that a straightforward historical investigation would not be able to present to the reader. When the Emperor was Divine is a story that takes place after the Pearl Harbor attack during World War II. There was a very large amount of anti-Japanese prejudice, especially in the West Coast.
Beginning before French colonization, Duong Van Mai Elliott traces trials and triumphs of her family up to her own generation. Born in 1941 during the Japanese occupation, she would move from North to South Vietnam all the way to America, influenced by the war shaking her country. Beautifully written, The Sacred Willow offers fresh views of a country and its people. Luck and serious studies raise great-grandfather Duong Lam from poverty to the top. Their new rank brings the Duong family into a working relationship with the French, who colonize Vietnam by 1888.
Ralph Bunche Ralph Johnson Bunche was born August 7, 1904 in Detroit, Michigan. His father, Fred, and mother, Olive, worked very hard to provide for their family. Bunche and his family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico when he was ten years old in hope that his parents’ deteriorating health would improve. However, his parents died soon after. He then moved with his grandmother and two sisters to Los Angeles.
In the beginning of the novel we notice the hardships that the Joads have to go through in order to get to California. On the great journey the family joins together as one. The best way it is said is in Chapter 13 “The Family became a unit.”(189) The Joads with the accompaniment of Jim Casey formed a new kind of bond, something that could only be formed if a family had been through absolute hell together. Due to these circumstances their relationships with each other were stronger then ever. For the first time in their lives, they were altogether in the same place working for the same common goal, to be successful in California.
April 5, 1849 Today, I made the decision to go to California for the gold fields. It was a hard decision because I had to leave my family in the process. Luckily I had my boyfriend, Jacob to come along with me. I was pretty scared when I made the choice to come but then I thought it would be a good experience. April 19, 1849 After traveling our journey on horses for 2 weeks with taking several little breaks, we’ve finally arrived.