semester 2 blog 13 (GOW ESSAY)

Throughout the entire book I was just waiting to see who died next, the setting and characters make the whole story seem dramatic and over done. The book starts out miserable, desperate for the reader's sadness and sympathy, mentioning how children and women are looking for their man's reassurance and how there is nothing truly there. Throughout the entire book three people and one dog die and one person runs away. Rose of Sharon’s baby dies and is stillborn.

In the 13th chapter two characters die, the dog and grandpa, the first of many, "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 dog, a blot of blood and tangles, burst intestines, kicked slowly in the road." (pg 130) grandpa was the first out of the Joad family to die “Grandpa seemed to be struggling; all his muscles twitched. And suddenly he jarred as though under a heavy blow. He lay still and his breath was stopped.” (pg 137) So many people are suffering that the death count is very high, no one is getting money in California to pay for food so people are dying of starvation.

Grandma died shortly after grandpa did; at this point it seems like every other chapter a character dies. “I wisht I could wait an’ not tell you. I wisht it could be all-nice…granma’s dead.” The book is really playing on the deaths and misery of the Joad family. The tone that the book is setting is really trying to get sympathy for the Joad family, if so they are emphasizing it way too much.

Tom is on parole so he wasn’t allowed to leave the state, but he still did anyway. If Tom does not cause any trouble then the police won’t catch him, but being tom he gets into a fight with the cops. Casy steps in and takes the blame and says that he knocked the cop out, he went to jail, we lose track of him for a while until Tom runs into him later on at the farm where they are working picking cotton, they get into another fight and Casy ends up being smashed in the head and he dies. “Casy dodged down into the swing. The heavy club crashed into the side of his head with a dull crunch of bone, and Casy fell sideways out of the light.” (pg 386)

Throughout the entire book Rose of Sharon is pregnant, she is weighted down with the burden of a child, but towards the end of the picking season they start to run out of money and food, and Rose of Sharon is starting to get hints of malnutrition so when the baby is born, it turns out to be a stillborn. “She picked up a lantern and held it over an apple box in the corner. On a news paper lay a blue shriveled little mummy.” There is not much else that can happen to the Joad family they have gone through just about everything that a family can.

Being able to connect with the Joad family, and read about their lives crossing America, this book gives me the perspective that when you try to cross the America in a car with little money and 10 people, you don’t always end up with 10 people in the end. With people dying and starving and driving through the desert in the hot weather, it doesn’t always end up like you imagined. I think this book is asking for a lot of sympathy with 3 people dying, Connie running away and Rose of Sharons stillborn baby.