Quotes From 'The Grapes Of Wrath'

1. “The magical time of childhood stood still, and the pulse of the living earth pressed its mystery into my living blood” (1.1).

“An Indian in his native garb was standing there; but the red men were not so infrequent visitors of the English

And had she changed? Did she also look better to Edwin, almost slender now and the freckles not noticeable except at the height of summer? And with her new-found ability for light talk? They were passing beneath the eucalyptus trees and the silver drops, falling as the wind shook the leaves, stung her face, feeling at once both cool and burning, Meadow larks in the fields which edged the campus sang in the quiet way they have after the rain has stopped.

The epigraph in this chapter was a passage from Henry David Thoreau 's “Life in the Woods”. In the excerpt, it explains how phenomenal nature is and how majority of people never take advantage of exploring it and discovering new things. Instead, they continue to live life the way its most accepted in society, “All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality... The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening”. McCandless meets Ronald

“He looked around him as if seeing the world for the first time. The world was beautiful, strange, and mysterious.” (page 39)

“Every moment in your life is a turning and every one a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased. I had no belief in your ability to move a coin to your bidding. How could you? A person's path through the world seldom changes and even more seldom will it change abruptly. And the shape of your path was visible from the beginning.” (Page 259)

When examining John Steinbeck’s, Grapes of Wrath’” he details the story of the Joads an Oklahoma family on their way to California in the midsts of the Dust Bowl. As he discusses their journey towards the american dream he inserts several intercalary chapters that break up the discussion of the Joads and shifts the focus towards the things that symbolizes them. In the novel there are several intercalary chapters that are used to depict the lies and deceit that occurs to the Joads right under their nose.

“The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all around him. She had become a physical necessity.”

“And yet she had loved him – sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!”

In the first couple of paragraphs, she utilizes a didactic tone to talk to him about ehy she urged him to go even though he seemed reluctant to go with his father. She states this in "If I had thought your reluctance arose from proper deliberation... I should not have urged you to accompany your father..." She also doesnt

Marguerite’s feels a constant displacement from everyone. She feels she doesn’t fit in due to her looks. “If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult.”(page 4, introduction) This quote really shows how she feels about herself. She knows she is different which makes it harder for her. “Wouldn’t they be surprised when one day I woke out of my black ugly dream, and my real hair, which was long and blond, would take the place of the kinky mass that Momma wouldn’t let me straighten?” (page 2, introduction) Marguerite believes that the beautiful people are the white girls with long blond hair and blue eyes. Since she is the opposite she feels that she is ugly, “…who was understandingly jealous of my beauty turned me into a too-big Negro girl, with nappy black hair, broad feet and a space between her teeth…” (page 3,introduction), therefore does not fit in. I believe

‘You mean, of her not dying? … No, of course there isn’t.’ … Startled by the expression of distress…” (Pg. 180-1)

They are described as mostly naked and often wearing animal furs, presently them in a physically animalistic context, and were free to roam where they pleased. But not that the area is being colonized, they are being herded out of the way. The portrayal of Indian in an animalistic way restates the attitudes towards slaves, attempting to “…collapse the boundaries between human and animal” (Ginsberg 91).

She was not upset the day her brother died, and felt no guilt for her feelings about him. "I was sad for them [her family] rather than over any loss of mine, because my brother had become a stranger to me. I was not sorry that he had died, but I was sorry for him because, according to his standards, his life had been thoroughly worth living" (p. 55-56).

This quote describes the deeper, spiritual approach to nature. This deeper approach allows us to be more open and sensitive to ourselves and nonhuman life.