Literature Analysis 2

1. Recently released from prison, Tom Joad makes his way back home to Oklahoma only to find everyone is moving west to California. This is due to the drought and lack of work. Tom and his family set off in a rickety wagon to California. On their way they hear rumors of plentiful well paying work in the west. Come to find out, once they reach California, the work is hard and the pay is barely enough to sustain a family. This causes them to move to a government run camp that pays much better. Unfortunately at this camp Tom Joad ends up killing a police officer only because that police officer killed an innocent man. Tom Joad ends up where he was at the beginning of the story faced with time in prison for a crime that was not entirely his fault. He makes the tough decision to leave his family and go into hiding rather than suffer any more years in jail. 
2. The main theme of the novel is man's selfishness. In this story every family was only looking out for themselves. For example, in the work camps adults wouldn't even give a thought if they let a child go hungry, as long as they got food during the lunch breaks. In tough situations people don't seem to have any empathy for others.
3. The tone in Grapes of Wrath was a mix of sadness, desperation, and anger.
-"To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth..."
-"Spend all their time looking. Don't want to buy no cars; take up your time. Don't give a damn about your time."
-"If he'll take twenty-five, I'll do it for twenty. No, me, I'm hungry. I'll work for fifteen. I'll work for food. The kids. You ought to see them..."
4. The author used figurative language, symbols, simile, motifs, and setting to benefit the readers understanding of the theme of the novel. 
-"....its load of leaves tattered and scraggly as a molting chicken." (figurative language)

-"The last clear definite function of man—muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need—this is man. To build a wall, to build a house, a dam, and in the wall and house and dam to put something of Manself, and to Manself take back something of the wall, the house the dam; to take hard muscles from the lifting, to take the clear lines and form from conceiving. For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments." (motif-man's desire to lead is seen frequently throughout the novel)

-"....I'll pot you like a rabbit." (simile)