S2 Blog 13 (GOW Final Essay)

3. Describe how the balance between specific stories about the Joad family and broader description of the migration of Dust Bowl farmers impacts the novel as a whole.

The Grapes of Wrath depicted the story of two “families”: the Joads and the collective body of migrant workers. Although the Joads were joined by blood, the text clearly explaind and went in-depth on the fact that it was not their genetics but their loyalty and commitment to one another that established their true togetherness.

In the migrant lifestyle portrayed in the book, the biological family unit, lacking a home to live within their own boundaries, quickly became a thing of the past, as life on the road forced them to create new connections and form new relationships. The reader experienced this change at work when the Joads met the Wilsons. In a remarkably short time, the two groups merged into one, sharing one another’s hardships and committing to one another’s survival. This merging took place among the migrant community in general as well: “twenty families became one family, the children were the children of all. The loss of home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream.” Even in the midst of adversity, the livelihood of the migrants depended upon their union. As Tom eventually realized, “his” people were all people.

I believe that the way Tom began to realize this, was by the biological familiy and the migrant workers as a whole, constantly demonstrating the definition of unity togethernes around. This helped and veered Tom towards first observing this type of living, and then slowly but surely living that way himself, which soon led to the joads and the migrants to not only experience the hurdles, but the process of moving forward as one also. Moving forward, to me, was one of the most important things that the joads and migrants had to do if they were going to have any chance of rising above all the negativities that tried to bring them down.

According to Steinbeck, many of the evils and negativities that came into contact with the Joad family and the migrants stemed from selfishness. Simple self-interest motivated the landowners and businessmen to sustain a mean and harmful system that sunk thousands of families into poverty. In contrast to and in conflict with this policy of selfishness stood the migrants’ behavior toward one another. Aware that their livelihood and survival depended upon their commitment to the collective idea, the migrants united—sharing their dreams as well as their burdens—in order to survive. Throughout the novel, Steinbeck constantly emphasized self-interest and the devotion to the welfare of others as equal and opposite powers, evenly matched in their conflict with each other. In Chapters 13 and 15, for example, Steinbeck presented both greed and generosity as going beyond the normal limit, while the following action was an extremely posititve response.

In Chapter 13, we learn that corporate gas companies had preyed and harassed the gas station attendant that the Joads met. The attendant, in turn, insulted the Joads and hesitated to help them. Then, after a brief detailed explanation chapter, the Joads immediately came upon an instance of kindness that demonstrated an act of non-self-interest, and more humbleness: Mae, a waitress, sold bread and sweets to a man and his sons for drastically reduced prices. Some truckers at the coffee shop saw this interchange and left Mae an extra-large tip.

Obviously, in this instance, it was better to give than to receive. Mae, obviously felt the urge to want to help and contribute to the man and his sons by simply reducing the cost of food purchased by the man. Lucky for her, due to her kind heart and gesture, the truck drivers rewarded her and showed that they recognized her generosity by leaving her a large tip.

In my opinion. this situation, in a way, represented a symbol or point that would definitely benefit both the joads and the migrants. If the landowners and businessmen would've also taken the time out to look beyond protocol, to try and truly understand the minds and hardships of the different migrants and families, then they too might've been able to help in some way possible. unfortunately, however, businessmen and landowners didn't have any sympathy to even think twice about trying to help families keep their land and homes. They instead, just like I mentioned earlier, put all their effort towards selfishness, whch resulted into going from what used to be a society of organized families with establshed gender roles, to complete chaos and switch of roles.

When the novel began, the Joad family relied on a traditional family structure in which the men made the decisions and the women obediently did as they are told. In fact, the family was so invested in these roles that they continued to honor Grampa as the head of the family, even though he had outlived his ability to act as a sound leader.

As the Joads journey west to try and make a living in California, the family dynamic changed drastically. Discouraged and defeated by his stack of failures, Pa withdrew from his role as leader and spent his days tangled in thought. In his position, Ma assumed the responsibility of making decisions for the family. At first, this shocked Pa, who, at one point, lamely threatened to beat her into her so-called "proper" place. The threat is empty and false, however, and the entire family knew it. Eventually, the switch of roles worked in the favor of the Joads family, which helped to motivate other families, and also tie in the main idea of the novel.

By the end of the novel, the Joad family structure had undergone a revolution, in which the woman figure, traditionally powerless, had taken control, while the male figure, traditionally in the leadership role, had withdrawn, setting the srage and opening new doors to the improvemnt of other family lives and environments.

This revolution, in my opinion, paralleled or matched up with a similar change in the larger economic statuses in the outside world. For instance, like when the workers at the Weedpatch camp governed themselves according to their own rules, and shared tasks in a way that satisfied their own understanding of fairness and equality rather than power-hungry ambition or love of authority.

It's clearly obvious that both the Joad and the migrant families sort of reflected off each others lifestyles, and learned and became enlighted by each other in a way that guided them towards comprehending how to work together and pull through obstacles, to get closer and closer to a better, more fair and understandng lifestyle and environment.

S2 Honors Novel Blog #1: A Child Called It

In A Child Called It, the theme of abuse is an obvious and important theme, but a social issue in our society as well. No child wants to be abused, neither verbally, mentally, or physically. However, sometimes in order for someone to feel a sense of power and defeat for themselves, they harshly bring down one(s) that they once use to genuinely love and care for.

Child abuse was the theme of Dave Pelzer's life between the ages of four and twelve, the time period over which this book covers. There are many types of abuse that can damage a child's delicate psyche and most of them are covered in this book. The first is verbal abuse. Many people do not realize how deeply words can wound and hurt a child. And not only does it have to be the words that wound the child but the actions, tone, and meanings behind the words as well. A child's feelings are a lot more delicate than those of the adults, and they tend to be affected for longer periods of time. Unfortunately, in our society, abuse tends to be overlooked and overpowered by things that are "more important." But think about, what could be more important than the physical and mental well being of the children? or better yet, our future?

Language can be as damaging to a child as a fist. The very title of this book, A Child Called It, is a perfect example of verbal abuse. Dave's mother reduced her child, a son she gave birth to, down to nothing. Dave's mother refused to acknowledge Dave as a member of the family for many years, slowly but surely beating him down literally, to be worth, to her, even his dad and brothers, no more than the dirt on the ground.

Daves childhood was filled with cruel events perpetrated on Dave by his mother in a fog of alcoholism and mental instability. Dave's perspective, the child who actually went through the events portrayed in this autobiography, clearly demonstrated and represented an inhumane lifestyle, that is being experienced by children all over the world. These events include horrible beatings, starvation, and forced feedings of chemicals, such as ammonia. Dave was only four or five when these episodes of abuse began with time standing in a corner and escalating to time forced to stare at himself in a mirror. Is this a way to discipline anyone?

In my opinion, this did not help Dave, but hurt him. Forcing a child so young to do such a thing,does not help them to realize their wrong, but veer them more towards decreasing the value of themselves. Doing that has the potential to lead to built up frustration and possibly really bad behavior. Not only should the mom have came up with a better way of dealing with his mischief, but society should currently be in the process of coming up with a better more effective way to deal with child abuse as a whole. It takes a village to raise a child, but it takes the world to better the abused lives of young children. Love and care should take the place of beatings and intentional starvation.

Pelzer’s book has been criticized for its poor writing and self-complaints. Also, some believe that the circumstances are so unbelievable that they are hard to believe. What father would leave his helpless son and allow such terrible abuse in his home? What mother could possibly behave this way? I believe that there are no actual people in the novel, only demons. However, I did notice Dave's strong ability to handle difficult subject matters and explore and expand the perspective of a boy suffering at the hands of his own mother.

By structuring his writing in this way, it helped me to get a better visual and understanding of abused souls and minds as a whole. What Dave went through, should be a learning experience and wake up call to everyone around the world. Society is constantly changing, and morphing everyday. And if child abuse is going to be reduced, it will be up to the people within the society to bring awareness to people they know, so that everyone can try and work together to help make a difference in the lives of abused children. A child that is hopeless, and on the verge of completely giving up, is waiting for caring people like us to be their savior and the one that helps them to realize that they can be loved, and their horrific past, could be turned into a bright future.

History Blog #1

Dear President Barack Obama,

As your advisor, I believe that in order for you to succeed, your number one goal as president, should be to effectively communicate with the US as a whole. Everyone is currently facing their own obstacles, along with having to constantly adjust to new laws and ideas being put into place. However, if you come up with a way to strategically grab everyones attention at once, and make them feel as if you are recognizing and trying to address their questions and concerns ndividualyl, on a personal basis, then more respect woulf come your way? Why? Because then citizens will began to feel heard and important, which will eventually lead to more patience, encouragement, and motivation. At this point, the economy is in deed, a very imbalanced place right now and its up to you to help reconstruct it.

Not only has the unemployment rate icreased, but even those who have jobs are sufferering, because they too are also becomming frustrated at how long its taking to really notice a dastic change in the econonomy. Gas prices are sky rocketing, health care is slipping, and education support is becoming limited.

Your reassurance to the people is not to just give hope, but to set your objective and presidency apart from the previous, but connected to the ones that stand in history as someone that did what they believed, but tried their hardest to take in the consideration, thoughts, ideas, and struggles of others, similar to former president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

President FDR believed that all should be created equal, and that he served the people to the best of his abilty, helping them to realize the good in the future, and forget and move forward away from the bad and troubles of the past.

In the end, this letter is not to make up your mind for you, when it comes to fulfilling your duty as president, but to help you in a way that veers your mind toward a direction that will help fulfill your duty as president to the best of your ability in a smart and creative way. Because, no matter what, you represent the people, and the people represent your work.



Sincerely,

Your advisor