3.+Literary+Analysis

Literary Analysis The purpose of the author was that he wanted to create an emotional connection to anyone who has faced obstacles in their lives.

The novel was written in the late 1930’s about the Great Depression and how the oppression within the Dust Bowl forced Americans to become migrant farm workers to try and survive. Since thousands of people lost their crops and homes, they had no other choice but to move some place else; flyers saying that California had many jobs to offer made many farmers eager to move to California in the hopes of surviving.

The speaker in this chapter is the voice of all migrants on the road as they chronicle the injustices they encounter that make their difficult journey even harder. The narrator assumes the voice of the typical individual when not relating the experiences of the vast majority of the people to a historical analysis of the time period.

Route 66 is a symbol of hope, progress, and opportunity for the migrants as they look West toward the unknown future with the hope of prosperity. They have their minds set that Route 66 would take them to a brighter and better future.

The author uses the simile, “And the concrete road shone like a mirror under the sun, and in the distance the heat made it seem that there were pools of water in the road” (122) to identify heat, one of nature's obstacles that compounded the physical and mental exhaustion the migrants were already experiencing.

Steinbeck writes “66 is the path of a people in flight…” to allude to the exodus of Israelites from Egypt (118). He uses the biblical reference to relate the societal judgments of right and wrong to the source of that moral guide. The biblical ideals form the basis of what is accepted in the farm workers’ society and dictate how the people live and confront injustice.  Throughout the novel the tone is acutely sympathetic to the plight of the migrants, mournful of the passing of the era as family-owned farms were consolidated by large corporation, and amazed at the strength of will of the migrants to triumph despite overwhelming adversity. The tone of this chapter is more sorrowful as the people are exploited, yet is optimistic for a better future as the chapter ends and the journey West continues with renewed faith in the goodness of mankind.

Steinbeck writes, “Listen to the motor. Listen to the wheels. Listen with your ears and with your hands on the steering wheel; listen with the palm of your hand on the gear-shift lever; listen with your feet on the floor boards. Listen to the pounding old jalopy with all your senses” (119). He uses this particular parallel sentence structure to create a flowing narrative that imitates the flowing stream of people pushing their way across the country. The author also uses the rhetorical question, “But how can such courage be, such faith in their own species? Very few things would teach such faith” to force the reader to analyze the peculiarity of human nature that allows people to have hope and faith in their fellow human despite poor circumstances. This strengthens Steinbeck’s claim that great adversity can reveal a pure quality of the human soul that follows biblical teachings to assist others in their time of need.

The imagery used captivates the reader’s imagination as it describes, “66 is the path of a people in flight, refugees from dust and shrinking land, from the thunder of tractors and shrinking ownership, from the desert’s slow northward invasion, from the twisting winds that howl up out of Texas, from the floods that bring no richness to the land and steal what little richness is there. From all of these the people are in flight, and they come into 66 from the tributary side roads, from the wagon tracks and the rutted country roads. 66 is the mother road, the road of flight” (118). The author relates the reader to what the characters are experiences to create an emotional appeal that leads to a greater understanding of the obstacles the migrants faced.