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Veronica Stokes

Period 4

The Grapes of Wrath Essay

September 23, 2009

Oh Turtle What Do You Really Mean?

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is a wonderfully written and greatly referred to American tale. It is a book not of adventure and suspense but plenty of emotional hardship and prejudice. An essay previously written stated that Steinbeck is fond of animals in his writing and shows his hatred of corruption through them.

The Grapes of Wrath is set in a time around the great depression and dust bowl era when people were losing jobs to what the migrants call “monsters”. These “monsters” are the banks that are taking over people’s homes and making them move. In some situations, the tractors knocked down homes and small towns for more machinery and factories. The farmers are entering a new stage of technology that they cannot compete with, which forces them to go to California.

While the book progresses, there are symbols that clearly foreshadow the future. One for instance is the turtle walking on the road in chapter 3 which tells a lot about the Joad family, the migrants, and their destiny. This turtle represents much more important than a single and animal and what one chapter can give.
The reader first sees the turtle “turning aside for nothing, dragging his high-domed shell over the grass,” (page 14). As the turtle continues to walk Steinbeck describes his motions and his surroundings. When compared to Tom there are many similarities between the two.

In prison they woke him up at a certain time, gave him dinner at a certain time, and put him into bed at a certain time. Without these times Tom is lost as he states at times in the book how he was waiting for the alarm to go off the first morning he was out of jail and how he didn’t know when to eat. Therefore, it is very ironic that Tom would just pick up the turtle and want to take it out of its “certain time” of living when Tom had a difficult time getting out of his “certain time” of living.

The entire span the turtle was in Tom’s hand it kept trying to escape and go on with its daily routine that Tom interrupted. Another way to view the turtle trying to escape his hands is that the turtle is symbolic of the whole Joad family. The reason why they left their home was because they were being forced out of their environment by the banks that were tearing down their way of living.
Staying where they were not an option, and although the whole family did not try to stay Granpa did and so did Muley, an extended friend, they wanted to stay in their “certain time” living. This example is a complete parallel to the turtles situation and trying to leave Toms arms to go back to his home as well. Tom was the greater force however making him stay.

The turtle represents Tom, the Joads, and the migrants. Steinbeck describes the turtle as having “fierce, humorous eyes . . .star[ing] straight ahead (page 20), this is a good description that also can describe the migrant workers. The website booksrags.com explains how the migrants are regular people full of laughter and hope and are looking forward to living a better lifestyle than they had before.

A tremendous hardship they go through is the ones concerning means of transportation. Gas stations accuse them of wanting to steal the gas or getting some without money this is how most of the Californians think of the migrants as well. The turtle symbolizes this when a truck "swerved to hit it" (page 22).

People are deliberately getting in the migrants way so they can fail, even before they reach California to try to get land. The turtle stayed in its shell for a while when it got slightly hit by the truck. The migrants stayed in their shell but unlike the turtle when they got “hit” most of them did not keep going and instead made homes where they were “injured”.

What do you really mean turtle? The turtle means tough, tenacious, and unstoppable as said by e.notes.com. It describes the people from Tom to the migrants in the story and helps even before the book truly begins illustrate the story. Much of what the turtle goes through the characters allude to in one way or another.

DMU Timestamp: October 27, 2015 10:51