A Closer Look at the Joad’s Journey

Amanda Keogh, Annie Beresheim, Chelsea Taylor, Chris DeMatteis and Madeline Barcia

Sallisaw, Oklahoma

• The Joad Family beings there journey in their hometown- Sallisaw, Oklahoma

• This location represents the despair and poverty that overcame the tenant famers

• The emptiness of their hometown represents the end of life as the Joads know it

• This location introduces the motif of dust

“A day went by and the wind increased, steady unbroken by gusts. The dust from the roads fluffed up and spread out and fell on the weeds beside the fields, and fell into the fields a little way. Now the wind grew strong and hard and it worked at the rain crust in the corn fields. Little by little the sky was darkened by the mixing dust, and the wind felt over the earth, loosened the dust, and carried it away. The wind grew stronger. The rain crust broke and the dust lifted up out of the fields and drove gray plumes into the air like sluggish smoke. The corn threshed the wind and made a dry, rushing sound. The finest dust did not settle back to earth now, but disappeared into the darkening sky.”(Chapter 1, page 1)

Route 66

• “66 is the mother road, the road of flight.”• Symbol of the Joad family’s hope for

a better future• Yet at the same time, this road comes

to symbolizes the many hardships the Joads face on their journey • The highway can be seen in an ironic

way

The Joad Family Car

“The family met at the most important place, near the truck. The house was dead, and the fields were dead; but this truck was the active thing, the living principle. The ancient Hudson, with bent and scarred radiator screen, with grease in dusty globules at the worn edges of every moving part, with hub caps gone and caps of red dust in their places- this was the new hearth, the living center of the family…” (Chapter 10, page 99-100)

Needles, California

• Here the Joads first realize that their vision of California may not be everything they believed it to be• The Joad Family discovers that

unity is no longer a possibility- Noah decides to go his own way and the Wilsons are left behind• The first time that the Joads hear

the term "Okie" used derogatorily.

Tehachapi, California

“The vineyards, the orchards, the great flat valley, green and beautiful, the trees set in rows, and the farm houses. And pa said, ‘God Almighty!’ The distant cities, the little towns in the orchard land, and the morning sun, golden on the valley.”“Ruthie and Winfield looked at it, and Ruthie whispered, ‘It’s California.’ Winfield moved his lips silently over the syllables. ‘There’s fruit,’ he said aloud.”

Hooverville

• The Joads realize the destitute conditions of the famers in California- faced with the harsh reality of their future• Tom and Casy first feel a sense of

injustice towards the treatment of the famers• Self interest vs. Community

Weedpatch• “An’ in Needles, that police. He

done somepin to me, made me feel mean. Made me feel ashamed. An’ now I ain’t ashamed. These folks is our folks—is our folks. An’ that manager, he come an’ set an’ drank coffee, an’ he says, ‘Mrs. Joad’ this, an’ ‘Mrs. Joad’ that—an’ ‘How you getting’ on, Mrs. Joad?’” She stopped and sighed. “Why, I feel like people again.”

Hopper Ranch

• Climax of the story• We see the helpless of the

men and Ma Joads assumption of the leader role

• Anger is growing in the minds and hearts of the farmers

Boxcar Camp

Barn

• Sign of hope or desperation?