Anthony Doremus > Recent Status Updates

Chapter 12 broke from the pattern of 1 Joad story and 1 nameless depiction chapter. It depicted the main highway to California, 66, and the struggle of all the cars and trucks that crawled their rusted bodies with broken pieces and scarce resources. At the end, it tells the story of a family of 12 that was forced off their land and built a trailer from junk, picked up by a generous man and made it to California.

The Joads prepare to leave, slaughtering the pigs and salting their meat, setting things in the truckbed. Muley Graves shows up to say goodbye before they leave.

This chapter depicted the sifting through of belongings to sell and to bring, the leaving behind of treasured belongings. "No room for the letter my brother wrote the day before he died."

The family have breakfast after Casy says 'grace', he isn't very religious anymore so it's more of a thinking grace. Tom asks about the other members of the family that aren't there.

Tom gets more acquainted with the happenings of his family, and meets his mother, who talks with him, and his Pa goes out to get his grandparents.

Tom, Casy, and Muley sleep in a cave like thing in a water-cut. The next chapter, 8, depicts the greed of car dealerships. Then, we pick back up with Tom and Casy walking along a wispy road in the dark and early morning. Tom remembers this place enough from his childhood to make his way to Uncle John's place. They find Old Tom Joad, Pa, working on a car converting it into a truck. Pa is very pleased with his return.

We only read for a fairly short time, so not much happened.

Tom, Casy, and Muley talk around their cooking fire and discuss things like Tom's imprisonment, what he did, and the prison system as they eat the jackrabbit.

Tom Joad, Casy, and Muley cook a couple of rabbits.

Joad releases the land-turtle, and it resumes going in the same direction. A man walks into view, and it is Muley Graves, a neighbor of Joad's who then tells them of what happened and where Joad's family went.

Joad and Casy stumble upon Joad's family's house, but it is in a state of suspicious ruin, exactly like the previous chapter described happened to so many people. They wander around, investigating the ruins, but something seems off, nothing was stolen, and there is a cat left in the barn. If there were neighbors around, the resources left in the house would've been taken, and the cat would've been taken in as well.

The tractor drivers plow the land, destroy houses and dehome a hundred people for three dollars a day. They diffuse responsibility to others, even though they destroy the land with their own actions.

The chapter just after Joad and Casy come up to Joad's pa's house is a blatant criticism of banks and tenant systems, as well as land ownership. The chapter describes the bank as the Monster, and that men created it, but are not in control of it, even though the men hate what they do they still do it.

The former preacher, Casy, and Joad continue talking, and Casy describes his falling out with being a preacher, and Joad then tells him of his crime and time spent in jail. Joad earlier picked up a turtle, to give to the young ones at his family. This is presumably the same turtle as in the previous chapter.

After being dropped off by the trucker, the former prisoner Joad walks along the road and finds the old preacher sitting in the shade of a tree, whistling/singing a song, and they recognize each other and share a moment.

I have noticed that the odd chapters describe more nature scenes, and the even ones follow the doings of men.

A man hitchhikes with a trucker and the man was a prisoner, freshly released. The man tells the trucker he was incarcerated for homicide, even though the trucker was glad to not know his plight.

The next chapter depicts a tortoise traversing the treacherous landscape.

The first chapter depicts the American countryside as the big dust storm rolls over and the beginning of the great depression.

Since the reading time allowed today was so short, I could only read the first few pages of the chapter, where Chana is in some sort of forced migration, with soldiers pushing her family and others along.

the book further describes the relationship between Hilary and her mother, and how Hilary came to hate her.

Chana is going through some troubles in her family. her little baby sister passes as not jewish and was given away to another family. Hilary returns to her unmoving body and describes her relationship with her mother in more depth.

Hilary, the neo-nazi main character, recalls the events of the day of the motorcycle crash. she then falls again into Chana's world and sees her family mourning the death of her father when a man runs in telling them they need to pack and leave to Russia, to get away from the nazis.

The main character 'spins' and ends up in the body of a jewish girl in nazi controlled Poland. This vision of the past shows the girl, Chana, doing forced work under nazi soldiers. Later, her father is hung from a tree by his coat and is shot. The next chapter resumes in the hospital with a visit from Hilary's mother and a recounting of the accident.

The book begins with the main character extremely hatefully describing the jewish lady in front of her, in presumably the hospital after the main character is critically injured in some way in a motorcycle accident.

Pip has returned home from Miss Havisham's, and lies to Mrs Joe and Mr Pumblechook about the happenings there because he is too ashamed(the feelings are complex). Pip then goes to Joe and confesses that he lied, and Joe tells him as a true friend, that getting "oncommon" is much easier without being crooked.

Pip enters the property of Miss Havisham, guided by a fair young lady to the miss' home and room, where Pip sees Miss Havisham and the decrepit, yellowed, frozen in time room and objects, with clocks stopped and objects always in the same places, with Miss Havisham old as well.

I recognized a part of this from a passage I read in one of the standardized tests last year! (not the PSAT, but whatever the other one is)

Mrs. Joe arrives at home with Mr./Uncle Pumblechook, and they tell Pip he's going to play at the rich lady's house, (with quite some suspicion as to why, and if they have permission). Mr. Pumblechook takes Pip to his house? for the night and reviews him of arithmetic as pip eats a minuscule breakfast.

I the last few pages, Pip shows Joe a letter, and Joe says that Pip is a scholar, and Pip asks why Joe isn't a scholar, and Joe goes on to explain his upbringing with an abusive father, and how yet he loved his father and says he had a great 'hart' Joe goes on to tell of Pip's sister. After this interaction, Pip has a much higher level of respect for Joe.

After the expedition returns home, there is a gigantic time jump to the next chapter, which starts with Pip's reflection on his family's graves, and moves on to his great aunt and eventually to his writing a very uncouth looking letter to Joe.