Grapes of wrath post III

before you read on let me just warn you that unless you are reading this particular part of the book then of course the daily bullet points will spoil it for you so please don't read on further if that is the case. Otherwise...


As the family get closer to California they start to encounter some of those people who have been and are going back and come across the term "Okie" as derogatoryry label being applied to the immigrants coming into the state.

Bullet points between pages 154 - 240

* Granma starts to decline following her husband's death and keeps talking as if he was still alive

* At an overnight camp site a man is there who has come back from California and he moans that people are treated badly and there is no work

* Further on the road the family encounter a father and son who have also returned and paint the same picture of discrimination, despair and injustice

* At the same camp site a Policeman asks them to be gone by the morning and warns Ma Joad that they "don't want any Okies settling here".

* They are dropping like flies and Noah decides to go off and leave the family

* Mrs Wilson, who has been ill since hooking up with the Joads, can't go on and the Joads head off through the desert deeper into California without them

* Just as they cross the desert and get to see the lush green valley ahead of them Granma dies leaving them with the costs of a funeral. They really will be starting with nothing.

* They reach California and everything they have been warned about appears to be true so they decide to head up North to look for better prospects

You really want them to make it but at this rate there won't be much of the Joad family left to make it much of a better life. Although they are too tired to see it the journey has already been a tragedy. More tomorrow...