Thursday, January 11, 2007
Chapter 3
What does the turtle symbolize? What do the car and truck symbolize? DIG DEEP, folks. Don't just parrot someone else's answer (and don't you dare copy off of Spark Notes or something similar). Use support from the text to justify your responses. Plagiarized responses will receive a zero and a referral. I know you can do it on your own! Wow me with your insights.
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The turtle represents freedom and life itself. Going along not bothering anyone on the road, minding his own business when it is interupted.The car represents the peacemakers in the world who avoid conflict and destruction even if there are consequences. Then the truck on the other hand represents the radical people in the world who support hate and destruction. These people go out of their way to disturb people.
The turtle represents returning to the world. The turtle lays its eggs in the world, and when they grow up, they come back to the beach and lay their eggs there as well. Tom was "returning" to his father's in the previous chapter to work.
The car is a symbol for freedom. When we get our first car, and can drive it for ourselves we feel so empowered! we feel like we can do anything! We feel free. The car could also symbolize smooth sailing so to speak. Roads are not always paved and straight forward, just like life is not always straight forward and paved out for us. The truck represents troubles. Troubled times and troubled people. Trucks are large and at this time jobs are hard to come by, the dust is everywhere, therefore, troubles are larger, like the trucks.
Alright first off, who didn't guess the turtle would get hit? As so as the author said it was heading for the highway, you it was going down.
The turtle represents the men and women of the book. The main focus of Steinback's novel. Rough and crude in appearance they must toil for the duration of their lives. Yet no matter what horrific terror might they behold be it SUV of economic depression, the manage to turn themselves upright and continue on with their work.
The turtle represents the farmers of America battled and survived to tell the tale. The turtle goes slow but sure and despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles, which the truck symbolizes, perseveres with a little help from a kind and caring few, this would be the car in the story. The obstacles that one could have endured at the time were obviously the drought itself and offers of a better life. The kind and caring few were the people that gave whatever they could afford to. So, just as the farmers had faith that the drought would end, the turtle believes he can make it across the highway.
The turtle represents the life before the drought and the dust bowl. Steadily ploding along until it was completely intterupted by the car, which is supposed to be the Drought and the dust bowl distirbing every thing in it's path. Then once the car was gone it tried it's best to go on with it's life until it hit the next bumb of Tom Joad.
The truck sybolizes people's want to be better but their need to survive. He wanted to help but couldn't because he need ed to feed his family.
I agree with everyones' idea that the turtle represents the farmers during the Dust Bowl. Like the turle whose shell is rough and unattractive , the farmers weren't accepted because many of them, especially from Oklahoma were very poor. The farmers were hardworking, determined people though, and they believed eventually, their situation would get better. When the turtle is flipped over he attempts to turn around on his own, however, he ends up having to use the aid of the quartz. This relates to the farmers because even though it shattered their pride and dignity to take money from the government, they did what they had to to survive.
The turtle symbolizes the hardships people had to battle during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Crawling up the embankment stands for the constant struggle that never seem to be relieved. However, little by little, the turtle's situation improved, as did the farmer's and their families during the Dust Bowl. The eventually "easy going" of the turtle could represent when people began to migrate west in hopes of a new and better life.
The car which attempted to save the turtle from death symbolizes the government who tried to help migrants by creating WPA projects and migrant camps. When the car slowed down to proceed, this represents the government's attempt to prevent something similar to the Dust Bowl from happening in the future. The truck which tried to hit the turtle and succeeded stands for Americans, such as those in California, who did not sympathize with the migrants and instead only hindered their progess similar to when the turtle was left on its back.
The turtle could represent pace or normalcy, i can't think of the word to describe it so that's the best i could come up with at the moment. That could define the famers of the Midwest who work hard, but don't overwork the land. The car represents speed, change, and greed. That could define the use of new farm equipment that ultimately ruined the land. The truck could represent destruction. That could define the dust bowl which was the product of overworking the land.
the turtle represents the farmers who left a beaten trail behind themselves and then after they beat a lot of ground up they got hit. the farmers plowed a lot of ground in order to survive just as the turtle moved to survive, but he went to far as the farmers did and got killed, whereas the farmers went so far and caused the dust bowl.
The car represents people who see the farmers struglling but do nothing to help them but dont want to hurt them either. and the truck represents society who pushed farmers into the dust bowl.
The turtle represents an average person with an average life. They work hard to achieve, and don't try to get into anyone's way. The turtle deals with short moments of despair, hides in his shell for a moment or two, then keeps traveling along his way. People, too, deal with these kinds of things. With each new day comes new challenges to be faced. During hard times, people feel like crawling under the covers and crying, but after a while they come out and face the world, and go on with their lives.
The car represents the "good" people in the world. The people who make an effort to help others and keep the peace. The car is all of the people who make sacrifices and accept criticism in order to make someone else's life better.
The truck represents the "bully." When life is going fine, the truck comes along and tries to make things difficult. It is after these sort of experiences that people are forced to get back up and keep trying. By not letting the truck keep him down, the turtle proved to himself that he was strong.
The turtle represents getting stuck and either finding a way to make it through, or laying there, similar to a turtle left on its back. Like a turtle on its back, the farmer could either lay there, work to get back over, or help eachother out.
The car really represents that freedom, although everyone elses response was similar, it is very true. The car is like a way out, a glimspe of hope to something better. A car is never asscoicated with work like a truck is, that is why the truck represents hard work and struggle. Men who work had always want drive a beat up truck, this is why i relate the two.
The turtle represents the people of the world and naivity versus realization. The cars represent life, and all of its dangers and unfairnesses. "Life isn't fair" is portrayed here, as we (or the turtle) are moving through life without anything happening to us. Then, when we are naively moving down the road, unfairness, corruption, and hard times hit, causing us to fall right on our backs, and may even cause us to stay on our backs for a while. After our realization that life freakin hurts, we find a way to roll back over, get up, and keep on moving through it.
Farmers during the dust bowl were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. The turtle, who is caught in the middle of a highway while cars are passing by, represents these farmers. The car represents people who tried to help the farmers. The truck represents people who tried to take adavantage of their misfortune.
I think the real question is, though, can a turtle really survive being ran over by a truck moving 70 mph?
Is it so wrong that I thought the exact same thing Quint did? Oh well, I'll just make something up...
The turtle could be the spirit of human will-power. The car would then represent the human nature to avoid crushing the human spirit and the truck would then represent natures attempt to indeed crush the turtle/spirit. The road, a portion of the turtles journey or life, could symbolize a portion of our human existence in this universe. It is in our nature to nuirish and protect our motivation and will-power. However, a truck, a.k.a. nature, may roll along and attempt to destroy our spirit. This could be represented by the Dust Bowl and its devastating consequences. Our protective shell, or perhaps our natural instincts, protect us from this powerful fow and allow us to escape slighty injured but still alive and well.
The turtle symbolizes Joad, or any other suffering poverty-stricken person. The turtle’s journey on the highway parallels Joad’s life and others who have similar lives. The constant dangers surround the turtle like the dangers of life in the thirties, or any era for that matter. Steinbeck gives such a detailed description of the turtle so readers will relate to it, and see it as more than a mere reptile. The embankment the turtle struggles to climb symbolizes the social classes that Joad wishes to climb. The car and truck represent different people that Joad will come in contact with. Two kinds of people are portrayed, the kind that deliberately wish harm on others (the truck), and those who travel out of their way to help others (the car). The car swerves to miss the overwhelmed turtle and the truck swerves to kill the turtle.
The turtle represents the general law abiding public who go about their way without bothering anyone else and are just looking out for themselves. The car represents those fortunate few who even though they could stomp on those people lower in society they choose not to hurt them. The truck represents those people with power that do not try to help those less fortunate and even go out of their way to keep them down.
The entire scene is a metaphor for the social and economic struggle of poor versus rich in the 1930's. Steinbeck chooses a turtle because it adapts well with the dry, deserted landscape of the entire Dust Bowl. The turtle climbs down the road, slowly, facing obstacles, but eventually makes it, even though he has to jump over the fence median. The turtle's jump is symbolic of the risk that some farmers took with their perserverance. While family and friends left for California, some farmers continued their practice even though they risked losing everything. Ironically, this can be applied in the opposite fashion. Those who went away also took risks. The truck that hits the turtle clearly represents the bankers, businnessmen, etc. who were wealthy during this time period. Just like the "cats" ruthlessly ran over farm slums, the truck chips the turtle's shell. However, the idea that the turtle survives is paramount, even though it is injured there is still hope for its recovery. The car's meaning is much more difficult to decipher. I agree that it couldl be symbolic of the government trying to help the people, but the problem is that the car doesn't really HELP the turtle it just doesn't HURT it. Therefore, I would symbolize the car as the indifference of society during this time. Even though she didnt hit the turtle, she could have stopped and helped it turn over or made sure it got across the road safely. She most likely didn't because it was only a dirty animal. Similarly, people during the 30's were reluctant to help farmers out completely because they thought they were on a higher level socially and economically than the farmers were.
The turtle represents the people living in the area threatened by the dust bowl. Remember the story of the turtle and the hare. The turtle had a slow strenuous journey that seemed like he would never win the race, but in the end he comes through on top beating the hare. In the novel the turtle suffers a little bit differently by being hit by a care, but I think my story gets the idea arcoss as well. The people during the dust bowl have hardships just as the turtle did. They faced a long Journey trying to survive the great depression, but they knew eventually things would turn around.
as for the car and truck I believe that the car represents the government trying to help the poor people during this time. The car tried to steer away from the turtle, but didnt help him. Just as the government tried to help the less fortunate by putting programs together such as the WPA, but they couldn't completely fix the problem. The truck on the other hand though did not care about the turtle. It simply ran it over just like the people in places such as California that did not want to help the people in need even though they had the resources to do so.
The turtle represents the presistance of the the farmers with them refusing to give up their land to the bank, the dust bowl, or to the drought.The truck represents the the objects that came into the opposition of the farmers again like the bank, the dust bowl, and the drought
I was thinking along the same lines as Sarah. The turtle represents economically challenged people during this time period and the truck symbolizes the economically thriving businessmen of the era. While the turtle slowly eases towards what they think is freedom and prosperity, the truck rushes en route to the same dream of prosperity but because of the truck's advantages, both natural and acquired, it gets to that point much sooner, thus trampling the turtle in its path. The car is the last hope for the turtle, but ignores it, similar to what the government was doing during the time of the Dust Bowl. The government had the New Deal and the WPA that looked good to the small percentage of the country that was prospering, but all it was doing was covering up the fact that it was not solving the problem in its entirety.
Throughout many cultures, turtles have been used as a symbol of strength, perseverence, security, and sanctity. Steinback uses the turtle on the highway as a way to portray that strength is needed to overcome whatever it is that life throws at you. Turtles also represent the earth and a new beginning. Just as there are endless patterns traced upon the shell of a turtle, so are there an infinite array of new beginnings. This helps connect Tom Joad and the turtle together to represent the new beginning Joad seeks.
The car and the truck are the yin and yang of the world. The car represents the yang of the world (since the car did not try to hit the turtle, it made a positive decision) while the truck represents the yin (seeing as the truck purposely hit the turtle.) They also provide a metaphor for the balance between light and dark, good and evil, and checks and balances. Seeing as one cannot exist without the other, yet both are as different as night and day.
The turtle symbolizes vulnerability at an extreme level. In this particular novel it serves as a reflection of the human instinct of people during the Dust Bowl. People try so hard to protect themselves from the horrors of the Dust Bowl, like the turtle pulls in his shell. Unfortunately, the turtle is at the mercy of forces he can't control (the car), just like people are at the mercy of weather. The road the turtle is walking across symbolizes risk. The turtle is set up so that it is in a situation where it is in the road. Even if he goes back in the direction he came from, he has to cross the road. This is true of the people of the time who have to get through the storms even if they plan on heading back to the city or plowing forward to California.
The turtle might symbolize all the people, like the farmers, who were facing a very difficult time. The turtle struggles plenty to climb onto the pavement, and this might symbolize the people who were moving west to places like California, people who were moving to have a better life. When the turtle is crossing the road, a Sedan approached the turtle and when the woman saw the turtle, she swung of the highway so she would not hit the turtle, risking her own life. This could mean that there were people living in the West that helped people who were moving west. When the driver of the truck approached the turtle, he swerved to hit the turtle, and he flipped the turtle, spinning the turtle off the highway. This could represent all the people of the West who did not want people to move West. They tried to push the people back and not let them reach states like California.
The turtle symbolizes the hardworking lower class of the era. Just as the turtle does, the workers toil endlessly towards a common goal, yet never seem to make any significant gains. The car then symbolizes the middle class, which avoids making life harder for the lower class, or the turtle. Consequently, the truck symbolizes Big Business, which purposely uses their elevated status to further degrade the little guy.
I think that the people who try to hit/avoid hitting the turtle are the real symbols here. There are some who try to protect life, opportunity, and the traditional farmlife(the turtle) like the woman who swerved, and there are those who like to destroy it. It shows that everytime the farmers covered some distance and made a little progress, they were knocked down again.
The turtle represents different groups of people throughout American history, while the truck represents the struggles. Such as African Americans being enslaved, they fought on and eventually gained their freedom. When America fought the British in the Revolutionary war, we faced a struggle but defeated them and moved on. Now, its the farmers and other people facing struggles and hard times during the Dust Bowl, but then continue to fight and work hard to get through it.
Alright-having to be the last person to comment on here makes it very hard to come up with something that hasn't already been said.Having said that:
I think that the turtle represents the hard work and the plants and farmers that had been ruined by the Dust Bowl. The farmers worked so hard to get crops out of the already depleated soil and they pushed the soil too hard. I think that them moving caused a stir in the Western peoples lifes which made some want to help the moving families (hence avoiding the turtle) and some want to keep the families out (hitting the turtle). The turtle keeped on trying and wanted to get back to normal, which was the farmers and their family trying to set their life up again.
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