just as a reference point in the text, i've now finished up to the end of chapter 20, which is when the joads are being sent south - minus the grandparents, noah and connie. the main narrative seems to be that tom is running up against a hierarchical society that demands a level of submission that he finds difficult to accept, while the rest of the family is falling into a hopeless despair.
i should be taking notes for the essay. the theme about the lower classes in society feeling resentful over legitimately disrespectful treatment by the higher classes is something i want to pay closer attention to, as it could be an essay topic. i suspect that i could explore this theme historically, and then draw larger conclusions afterwards. it would give me an excuse to read up on some history texts, anyways, and an excuse to make the essay more speculative. i'm getting more freedom because i'm in the enriched class, and want to take advantage of it; i like freeform essay writing, but can't stand any attempt to force me to write an essay in a specific way. they want to treat an essay like it's a fill-in-the-blanks children's book, rather than the advancement of a thought.
listen: if you want me to give you my thoughts on a topic, just let me scrawl them out. i'll do your introductions and conclusions for you, i think that's a reasonable request, but let me go to town in the middle. don't try to structure my thoughts for me. no thank you.
so, i want to pick an exotic topic that allows me to write freely around the enforced restraints. i'll enjoy the process a lot more that way.
as the text has carried forwards, i find that the two narratives i spoke of have become less distinct in terms of analysis and historicity, with the narration getting more plot-driven and the dialogue getting more philosophical. i'm still finding that it's plot-heavy, but it's balancing out substantially.
another theme i could potentially explore would be the displacement caused by automation, whether it is worth it and what can be done to ease the hardship. the novel tends to prioritize a return to agrarianism, and seems to advance the idea that the fix to the problem is an agrarian collectivization. but it seems to me that the benefits of mechanization are very great and that the goal strived towards ought to be to find ways that everybody can benefit from it. i would resist the idea that the poverty is being caused by technology, and instead point towards an unfair distribution of the benefits of that technology. eventually, in the depression, the owners of the technology realized that they had to share, or they'd be overwhelmed. i guess the lesson we should learn for the next time is that when you have a shift in technology that leads to unemployment, a part of the profits of that superior technology must go towards the displaced workers - or they may become desperate and revolt. this sounds like another topic with a history that can be explored.
the character of the reverend struck me as important from the start, but as the novel carried on i started to wonder if it was just an expected part of a midwestern story. can't have a story about rednecks without a reverend, johnny? is that it? i think there's the start of some symbolism being built around the reverend, but he's either keeping the development for later or it isn't coming at all. there's several points in the text where steinbeck seems to be scolding himself for not using the character more, which indicates that the plans were there (they are....) but not necessarily that they're going to get carried out. i kind of suspected that the reverend was going to do something awful, and that would be a reflection of all of the faith leaving the society. knocking out the cop was a different twist, one that suggested some hope that the faith could be regained. but, i had higher hopes for the reverend. that's not what steinbeck was initially getting at. he could have represented something more abstract around the death of christianity - both in the migrant population and outside of it. maybe he still will, but i just get the intention that steinbeck is broadcasting that he's censoring himself, perhaps because he doesn't have the confidence to really write it down. he doesn't think that he can animate this character the way he wants, so he's avoiding it; still wants to do it, but later. i bet he bails on it, rather than finish it.
speaking of which, you can also tell that he dropped characters because he was bored with them. not connie; connie disappearing was a conscious plot development. but, the other dropped characters were just left at the side of the road. they could have been developed further; but, he didn't want to, so they were just dropped.
i have a better handle on what the text is now, and what it's trying to get across. i still wish it was heavier on analysis, but it has picked up in the middle and i don't expect that the end will pick up much more. i suppose that's another possible essay topic.
