The grapes of wrath- hero

The hero of a book is the character who overcomes the conflict of the book. The hero is usually the main character and the protagonist. When I think of a "hero" I think of someone who is brave and strong. The hero of the book 'The Grapes of Wrath" is Tom Joad. Tom is the hero because he overcomes a huge struggle throughout the book. In this book, Tom Joad is a very brave character. He has a lot to overcome when the Dust Bowl storm happens. Tom has no job and no way to provide for his family. When he has no other choice, he decides to move across the country to California in hopes of finding a job so he can take care of his family. This decision would be a very hard one to make because even though it seems like the obvious choice, it is a very dangerous journey to try to make. It is very risky and difficult. Many people died making this journey and it would be very difficult to force your family members to try to make this journey when you know the problems that you could possibly face. If it were me in this situation, I think that I would have had a very hard time trying to make this decision. It would have been very hard knowing all the risks involved. I would try to make the best decision for my family, just like Tom Joad did. I think that Tom Joad was aware that he had no other choice but to make the journey, even though he was aware that even if they did make it to California, there was no guarantee that they would be able to definitely get a job there. I think that a lot of people did not realize that they may face the same challenges in California as they originally faced in their hometown. I think a lot of people nowadays take things like a home and a job for granted. I think that by reading this book and seeing what the hero, Tom Joad had to over come would show a lot of people how fortunate they are.


Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2002. Print.

The grapes of wrath, causes gains and losses

The main conflict in the book, 'The Grapes of Wrath' is the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl is a horrible drought that occurred in the nineteen thirties. It destroyed the crops of many farmers. When the farmers could no longer rely on their crops for their income, they had to do something else in order to feed their family. This was a very desperate time for many farmers in America because most of them had families that they had to provide for and without their crops, they had no way to provide for them anymore. The choice that most farmers had to face was to either move to California to try to find a job, or stay where they were and face starvation. Most people took the obvious choice, to go to California where there were many jobs. The problem here is that since all the farmers were packing up and moving, the remaining jobs in California were quickly being filled and some farmers who were the later ones to get to California had traveled all that way just to find that they no longer had any jobs left for them. Many losses were shown for the characters of this book regarding the conflict. One loss was that many characters had lost their homes. Another was that they had lost their income and therefore had lost their ability to provide for their family. Another loss that many characters faced is the loss of their loved ones. Traveling from their homes to California was a very difficult thing to do, and many people died as a result. Many people lost members of their family and their close friends. The conflict of this book has many losses, but not many gains. One gain that came out of the conflict is that the people who traveled to California gained a lot of strength and endurance. Traveling to California and overcoming so many obstacles helped the characters gain a lot of strength. They became very tough through all of this and they gained a lot of endurance.


Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2002. Print.

The old man and the sea- imagery

The author of 'The Old Man and the Sea', Ernest Hemingway, uses a ton of imagery in this book. Imagery is the use of certain words and details that writers use to make the reader see very clearly what the writer is trying to show. The author uses imagery when he describes the looks of the old man. He describes the old man's skin as wrinkled, which helps us understand how old the old ma is. He also uses the words splotched and scarred to describe the skin of the old man. These words show us that the old man is a hard worker. The author says that the old mans skin is splotched from being out in the sun. This shows us that the old man is out working a lot in the sun out on the sea fishing. By saying the old man's skin is scarred, we are shown that the old man has many scars from getting injured by fish and being cut by fishing lines. It shows us that the old man is not pampered and does not care about his looks. We learn all this just from three words the author uses to describe the old mans skin. The author also uses imagery later on in the book when he describes the condition of the old man's hands after he returns from his fishing battle with the marlin. He says that the old man's hands are cut up so badly that they look like raw meat. This imagery is helpful because it shows us how strong the old man was to endure all that pain of getting his hands cut by the line and it shows us how desperate to catch the marlin and how badly he wanted to catch it because he would go through all that pain in order to bring it home. The authors use of imagery in this book was very helpful in understanding the personality, behavior and struggles that the old man went through in this book.



Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. Print.

The old man and the sea- tone

The book 'The Old Man and the Sea' has a very relaxed tone. The tone of the book kind of goes along with the relaxed tone that the sea has. The sea is calming and relaxing. The old man is also very relaxed in the book. Even when the old man is desperately trying to catch the fish, he remains calm. He never freaks out or seems stressed. If I was put in the same situation that the old man is in in this book, I think I would have been very stressed and frustrated, not relaxed. The tone of the book reflects the personality of the old man a lot. The tone of the book is very simple, like the lifestyle that the old man lives. He lives in a simple small shack near the sea. The inside of the shack, like the outside is very simple. He has a bed, a table and chair, and a small place for a fire where he can cook his food. He lives a very simple life. He wakes up very early in the morning, then he goes to wake up the young boy. They both go down to the old man's shack and drink coffee that the young boy provides. They chat while they drink their morning coffee. The old man and the young boy then carry the old man's supplies down to the old man's boat. After they have prepared everything for the day, they wish each other luck and part on the beach. The old man fishes all day, most of the time with no luck, and then returns home to read about the baseball scores. He eats a very simple meal every night that the young boy brings to him. This sums up pretty much every day that the old man lives. He does not need much in his life, he keeps things very simple, just like the author does with the tone of this book.



Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. Print.

The Old Man and the Sea Irony

I found a lot of irony in 'The Old Man and the Sea'. One thing I found ironic in the book is how fast the old man's luck changes. In the beginning of the book, the old man is not having very good luck at all. He had not caught a single fish in eighty four days and he lost his best friend and apprentice, Manolin, the young boy. He was very lonely out at sea with out Manolin to keep him company. Every one in his small fishing town had started calling the old man "salao" meaning the worst form of unlucky. I feel bad for the old man in the beginning of the book because his luck had been so bad. He had a bad reputation as a fisher and his young apprentice and friend had been taken away from him. His luck changes toward the middle of the book however. On the eighty fourth day of being out at sea, the old man finally catches a fish. That not being enough, this fish was the biggest fish of the old man's career. It was an eighteen foot long marlin fish. Most fishermen had never seen a fish so great in size. The old man had hit the jackpot! It took a few days, but the old man finally got the fish close enough to his small fishing boat to kill it with a harpoon. Just when the old man had thought that his luck had finally turned around, however, his bad luck came back. Some nearby sharks had smelled the marlins blood in the water and began to gather around the body. Since the marlin was too big for the old man's boat, it was still in the water. The sharks attacked the body and ate it until all that remained was the skeleton. This is all an example of irony because the old man had gone from unlucky, to lucky and back to unlucky so quickly in this book that it is ironic.




Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. Print.

The old Man and the Sea- Did i like this book?

I had mixed opinions about the book "The Old Man and the Sea". I think that the book was kind of boring in the beginning, when there really was not a lot going on. I thought that since this book was about fishing that I was going to have no clue what a lot of the words and terms meant. At first it was a bit difficult to understand some of the terminology that was used throughout this book. I was confused in the beginning, but after a while, I began to understand what some of the fishing terms mean and it made sense. The book started out slow, but after I got to the part where the old man caught the marlin, the book became more exciting and I was more interested in the book. At first the book seemed kind of depressing and I felt bad for the old man, who had not caught any fish in eighty four days. I thought that if it were me in that situation, I probably would have given up or tried something new. The old man was very patient with his situation. I also thought the old man was kind of crazy for focusing so much on just one fish and sacrificing and risking so much in order to catch it. But I soon understood why he would do that. He was very desperate for a catch because if he did not catch any thing he would get no money and if he caught the fish, he could get the young boy, his friend and apprentice, to come back to his boat to fish with him. The old man had become so lonely out at sea with out the boy that he began talking to himself. I think this is very sad and I felt very bad for the old man because I myself would not be able to last that long all by myself with no company for so many days. At first I thought this book was boring, but once I got to the middle and towards the end, I enjoyed this book and I found the characters, the old man and the young boy, inspiring.


Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. Print.

The Old Man and the Sea- History

The Old Man and the Sea was written in the year 1951. During this time, baseball was a very popular past time to both play and watch. This is shown in the book, 'The Old Man and the Sea'. In this book, the old man is very interested in baseball. It is what he thinks about a lot when he is all alone in his boat on the sea. It is what he talks about with his apprentice and young friend, Manolin when they are eating dinner together. It is what he reads about when he comes home after a long day on the sea. In the book, the old man's favorite player is The Great DiMaggio. The Great DiMaggio was a very famous and popular baseball player for the Yankees. The old man speaks and thinks a lot about the great Dimaggio in this book. He says that DiMaggio is his favorite player because like the old man, he also enjoys fishing. DiMaggio's father was a fisher and DiMaggio also fished with his father and knew a lot about fishing. Many times in the book, the old man wonders, "Would The Great DiMaggio be proud of me?". This is how you can tell that the old man truly respects and admires DiMaggio. He respects him enough to want him to be proud of him. The old man also wonders if the Great DiMaggio would go to all the trouble of staying out on the sea all night and day with cuts and cramps just to catch a single fish. You can really tell that the old man enjoys baseball because that is the main thing that he and the boy talk about. They talk about the baseball scores and the players and the coaches. They often converse about who the best coaches are or who the best players are. Also, every day when the old man returns home, the thing that he is most excited to do is read the baseball scores. You can tell that baseball was a very popular past time when this book was written by how many times the author wrote about it in the book.



Hemingway, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. Print.