The Bear Incident From Charley's Point of View

Howdy mates! My name’s Charley, the beloved dog of John Steinbeck. I’ll tell you about this really weird thing that happened to me last summer.
Me n’ John were jus’ havin’ fun, visiting Yellowstone Park n’ all. I could see that John wasn;t really interested, but I was pretty lookin’ forward to it. We got to the door and the gatekeeper came up to us ad said to John that he’d better be careful and keep me on my leash cause of the bears in the park. I tried to act all innocent, like, cause I hate beaing on a leash. It stings my neck, especially when I’m sweating. The gatekeeper was all like yeah, warned you mate. So me n my ol’ pal walked around the park, chattin’ about the trees and stuff.
All of a sudden, this humungous monster came up in front of me. Oh, what a DISGUSTING creature it was! There was spit dripping from his half open mouth and there was a smell of poop coming from his arse. Holy crap, I thought. Finally all of that growling and biting at pillows had come in handy. I growled as mean as I could, baring my teeth like a dog should, but the bastard wouldn’t back off. Suddenly, when the bear was staring at me with his dull, stupid eyes, I saw something. These weird images came to my mind, like flashbacks, except I never remembered any of that stuff happening. This one thing, that creeped me out like mad, was this bitch which looked exactly like me. She was happily yappin’ and all, also in Yellowstone Park except the trees weren’t so tall. But then this humungous monster jumped up. In fact, it jumped, then crashed down in front of the dog. I could faintly hear the snap of her bones. The next thing was just horrendous. As if the bone breaking wasn’t enough, the monster opened his mouth at the little innocent thing, inching closer, and in one go, bit off the poor thing’s head. That image really got to me, seeing the headless dog collapsing on the freshly mown grass. All of that stuff made me mad as hell, cause the bear just killed this innocent little dog. So I became all angry n; all, but the thing just didn’t stir at all. What a dumbass. I tried to snap at it, but John held me back. If he hadn’t, the thing would’ve turned into mashed meat. Seriously. But John pulled me back n’ locked me up. All that adrenaline was amazing, and my heart was pounding like crazy. I did everything I could to get to it, but I couldn’t. Me n’ John exited the park, n’ old John looked scared as hell for me. I calmed down when he gave me some water, but I could never get that horrendous sight out of my mind. -arghhhhhhhhhh

Reader's Response to The Photo Essay

"The Photo Essay" is a very interesting 'essay' which clearly depicts life for migrant workers who moved from the dust bowl to California. The pictures show run -down caravans, collapsing tents, and mud everywhere. I could see the poverty in the pictures, but the words still showed optimism and a positive attitude, for example the last picture which explained how the people still cared about love and family, and they were looking towards the future rather than dwelling on the muddy present. The sixth picture was also a little cheerful, because the kids were smiling even though they lived in a tent. This shows that wherever you are, you should always feel hopeful. The second and third picture depict how much the farmers care about their family, and how much of a closely knit family they were. The photos add a clearer image to our minds of what the situation as actually like, and it also shows up some signs of cheerfulness, despite the poverty and floods.

Reeader's Response to The Flood

"The Flood" is also a chapter from John Steinbeck's noel The Grapes of Wrath. It is also a highly descriptive chapter which talks about a flood which totally wipes out all of the migrant workers in the sense that they have no job so no food, which leads to sickness. Steinbeck uses a lot of word choice; specifically verbs, such as 'the land whispered with muddy waters'. This is also an example of personification, which shows how nature has control over everything. Other verbs he sued include piled in, sucked, beat, whirled, crept, whipped, and thundered. These verbs clearly show the atmosphere of the chapter, which is solemn and depressing. Steinbeck's dialogue is also unique, because he doesn't use quotations and it has a very strong dialect, for example "They ain't gonna be no kinda work for three months". The tone and mood of this chapter is very solemn, and Steinbeck uses dark adjectives to describe it, such as "frantic men", "wet hay and leaking barns" and " Their faces were gray with terror".
No work till spring. No work.

Reeader's Response to The Turtle

"The Turtle" by John Steinbeck is a very symbolic chapter from his novel The Grapes of Wrath. The chapter was extremely descriptive, but i thought that the description got a little tedious. Steinbeck described every level of the turtle's journey and all of the obstacles that stood in its way, including the steep embankment and the ruck which tried to kill it. The head of wild oats symbolized a problem which stick with us forever, that we can't get rid of. Steinbeck also described the turtle as having old, humorous eyes. The whole chapter shows the problems a family has to face when moving from the dust bowl to California. This is clearly a scenic mode, because Steinbeck focused solely on the turtle's movement. Basically, the whole chapter's meaning is: "Life is tough but you should always have your held high high and a smile on your face".

Betrayal

Betrayal is a very intriguing topic, but it also a very dangerous thing to come across. I find betrayal disgusting, because it is like making a promise, but breaking it. Under most circumstances I would ignore the person who betrayed me, because I feel that getting revenge wouldn't bring me any satisfaction and it would just bring pain for other people. however, I would feel a strong resentment for that person and i would probably shun them if they betrayed me. I would also warn other people of that person's danger and try to steer them away, just in case they could be betrayed too. I would probably not forgive to be honest, unless the situation wasn't really important to me. I have forgiven many people for making me mad, because somehow I feel that the ice-coldness between two people is usually worse than heated arguments (not that I've participated in any ;). Forgiving depends largely on the situation, because if it didn't really affect me and my reputation so much, I wouldn't really care. However, if the secret or oath was really important to me, then i would just kind of shun that person, however not in the 'evil' sense. When i say shun, i don't really mean knocking shoulders with them, I would probably still chat with them occasionally, but i wouldn't enjoy their presence.