...bog56269.app.qxd 7/23/03 1:01 PM Page A-1 APPENDIX Writing a Film Analysis Films are made to be seen and heard, to appeal to our visual and aural senses. Like any art form, however, films are also meant to be felt and understood, to appeal to our emotions and minds. One of the best ways to determine whether a film has succeeded in any or all of these goals is to analyze the elements that make up the whole work. To write an analysis of a film, you must study the film carefully. Your critical analysis should be derived from your personal encounter with the film, not from published criticism. Access to a videocassette recorder or DVD player is essential if you are going to perform a critical analysis of any depth. It is not enough to like or dislike the movie; you must determine why it succeeds or fails in reaching out and encompassing the viewer. The first step is to view the film in its entirety. From this viewing you can get an initial reaction to the many parts of the film that you will have to explore in more depth. When you first view the film, it is best not to try to take notes or separate the parts of the film; you should be familiar with the textbook in order to know what to look for. After you have formulated a thesis and have begun the process of supporting that thesis, you should view the film at least once more in its entirety and two or three times in segments in order to review scenes of major importance. The thesis statement is the element around which to...
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...characters of Tom Joad, Ma Joad and Jim Casey provide different characteristics to expand the plot; Tom provides a sense of practicality to the story, Ma is strong, and Jim Casey shows leadership qualities. These characteristics foreshadow the character’s destiny in the story. In John Steinbeck’s proletarian novel, The Grapes of Wrath, his early descriptions of and dialogue for Tom, Ma and Jim Casey establish their personalities and futures. The main character Tom Joad is best described as practical. When Tom was in prison he learned the valuable lesson of taking one day at a time. Ma Joad explains it best when she says "You can't go thinkin' when you're gonna be out. You'd go nuts. You got to think about that day, an' then the nex' day, about the ball game Sat'dy….Jus' take ever'day." (91). An example of Tom being practical was just before the Joads and Jim Casey left for California and they were trying to figure out a way to get Granpa to go. Tom...
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...From the moment the assignment was handed out, I knew what I wanted my topic to be. After having multiple discussions centered around gender roles and taking adequate notes on gender role, I felt that it only made sense to write my essay on the topic I had already done so much research on. However, my stance on gender roles had shifted. At first, I believed that there was no “superior gender” in the book and that both sexes demonstrated adaptability. But, after I briefly mentioned this position to my well-read teacher and was told that this stance would be difficult to support within the word limit, I decided to change my approach; the women of the Joad family demonstrated they were the strongest sex by providing stability to their family. At first, I knew that Ma was going to be a focal point of my essay because I learned a lot through the discussions, however to meet the requirement of a pattern I needed a second example. I learned through briefly skimming over the book that Rose of Sharon was just what I was looking for. Austin Rodriguez, my friend and colleague, reviewed my essay. His revisions were mostly grammar related...
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...The Grapes of Wrath follows Tom Joad and his family as they journey their way to California, and the hardships they endure. The book opens up when Tom gets paroled from the state penitentiary and hitchhiker home. Along the way he encounters Jim Casey. Jim Casey preached to Tom and his family when Tom was a child. Casey tells Tom that he is no longer a preacher, having lost his calling. He says he still believes in the lord, but not necessarily the spirituality. Casey believes the holy spirit is love. Not just the love of God, but the love of all people. Tom invites Casey to join him on his walk home. When they get to where Tom once lived, they find the farm abandoned. While figuring out what to do next, Muley Graves a neighbor of the Joads....
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...after his family moved there in 1911.Floyd was in and out of prison for most of his life and even though Floyd pledged never to steal again when was 18, he could not resist and went on to become notorious for robbing banks throughout the Midwest. Floyd was often protected by the locals and was similar to “Robin Hood.” He was finally found and killed by FBI agents in 1934. Through the story of Purty Boy Floyd, John Steinbeck uses his novel The Grapes of Wrath to illustrate that the prison system hurts the individuals instead of rehabilitating them. The story of Floyd is connected to the allegory of the prison system in a variety of ways throughout chapter 8. Ma Joad begins speaking of the prison system by asking Tom if prison made him “mad” like Floyd. She asks him, “You ain’t poisoned mad? You don’t hate nobody? They didn’t do nothin in that jail to rot you out with crazy mad?”(98) This is indicating how her fear of prison changes a man and Ma Joad also tells Tom that she knew Floyd's mother and according to her, prison made Floyd worse than he was before. Ma loved Tom and feared that his prison stay may have changed him into someone she didn't know at all. Ma Joad’s speech to Tom clearly had a great deal of pity and some admiration for Floyd. She says he was treated like an animal, “They shot at him like a varmint, an’ he shot back, an’ they run him like a coyote, an’ his a-snappin’ and a-snarlin’, mean as lobo” (98). Many Oklahomans would agree with Ma joad that through...
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...His use of lighting, or really lack thereof, shows the seemingly defeated attitude the people had during their difficult relocation. Once the Joads reach the government-run camp, however, you notice, along with the lift in spirits, brighter tones and lighter scenes are shot. While being such a brilliant piece of cinematography, the historical accuracy of the film has been called into question by many. For example, eastern Oklahoma was not majorly affected by the Dust Bowl as is assumed in the film. Also, land was not being taken by the banks as was portrayed. The land owners decided to take advantage of the technological farming advances and purchased tractors and other pieces of equipment. This eliminated the reliance on the tenant farmers and sharecroppers (The Dust Bowl). Another criticism to be found is the physical state of the migrants regarding their lack of food. Being in a...
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...Ma Joad emerges as the "mainstay" of the Joad family throughout John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Throughout the journey, Ma's motherly instincts and kind nature allow her to provide the best environment for her family. Ma insists on keeping the family together mentally and physically despite all aspects of life appearing grim. She will do anything for her family’s success, as well as other’s, as she becomes the authoritative figure within the family. To begin, she wishes to keep her family together mentally and physically. To do so, she had to think and act positively, so her family would also possess hope, even in their circumstances. For instance, before the family left their home in Oklahoma, Tom discusses how a man who lived in California said that “...too many folks lookin’ for work right there now...live in dirty ol’ camps an’ don’t hardly get...
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...through the utilization of various language techniques to illuminate respondents of the numerous socio-economic hardships the Okies were subjugated to in the late 1930s. Powerlessness comes about when an external force renders one into a state of mind where they feel that have limited control over their wellbeing, personal lives and the culture wherein they live. Steinbeck highlights the Joads powerlessness in “We tried to camp together, an` they drove us, like pigs. Scattered us. Beat the hell outta fellas. Druv us like pigs”. Through the use of simile of “pigs”, it highlights the inhumane mistreatment by the Banks, which have driven them out of their homes. This is further highlighted in the rhetorical question “The kids are hungry all the time. What do you want us to do?” Steinbeck conveys the difficult predicament the tenant farmers are put in by the landowners, who have subordinated the poor tenant farmers for more money. Thus, the farmers are placed in a vulnerable position provoking them to move to out of their houses. Furthermore, another force responsible for the Joads powerlessness is the weather, explicitly the sun. This is symbolised in “Their faces were shining with sunburn they could not escape”. Steinbeck describes the sun as a ubiquitous and inescapable force in the...
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...belief in god to everyone and was proud to be a follower. • Loyal – he goes to prison for getting in a fight that Tom began. • Truthful – he stopped preaching because he didn’t believe in what teaching. Tom Joad – Tom was the main character in the book and was involved in conflict throughout the book, also was the favorite child out of his brothers and sisters. • Role model – became the family prize as he walked around not caring for what he did in the past. He’s a guide to what the family should become. His family members look up to him to keep the family name alive. • Concentrated – Tom believes that what he can achieve, his family can achieve. He is hardworking to get the respect he needs from...
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...In the novel ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ written by John Steinbeck the Joad family comes across many trials and tribulations and Ma Joad manifests herself as the strongest, controlled, generous, and altruistic person in the novel. Ma Joad is the mother of Noah Joad, Sharon of Rose, Tom Joad, Al Joad, Ruthie Joad, and Winfield Joad and wife to Old Tom Joad. Tom notices Ma Joad’s eyes show experiences of everything and those experiences made her become strong. Ma shows impeccable strength throughout the novel in many different situations. She keeps her family together throughout the excursion from Oklahoma west to California. The environment in ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ affects Ma Joad by it making her pull her family together and become the leader....
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...of the Joads who during the Great Depression in the 1930s were run off their farm in Oklahoma. The film details their journey to California in search of work and a new beginning for their family. This paper will relate the main character Tom Joad to the philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and his theory of the state of nature and government as an artificial creation, and Jim Casy to Jean Jacques Rousseau’s theory of government and society as inhibitors of our natural freedoms. The Grapes of Wrath Tom Joad, played by Henry Fonda in the 1940 drama film Grapes of Wrath, is the main character who opens the movie returning to his home in Oklahoma after serving four years in prison for manslaughter. On the way he runs into Jim Casy, the former preacher who warns Tom that most sharecroppers have been evicted due to the effects of the depression. Once finding his family’s farm deserted, he finds them at his uncle’s farm preparing to also leave the next day for California in hopes of finding work and a brighter future. As they begin their treacherous journey across Route 66, the Joads and Casy endure many hardships. Grandpa, who didn’t want to leave his land, dies and is buried alongside the road. Then they run into a man who informs them that there is no work in California, but with not feeling they had any other options, they carry on with hope that they would still find something. As the Joads get to California, Grandma dies, and they find no jobs and many starving families with the...
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...hopelessness for the farmers and their families. This storm is drying everything out, there will be nothing left, what will they do? At first I wondered who the main characters in this noel would be, but after reading the first chapter I could not find any. I believe that the first chapter is written to symbolize the thousands of people that had to struggle through this storm; the author did not want to narrow the story down to one family or one person right away. The author wanted to show the reader the many people whose fate was also changed. Chapters 2-3 These two chapters introduce the ideas of the working class and the corporations that are beginning to take over. Chapter two introduces us to the main character, Joad. When Joad meets the...
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...Wrath The movie Grapes of Wrath is a film about a family that is affected in a very bad way by the Great Depression. The family is forced to leave their Oklahoma farm because they were stuck right in the middle of the Dust Bowl, The Dust Bowl was a drought that made it almost impossible for farmers to harvest there crop making every sharecropper set off for work, which was very hard to get. Tom Joad who was an ex- convict came home to a house that was being evicted do to the money shortage the Dust Bowl caused the family. It wasn’t long after Tom along with his family started to head west to look for work. The Joad family firmly believed that if they reached California they would find stable jobs and a home to live in, but what they didn’t know hundred of thousand of family’s were headed the same direction also looking for jobs to satisfy their needs. It wasn’t long after they set off for California Grandpa Joad dies which signals the start to the difficult passage they will have to endure to the west. After pulling over and burying him in the ground the Joad family parked their car at a camp where they meet a man that recently came back from California. The man thinks that Pa’s good thoughts about finding a better way of life are far from believable, the man tells the Joads about his failed trip to the west and how there was work. These remarks by the man would not stop the family from continuing their journey. The family continues to the border of Arizona where they are...
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...in several parts of the United States. The Grapes of Wrath is about an Oklahoma Dust Bowl family, the Joads, who suffer various hardships while migrating to California. The Dust Bowl was a period of time in the 1930s where harsh droughts led to severe dust storms which ruined million acres of prairie land in America. This story tells us the plight of all those migrants during the Great Depression through the perspective of the Joad family. In The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck uses intercalary chapters to provide background for the various themes of the novel, as well as to set the tone. Steinbeck’s previous book had bought him much success and Steinbeck did not want his success to weaken his commitment to the intellectual goals of his writing. So later, he embarked upon a trip from Oklahoma to California with a group of migrant workers. He worked and lived alongside them in a work camp in California. His experience was the inspiration for this novel. The story begins just after Tom Joad is released on parole from McAlester prison for homicide. On his journey to his home in Oklahoma, he meets former preacher Jim Casy whom he remembers from his childhood and the two travel together. He finds out his family has been evacuated from their land and are leaving for California. Tom and Casy join them. Going west on Route 66, the Joad family discovers that the road is saturated with other families making the same journey, fascinated by the same promise. In makeshift camps, they hear many...
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...they are not alone (pg. 24). All tenant farmers are losing their land. The uprising may consist of actions that make people seem bitter, but they are upset because they are starving. I think the suggestion is to come together nonviolently, and to realize that they need to show "the great owners" the results of their causes (pg.151). 9.(Understanding) Identify Ma and Pa Joad and describe each of their roles. Ma Joad is the mother of Tom, Rose of Sharon, Al, Ruthie, Winfield, and Noah Joad. Her role shifts and she becomes the center of the family as Pa Joad loses efficacy as the head of the family. Ma becomes the matriarch of the family. Pa Joad is...
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