Chapter 46 is another one of Steinbeck's periodic inserts, and division from the central plots, that mark the story's presence in time, place, and--extrapolation of both--American history. He opens, as he often does, with a reference to the land and local agriculture, and points out that the superstitious farmers--such a superstitious nature typical of agricultural communities throughout human history--blame the war on the year's irregular rain. After all, two extreme irregularities must be connected, else they wouldn't occur simultaneously!
There are three items in this chapter that are likely important to, or at least indicative of, our overall story: the cruel treatment of the local German-American (a cruelty and hypocrisy typical of any inter-cultural conflict--can you think of any more modern examples?), the shame of the narrator and his sister at their joining in the communal abuse of the man, and the stupidity and tunnel-vision evident in the final sentence: "We thought we invented all of it [, a community's experience by its participation in a war] in Salinas, even the sorrow."
These three points all match one of the overall issues of the book. What is it? How do our main characters exemplify so much of these same hypocrisies, stupidities, and shames? Also, and definitely more importantly, however, do they transcend them?
There are three items in this chapter that are likely important to, or at least indicative of, our overall story: the cruel treatment of the local German-American (a cruelty and hypocrisy typical of any inter-cultural conflict--can you think of any more modern examples?), the shame of the narrator and his sister at their joining in the communal abuse of the man, and the stupidity and tunnel-vision evident in the final sentence: "We thought we invented all of it [, a community's experience by its participation in a war] in Salinas, even the sorrow."
These three points all match one of the overall issues of the book. What is it? How do our main characters exemplify so much of these same hypocrisies, stupidities, and shames? Also, and definitely more importantly, however, do they transcend them?
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