The Grapes of Wrath: Turtles and Migrants
             "Where the hell you s'pose he's goin'?" said Joad. "I seen turtles all my life. They're always goin' someplace. They always seem to want to get there." (Steinbeck 49). "The tenant man looked up alarmed. But what'll happen to us? How'll we eat? You'll have to get off the land. The plows'll go through the dooryard." (Steinbeck 39). These two quotes are from The Grapes of Wrath, a novel by John Steinbeck. One of the chapters of The Grapes of Wrath depicts turtle crossing a highway. The turtle symbolizes the story of the migrants because the turtle has hope of reaching the other side of the road, like the migrants have hope to reach California safely. The turtle is crossing the road to get to something better, just like the migrants are moving to California because they have nothing left where they currently live; and similarly, when the turtle got hit by the truck, he kept moving on, like the migrants kept on moving, even if they had to go through certain obstacles to continue on their journey.
             The migrants have to have hope that they will reach California; otherwise they would not be so adamant about getting there in the first place. They were kicked off their land, and have no where else to go. They need money to clothe and feed themselves, and California offers jobs. The jobs are pretty bad, and pay horribly, but it's the best they can do. "Maybe we can start again, in the new rich land-in California, where the fruit grows. We'll start over." (Steinbeck 88). The migrant farmers and their families gave up so much to try to start a better life. They gave up their homes, their belongings, and their past on a plot of land that they worked with their own hands, just because someone from a big company told them to. And they dealt with it with dignity. Most of them, although angry, packed up th...