This entire event foreshadows the events which the family later would experience: struggles, loss, and "rebirth". .
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3.What opinions does Casy, the former preacher, have about sin and using "bad words?" .
Casy, having previously been a preacher, had a change in his views about morality. When he was a preacher, he would lay with girls after his sermons, and then worry himself "till [he] couldn't get no sleep." (Steinbeck, 31) However, his views changed when he came to the conclusion that "maybe [that's] just the way folks is [and] there ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue there's just stuff people do." (Steinbeck, 31 - 32) He spent nights runningg these thoughts through his head until he came to this final conclusion when he realized, "Maybe we been whippin" the hell out of ourselves for nothin"" (Steinbeck, 31), that people simply like to hurt themselves. .
4.How do the tractors operate? What role does the bank play? What power do the small farmers have against the banks and the tractors? .
The tractors moved like insects over the roads and fields that were worked by the hands of the farmers. They "puttered while they stood idle; they thundered when they moved, and then settled down to a droning roar" (Steinbeck, 47) and were driven by a "man sitting in the iron seat [He] did not look like a man he was a part of the monster [the bank]" (Steinbeck, 48) The bank informs the men that "a man can hold land if he can just eat and pay taxes" (Steinbeck, 43) However, the bank "isn't like a man" .
(Steinbeck, 45), rather, it is the monster that drives people from their homes, that sends the tractors to plow the land and ready it for cotton farms. The small farmers have no power against the banks or the tractors. If a tractor driver is killed by an angry farmer, the bank would just "hang [them], but before [they"re] hung there"ll be another guy on the tractor, and he"ll bump [houses] down" (Steinbeck, 52) The chain of power grew as each step forward was taken, so powerful, it grew, that simple farmers could do nothing.
