Grapes of Wrath: Chapters 16-19 assignment H

In chapter 17 of The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, there is a pattern of circularity that dominates the lives of the migrants that are being described. This idea presents the routine that the migrants have fallen into unknowingly in theur journey. It is an unspoken cycle of women cooking, children getting wood and men setting up the campsite. The next day it repeats. It also underscores the movement of people coming in and out of the camps. The circulation of new and fresh faces, compared to the weary travel-ridden ones. 

"Thus they changed their social life- changed as in the whole universe only man can change. They were not farm men any more, but migrant men" (196).

• The term "migrant men" shows that they have become nomadic, constantly changing and moving scenery, never settling
• Not only has their geography changed, but so has their social life. The migrant people have accumsted to a system in which they are wary of strangers, but build a tight community of their own
• The mudane cycle of travel has been incorporated into their daily lives, each camp was a short day's journey from the last, showing the camps became fixed
• Because of the fixed camps, it demonstrates that the people have accepted traveling as a permanent form of their lives. 

"And when the sun arose, the camping place was vacant, only a little litter left by the people. And the camping place was ready for a new world in a new light" (200).

• Shows the flow of the population as it swells at some points in the campsite, then diminsihes, then swells again
• The "new world" represents the people that have not yet been disheartened by failure or mishaps along the road and still view the journey west as a new opportunity
• Underscores the cycle of new and old, of the hopeful and cynical
• This circularity helps label constant struggle and never ending voyage to achieve a better finacial security/situation and in the end is never reached