Name______Date______
Activator
Lange’s “Migrant Mother”
The image—of a worn, weather-beaten woman, a look of desperation on her face, two children leaning on her shoulders, an infant in her lap—has become a photographic icon of the Great Depression in America. The photo was taken in March 1936 at a camp for seasonal agricultural workers 175 miles north of Los Angeles by Dorothea Lange.The woman was the mother of -seven children and on the brink of starvation. Lange remarked,
I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet…I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was 32. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean-to tent with her children huddled around her…
1. What emotions are immediately evoked by this image?
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2. What kind of “history” do you see in the face of the mother?
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3. Why do you think this image has become so iconic for the Depression era?
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4. “Man can live about 40 days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope.” How is this quote related to the photo?
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Book of Revelation, Chapter14:
The Book of Revelation is the last book in the Bible. It reveals (depending on one’s interpretation) the future or the past in either a literal or symbolic manifestation. Regardless, John Steinbeck used this particular passage as the source for the title of his book:
14I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one "like a son of man"with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand.15Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, "Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe."16So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.
17Another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle.18Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, "Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth's vine, because its grapes are ripe."19The angel swung his sickle on theearth,gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God's wrath.20They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses' bridles for a distance of300 kilometers.
1. Paraphrase the literal events of this passage:
2. What issymbolized bythe “harvest of the earth”, also called the “grapes”?
3. What is it about grapes, in particular, that make them good symbols for this?
4. What is the Angel doing to this harvest? Why?
5. Why, then, do you think, has Steinbeck chosen this image for the title?
6. What could this image possibly foreshadow in the book?
Woody Guthrie
“Woody is just Woody. Thousands of people do not know he had any other name. He is just a voice and a guitar. He sings the songs of a people and I suspect that he is, in a way, that people. Harsh voiced and nasal, his guitar hanging like a tire iron on a rusty rim, there is nothing sweet about Woody, and there is nothing sweet about the songs he sings. But there is something more important for those who will listen. There is the will of a people to endure and fight against oppression. I think we call this the American spirit.” --John Steinbeck
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie(July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) is an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the sloganThis Machine Kills Fascistsdisplayed on his guitar. His best-known song is "This Land Is Your Land", which is regularly sung in American schools. Guthrie traveled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California and learned traditional folk and blues songs. Many of his songs are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, earning him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Troubadour". Throughout his life Guthrie was associated with United States communist groups, though he was never an actual member of any.
In his recordings in the early 1940s Woody Guthrie included the following “Copyright Warning:” “This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.”
“This Land is Your Land”
[Chorus]
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulfstream waters
This land was made for you and me
As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me
Chorus
I've roamed and rambled and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me
Chorus
The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me
Chorus
As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tress passin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!
Chorus
In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.
Answer the following questions in complete sentences
Is this song optimistic or pessimistic? Why?
What is Guthrie “saying” in this song?
Who is his intended audience? Why?
What is the tone of the song? Why?
Identify and explain a use of irony in this song.
What is the meaning of the last stanza?
Heinz’ Dilemma: What do you think?Name______
A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife.
Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?
Next, in your group, discuss your answer(s) as well as the reasons supporting your answer. Yourgroup must come up with oneanswer (&reasonsto support your answer) which you will present to the class. Below, summarize what your group decided and why.
[someanswers]
Stage one (obedience): Heinz should not steal the medicine because he would consequently be put in prison, which would mean he is a bad person. Or: Heinz should steal the medicine because it is only worth $200, not how much the druggist wanted for it. Heinz had even offered to pay for it and was not stealing anything else.
Stage two (self-interest): Heinz should steal the medicine because he will be much happier if he saves his wife, even if he will have to serve a prison sentence. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine because prison is an awful place, and he would probably languish over a jail cell more than his wife's death.
Stage three (conformity): Heinz should steal the medicine because his wife expects it; he wants to be a good husband. Or: Heinz should not steal the drug because stealing is bad and he is not a criminal; he tried to do everything he could without breaking the law, you cannot blame him.
Stage four (law-and-order): Heinz should not steal the medicine because the law prohibits stealing, making it illegal. Or: Heinz should steal the drug for his wife but also take the prescribed punishment for the crime as well as paying the druggist what he is owed. Criminals cannot just run around without regard for the law; actions have consequences.
Stage five (human rights): Heinz should steal the medicine because everyone has a right to choose life, regardless of the law. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine because the scientist has a right to fair compensation. Even if his wife is sick, it does not make his actions right.
Stage six (universal human ethics): Heinz should steal the medicine, because saving a human life is a more fundamental value than the property rights of another person. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine, because others may need the medicine just as badly, and their lives are equally significant.