2. Highway 66 was important because it was considered to be the migrant road winding through Chicago, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. The people abandoned their homes and used this road to travel to a new, strange place, and hopefully a better lifestyle. The number 66 is associated with many different things. It represents the age of Ezekias, the priest of Jews, leaving with the master of Syria, Ptolemy and others leaving Egypt. It also means an offer to a means of growing rick quickly in North African.
3. The business people are selling food, gas, rooms, and car parts. Their philosophy is that they can sell the product for whatever price they feel like because the business owner needs to think of himself or herself. The travelers know they cannot afford the service but have no choice to buy it because they desperately need it. They discover that the car parts they bought for an exorbitant amount will just break in a mile or two. One traveler describes service as the businessman is lying and cheating but calls it something else. If the traveler takes the object then it is called stealing, but the business owner steals the people’s money and calls it business. When the businessman says he ain’t in it for his health, he means to imply that he is helping the folks going west, but what he really means is that he is just doing to line his pockets better than he ever had before.
4. The people are fleeing from their land to the promise land. Unfortunately, along the way either good or bad things happen to them. Each person and family has a different story and encounter different types of people. Some of them help the farmers and their families while others are just looking out for themselves.
5. Casy and Tom keep trying to explain to the gas station man that people are leaving because they are looking for a better life. The man keeps asking the same question over and over making it sound like a song and not really wanting to listen to their explanations. It is too close to home for him because his gas station is barely making it due to the big fancy stations in towns and all the wealthy people aren’t stopping there anymore.
6. The enemy that is worse than the devil is now the bank/companies.
7. The grandpa died because he was separated from the land and didn’t want to leave in the end. The land was part of him, and he couldn’t live without it. The dog died by because he was hit by a rich, fancy car, which symbolized the people being forced off their land and the car was the bank and all the rich corporations.
8. The western states are nervous because of all the farmers pouring into the state looking for work. The immediate enemy of them is the farmers/migrant workers because they will work for not as much money. They are worried that their land will be taken when they originally took it from the Mexicans.
9. The Jeffersonian values represented the attachment to the land, farming, individualism and freedom, which was no longer able to survive in the 20th century economy. Large corporations or the “I’s” had financial advantage over the small farm owners. The “I” and “we” demonstrated the strength of the family and communities of the migrant workers coming together to work as a group instead of going at it alone and becoming the “we’s”. The migrants needed to join together to help each other through this new economic crisis. This was the ending of free enterprise and the beginning of big businesses.
10. The posters convinced people to buy Coca-Cola by telling them, male or female, they get those results. It suggested that the American dream is of pleasure, becoming rich, and freedom. It, like the handbills, don’t offer concrete evidence and are there to help the people/corporation make money either making job wages lower or sapping the poor people’s money.
11. The wealthy women’s concerns are of aging and their appearance. They use oils, creams, pills, and ointments to make themselves look younger. They are afraid of the sun, earth, and food in general. The men are worried about their businesses, and how they will be able to survive. They take advantage of common people and have nothing but insults and complaints to make. Mae sums them up when she says they will come in and buy a cheap bottle of pop, use a bunch of napkins, which they will throw on their floor, and whine about how warm the pop is.
The wealthy need the lodges and service clubs so that they have other people to commiserate with that business will be fine, and everything will be peachy.
The cars whizzing by signify the wealthy ignoring the smaller businesses and thinking that they are better than them, and because of this they won’t stop and support these small businesses.
12. Values between the wealthy and the poor collide in this chapter. The wealthy will take everything and give nothing in return where the people that has a little are more willing to give. The poor still have high standards and don’t want to be handed anything without it being fair. The father doesn’t want steal 5 cents worth of bread from the restaurant as he doesn’t want to short the workers. In the end money is not what is important to Al and Mae, it was the satisfaction that they were able to help the family out especially by giving the candy to the young boys. The truck drivers are also compassionate and want to help out so that is why they leave a little extra for Mae. The business principles are still sound for the restaurant. They are not going to broke by helping this family by giving away 2 pieces of candy and a loaf of bread for cheap, but they might help this family survive.
