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What are five references to the sun and dust in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath?

The whole of the first chapter is one of Steinbeck's intercalary chapters that describes the great dust storm of 1934. So, naturally, the word "dust" dominates the chapter.  Some of the most important quotes:

  • "In the roads where the teams moved, where the wheels milled the ground and the hooves of the horses beat the ground, the dirt crust broke and the dust formed. Every moving thing lifted the dust into the air: a walking man lifted a thin layer as high as his waist, and a wagon lifted the dust as high as the fence tops, and an automobile boiled a cloud behind it. The dust was long in settling back again."

In this first quote, Steinbeck describes how the drought hit the Plains states and how the dust began to form in the farming countryside.  The imagery here shows the reader just how enveloping that dust could be with just the slightest movement.


  • "A gentle wind followed the rain clouds, driving them on northward, a wind that softly clashed the drying corn. A day went by and the wind increased, steady, unbroken by gusts. The dust from the roads fluffed up and spread out and fell on the weeds beside the fields, and fell into the fields a little way. Now the wind grew strong and hard and it worked at the rain crust in the corn fields. Little by little the sky was darkened by the mixing dust, and the wind felt over the earth, loosened the dust, and carried it away. The wind grew stronger. The rain crust broke and the dust lifted up out of the fields and drove gray plumes into the air like sluggish smoke. The corn threshed the wind and made a dry, rushing sound. The finest dust did not settle back to earth now, but disappeared into the darkening sky."

Steinbeck uses personification here to show how the wind takes up the dust and spreads it across the land.  He also plays with the use of color as he does throughout the chapter, this time describing the darkening sky which will turn red with the dust mixing with the air.


  • "The dawn came, but no day. In the gray sky a red sun appeared, a dim red circle that gave a little light, like dusk; and as that day advanced, the dusk slipped back toward darkness, and the wind cried and whimpered over the fallen corn."

There is more personification here with wind crying and whimpering over the corn just as the reader imagines the people will be mourning their lost crops and the loss of their livelihoods.


  • "When the night came again it was black night, for the stars could not pierce the dust to get down, and the window lights could not even spread beyond their own yards. Now the dust was evenly mixed with the air, an emulsion of dust and air. Houses were shut tight, and cloth wedged around doors and windows, but the dust came in so thinly that it could not be seen in the air, and it settled like pollen on the chairs and tables, on the dishes. The people brushed it from their shoulders. Little lines of dust lay at the door sills."

This is another instance when Steinbeck's repetition of the word "dust" helps the reader feel just how pervasive the dust was in the scene that is described.  And, even though this quote does not mention the sun, it's the lack of the sun and light that is important.  


  • "In the middle of that night the wind passed on and left the land quiet. The dust-filled air muffled sound more completely than fog does. The people, lying in their beds, heard the wind stop. They awakened when the rushing wind was gone. They lay quietly and listened deep into the stillness. Then the roosters crowed, and their voices were muffled, and the people stirred restlessly in their beds and wanted the morning. They knew it would take a long time for the dust to settle out of the air. In the morning the dust hung like fog, and the sun was as red as ripe new blood. All day the dust sifted down from the sky, and the next day it sifted down. An even blanket covered the earth. It settled on the corn, piled up on the tops of the fence posts, piled up on the wires; it settled on roofs, blanketed the weeds and trees. "

Here, again, Steinbeck mentions the red sun, red because of the color of the dust.  This scene is the aftermath of the great dust storm, as people begin to emerge from their houses to survey the damage.  And, as Steinbeck says about the dust, so it is true of the people's lives: "They knew it would take a long time for the dust to settle"

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