Author: gracemelin

One quote that really stuck out to me that is found in Chapter 17 was, “In the evening a strange thing happened: the twenty families became one family, the children were the children of all. The loss of home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream.” I thought this quote was very significant in the way that is reveals the reality of when disaster strikes, groups that are affected tend to come together. Individuals become groups and one person’s loss becomes everybody’s loss. The Dust Bowl, following The Great Depression, destroyed the lives of many, the majority of them being farmers. Food was scarce, water was a rare commodity and work was even rarer. Everyone was individuals at the start of the book, but by the end, everyone was one whole, unified in their struggles and inabilities to make a life for themselves because of the economic, and agricultural fails. The government left them for the dust (no pun intended), taking away everything they had. The concept of unity is most prominently seen when the Joads first arrive at the Hoovervilles. These shanty towns are full of people who nowhere else to go. It’s in human nature to want to find community, and this is were they all found each other. Children becoming children of all is shown when mom starts to feed the children who live in this community, she starts to provide not only for her own family, but also for the rest of the community. The people who were affected by this tragic historical event found oneness in a community of others who faced the same struggles as themselves. In other words, people share their happiness and sorrows, which give them relief from a disaster.  

Through the use of soliloquies, Ed Tom Bell is clearly depicted as someone who sees a situation as it is; no padding to the truth, rather just the straight truth. He knew that “you always had to be willin to die to even do this job” (p.4). He knows the risks his job comes with, but he accepts those risks and takes the chance anyway. These soliloquies are used to tell stories of experiences he’s had with criminals. Through his explanations of encounters with different criminals readers can’t help but ask themselves, “how truly unhinged can a human mind become?.”

Most of the time, it seems that Ed Tom Bell either doesn’t know what to do or can’t even begin to figure out the next step in what he should do. He commonly is quoted throughout these soliloquies saying the classic line of, “I don’t know”, showing the internal struggle he has when trying to decide how to approach a situation. Chigurh, for him, is a criminal far beyond human saving; he has no idea how to deal with him. It is starting to become a cycle of Chigurh killing people, and Ed Tom Bell cleaning up his mess, always one step behind him. He constantly is questioning his actions, unsure if he made the correct one or not. The purpose of these soliloquies is to show the constant internal battle that Ed Tom Bell is facing and how this affects his ability to perform his job as a Sheriff and his constant questioning of what humans are truly capable of doing.