"If he needs a million acres to make him feel rich, seems to me he needs it 'cause he feels awful poor inside hisself, and if he's poor hisself, there aint no million acres gonna make him fee rich, an' maybe he's dissapointed that nothin' he can do'll make him feel rich..." This was a quote said by Jim Casey. The old man that the Joads met was talking about how he heard of a man who owned a million acres in California. Casey was saying that if a man had to own a million acres to be happy, it was really because he was actually a sad man and thought that having all that land would make him happy. Casey explains that its not about how much land you own that will make you happy. This is relevant to the book because he wants the Joads to know that they can be happy without so much land or being very wealthy and in fact, that they were already pretty happy.
Another main idea to this chapter was the figurative transition of the word "Okies". The Joads arrive to California and they come to realize that people from California call people from Oklahoma "Okies". The Joads realized the word became a stigma in California and because of this, they weren't very welcome.
Wisdom is knowledge generally based off experience. Knowledge is information that you get not necessarily based off of experience. We can get knowledge anywhere like from a book or school (etc.) but we get wisdom from experiences and events we've learned from. You could find wisdom in your grandparents. They are older and have lived though many things and events that they have learned from. I see wisdom in my grandparents because they are smart and came from a very different era than myself. They learned how to live off so little and still be happy and a lot of their knowledge comes from experience which makes them very wise.
I really like that quote from Jim Casey, again the Joads meet a man and his son who are on their way back from California who could not find work in California. I am interested to see what the Joads find in California, if they are able to find a place to settle down at and find a job. Do you think they will be able to? I also find it interesting that the Joads and Wilson's have never heard anyone use the word "Okies" before while they were traveling. So far I have enjoyed reading this book(:
ReplyDeleteI think your explanation of wisdom is really clear and makes sense. I found it really hard to compare with knowledge because I think they are so closely intertwined. The "Okies" slang was something I didn't really pay much attention too but I definitely see how its important. It was such a shock that something they used to be proud to be called is such a nasty thing in the land they are about to call home.
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