It seems to be a reoccurring thing in this book so far that animals wander to the highway and either get killed or an attempt is made to kill them. It was first done with the turtle who tried to cross the highway in an earlier chapter of the book. The driver deliberately tried to run over the turtle as it was trying to cross the road. In Chapter 13 the Joad family dog wanders into the highway as the family is stopped at a gas station. It goes into the road, route 66, and there gets run over quite grotesquely. “The big car slowed for a moment and faces looked back, and then it gathered greater speed and disappeared. And the dog, a blot of blood and tangled, burst intestines, kicked slowly in the road”(166). The scene where the dog dies is very distinct because it is the start of deaths in the family as Grampa, the dog, and soon to follow, Granma. What is more prominent to me is the fact that the drivers of these cars don't care about what they hit on this trip. The drives of that car didn't even stop after they hit the dog. What drives these people is to find a new life and nothing stands in their way. Later on the is a scene where a cat in the road almost gets run over only this time it is deliberate. The driver sees the cat and swerves to hit it. The cat makes it out of the way, but it still makes me wonder. What is driving these people. Two animals have had an attempt to kill them on purpose. The people traveling to a new life have forgotten all else and gone on. For the kids who saw the death for the first time it is a shock. “...he rolled over quickly and vomited down the side of the truck. When he sat up his eyes were watery and his nose was running. 'It ain't like killin' pigs', he said in explanation”(168). The kids have to get used to this new way of life and this just shows a part of whats to come.
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