Grapes Guide.pdf - Minnesota Opera

(4) Ma breaks into the conversation with her “No One is Goin’” order. What is her point about the importance of
keeping the family together? Who is she referring to when she says, “My strength is in my people”? (NOTE: Here
she means her family, and this will change, as the opera progresses, to mean all people.)
(5) What does Uncle John want from Ma? Why?
(6) How does Connie feel about the current situation? How does he respond to Rosasharn’s attempt to comfort him?
What might his outburst at the end of p. 69 foreshadow?
(7) What is Rosasharn’s reaction to Connie’s anger? Which images we’ve already explored do her lines bring
together? She says she will name her child Moses if he’s a boy. What do you know about the baby Moses? (NOTE:
In a departure from the original text, Korie here once again makes a change in order to set up a later point. It’s important that
the students know the story of Moses in the bulrushes as it will set up the infant’s fate at the end of the opera.)
(8) In hooverville – the next morning, a contractor arrives with a deputy. Why is he there? What is the
response of the squatters? What does the contractor threaten? What is Tom’s reaction? Which of Ma’s themes is
reprised, now within a different context? When the squatters refuse, what happens through the end of this part
of the scene? (NOTE: In the original, a man named Floyd challenges the contractor. Korie has Al take on this role.)
(9) In tent and truck, the Joad family hurries to leave the Hooverville. What do we find out about Connie?
What does Ma tell Noah to do? Why?
2.6: THE CREEK – NIGHT (The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 18)
(NOTE: Students need to know the story of Noah and the flood before dealing with this scene [and we as educators can usually
assume their range of Biblical knowledge is limited; this writer has even had students who didn’t know who Adam and Eve were].)
(1) Relate Noah’s aria to the story of Noah in the Bible. What did God want Noah to be? What did Noah do? (What
word of Al’s does Noah repeat here? Recall what it means.) Why does Noah say he is going to do what he does?
(2) Read the rest of the scene carefully. How does the flashback work into the plot? What is the significance of Ma’s
lullaby, “Simple Child”? What is the irony of the way Noah dies given his name? What is the irony of what is
happening at the Hooverville while Noah is drowning?
(3) In the novel, Noah leaves the family earlier. The Joads are getting ready to cross the desert and they have stopped
by a river to rest before their long trek. Noah likes the water and says to Tom, “Tom, I ain’t a-gonna leave this
here water. I’m a-gonna walk on down this here river.” When Tom objects, Noah responds, “You know how it
is, Tom. You know how the folks are nice to me. But they don’t really care for me…. I know how I am. I know
they’re sorry. But – Well, I ain’t a-goin…. I was in that there water. An’ I ain’t a-gonna leave her. I’m a-gonna
go now, Tom – down the river.” And Tom watches as Noah walks down the river and out of sight.
Why do you think Korie changed the narrative to have Noah commit suicide? What difference does Noah’s
disappearance in this dramatic way make on the Joad story as a whole? On the theme of family?
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