Read the following excerpt from chapter 21 of john steinbeck's the grapes of
wrath:
and the smell of rot fills the country,
burn coffee for fuel in the ships. burn corn to keep warm, it
makes a hot fire. dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards
along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out.
slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip
down into the earth.
there is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. there is a
sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. there is a failure
here that topples all our success. the fertile earth, the straight
tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. and children dying
of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an
orange. and coroners must fill in the certificates-died of
malnutrition because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.
the people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and
the guards hold them back, they come in rattling cars to get the
dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. and they stand
still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs
being tilled in a ditch and covered with quicklime, watch the
mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the
eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the
hungry there is a growing wrath. in the souls of the people the
grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for
the vintage
analyze how the author uses the rhetorical devices of parallelism and diction to
convey the tone of the text. be sure to include specific details from the texts to
support your answer.