NationStates Jolt Archive

I tried to make the topic brief. Basically, I start a fake trial tomorrow in english class. It is trying steinbeck as a communist, in absentee. We can only use the book, The Grapes of Wrath, to argue this point.

I am on the defense, trying to say he isn't a communist(Not my first choice). I and my team can find little info...I have to write an opening tonight, and figure out cross examinations on Tom Joad and...Casey(I didnt read the book totally, I really didn't like it... I forget his first name, jim?). Anyways, if anyone could throw out some reasons in the book that show he wasnt a communist(Anything good about capitalism, or that could be said is more socialistic than communistic), I would love you forever.

What's wrong with being communist? Have you ever been to a hippy commune? Damn witch hunts for reds under beds!

I think Steinbeck is guilty as charged. I don't have the book in front of me but there seems to be a ton of pro communist sediment there to me. Especially when they go to that good camp, where a central committee runs things and they all pitch in to do whatever jobs need being done and how the cops are always trying to sneak in and destroy it. Then there is preacher casey giving up on God and saying we should do whatever we want, and of course Tom Joad's speach at the end where he says whereever people are suffering he will be there and fighting oppression etc. You have a hard case ahead of you.

i'm fairly sure that's a relatively hard job. i recommend you argue that he wasn't a stalinist, rather than not a communist.

i'm fairly sure that's a relatively hard job. i recommend you argue that he wasn't a stalinist, rather than not a communist.

Well, at the beginning of the trial, we have to have a definition of communism, and the prosecution wont agree on anything that is stalinist as opposed to communist.

The best I can do is argue better than my opponents. They are four girls of the blond persuasion, to put it nicely.