Abstract
The chapter under study is an extract from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Situated at the beginning of the novel, chapter 3 offers a very detailed description of a land turtle trying to reach the other side of the highway. Its journey is described as a very slow and painful one, full of obstacles that it will have to overcome in order to reach its goal. In this short chapter, the reader is given numerous elements which will help him not only to understand what is happening to the turtle but also what will happen later in the novel. In chapter 2 we had been introduced to the protagonist, Tom Joad, who was going back home after having spent four years in prison. This character is not present in chapter 3 which starts with the description of a struggling ecosystem. The author by using many literary techniques leads us to read this passage as a double layered narrative, full of hidden elements that we will have to discover in order to reach the essence of the chapter.
