Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

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In John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath there is a man who is poor due to the dustbowl and he’s traveling to California. He comes across a diner and he asks for a loaf of bread, the waitress working there doesn’t let him have it until the end. The man that asks for the loaf of bread is humble throughout the whole time when he was asking for the bread and Mae was refusing. The man’s insistent and inflexible humility influences Mae’s (the waitress) behavior because Mae felt sympathy towards the man at the end even though she was being rude and sarcastic at the beginning. She was being prejudiced at first but later she felt sympathetic. At the very beginning of the excerpt it states that the man stands outside the dinner with curios humility. Curious humility in this case means that the man stands there with humility so strange, and abnormal just like the other people that are victims from the dustbowl. Evidence from the text: “The man took off his dark, stained hat and stood with a curious humility in front of the screen. ‘Could you see your way to sell us a loaf of bread, ma’am?’ ...

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