chapter 11

Chapter eleven is quite short in length but still in a short amount of word paints a very dark picture of the countryside. It starts by describing how the new workers on the farm are not really a part of the farm, and this is true. When the tenant farmers lived there the farm was their life. When they were done with work they would go back to their house that was already on the farm. This is really a valid idea. If you have a job that is also your passion or what you were raised to do, then you do it with a solid work ethic. If you do something you love and care about you are bound to do a good job at it. The current workers do not have the connection both physically and emotionally to the farm land that they are working on. It is just a job to them, not their lives. After this, the narrator describes the conditions of the houses that the tenant farmers lived in. Not even that long after they have left, their houses have started to fall apart. Weeds in the gardens and around the house along with wild animals coming into the houses at night are described. It is scary to think about something like that. Having your house be destroyed and deteriorating because you can not stay to keep it up. This chapter seems to really capture how depressing the environment is. Farmers may have seen this happen to their neighbors and they would have known that it was inevitable for them as well. Overall I think that this chapter really captures the entire concept of leaving everything you own and care about behind. It is a depressing thought and this short chapter portrays it perfectly. The tenant farmers really have to endure a very difficult series of events and there is nothing that they can do to stop it which makes it worse.