Why does jodys father dread the visit

Thus the grandfather no longer fits into today's society, a society which puts little or no emphasis on the westering of the past. The dilemma of the grandfather is thus not that there is no more land to conquer — no more westering to be done — but that somehow he cannot discover how to communicate the spirit of westering: the feelings, desires, and motives that brought a group of people together to form a strong single unit to cross the endless prairies.

The grandfather knows that what he did had to be done and he is proud that he was a leader, but he also knows that if he had not done so and had he not been the leader, there would have been others to fill his place. His confusion, therefore, stems primarily from his inability to communicate his feelings to the younger generation. The climax of the story comes when the grandfather inadvertently overhears Carl Tiflin say in irritation: "Why does he have to tell the stories over and over? He came across the plains.

All right! Now it's finished. Nobody wants to hear about it over and over. Even though the grandfather thinks that he isn't telling the stories correctly, yet he does manage to communicate with Jody. In this final story of Steinbeck's quartet, Jody approaches perhaps his finest moment of maturity as he puts aside his own desires and, instead, devotes his energies to his grandfather.

After hearing his grandfather's long story, Jody asks for a lemon to make his grandfather a lemonade. Jody's mother automatically assumes that he is doing it only so that he can also have a lemonade and sarcastically says, "and another lemon to make a lemonade for you.

Thus, in each of the stories — "The Gift," "The Great Mountains," "The Promise," and "The Leader of the People" — Steinbeck shows us unique ways in which young Jody undergoes certain experiences and, as a result, comes closer to a realization of true manhood. In addition, each of these stories has carried as its theme the conflict between the old and the new. This story, in particular, began with Billy Buck's raking together what was left of the old hay stack to make room for the new and focused on the mice "smug, sleek, arrogant" Grandfather's concept of many twentieth-century men.

To Grandfather, men today have grown soft and lost the pioneering spirit which required strength and courage. Grandfather says: "They aren't very strong, the new people. Me carried life out here and set it down the way those ants carry eggs. Furthermore, Grandfather tells Jody that he served as head of this "one great crawling beast. Now there is no longer any demand for the group who welds people together in order to enhance their chances for survival. The narrator metaphorically underscores the demise of the old hero, for as Grandfather speaks, the narrator tells us "his eyes moved up the side-hill and stopped on a motionless hawk perched on a dead limb.

But this does not necessarily mean that modern man has become totally lax and debilitated. Grandfather, so caught up imaginatively with his own glorious past, fails to realize the strengths of the present age. Life with nature still demands hard work and the emotional and mental stamina necessary to cope with uncertainty and failure, so much a part of farm life.

Gabilan, the show pony, was beautiful and lovable, but he could not endure the hardships of the rugged ranch life. Black Demon promises to survive in this kind of environment because he possesses the vital spirit of nature itself; his conception was strong and vigorous and he was faced with the death of his mother at birth, a loss to which he has to adjust with his own determination and physical stamina.

Yet he will most likely grow up to be a pet horse — gentle, playful, and considerate — a domesticated rather than a wild animal. If this assumption is correct, Black Demon resembles the leader of the new generation, Jody Tiflin.

Jody too displays a sympathetic and magnanimous attitude toward his grandfather that the other members of the family do not do. And in so doing he breaks down the barriers between the generations. Jody gives up his mice hunt to visit with Grandfather, and Grandfather in return doffs his old feeling of superiority. He agrees to drink a lemonade, an act which symbolizes his communion with the present age.

I'll bring my blankets down here and put them in the hay. You can stay tomorrow and steam him if he needs it. Jody didn't even realize that some one else had fed the chickens and filled the wood-box. He walked up past the house to the dark brush line and took a drink of water from the tub.

The spring water was so cold that it stung his mouth and drove a shiver through him. The sky above the hills was still light. He saw a hawk flying so high that it caught the sun on its breast and shone like a spark. Two blackbirds were driving him down the sky, glittering as they attacked their enemy.

Jody's father didn't speak at all while the family ate supper, but after Billy Buck had taken his blankets and gone to sleep in the barn, Carl Tiff in built a high fire in 27 John Steinbeck the fireplace and told stories. He told about the wild man who ran naked through the country and had a tail and ears like a horse, and he told about the rabbit-cats of Moro Cojo that hopped into the trees for birds.

He revived the famous Maxwell brothers who found a vein of gold and hid the traces of it so carefully that they could never find it again. Jody sat with his chin in his hands; his mouth worked nervously, and his father gradually became aware that he wasn't listening very carefully. Jody laughed politely and said, "Yes, sir" His father was angry and hurt, then. He didn't tell any more stories. After a while, Jody took a lantern and went down to the barn. Billy Buck was asleep in the hay, and, except that his breath rasped a little in his lungs, the pony seemed to be much better.

Jody stayed a little while, running his fingers over the red rough coat, and then he took up the lantern and went back to the house. When he was in bed, his mother came into the room. It's getting winter. Jody was tired. He went to sleep quickly and didn't awaken until dawn. The triangle sounded, and Billy Buck came up from the barn before Jody could get out of the house. Billy always wolfed his breakfast. I'm going to open that lump this morning.

Then he'll be better maybe. He whetted the shining blade a long time 28 The Red Pony on a little carborundum stone. He tried the point and the blade again and again on his calloused thumb-ball, and at last he tried it on his upper lip. On the way to the barn, Jody noticed how the young grass was up and how the stubble was melting day by day into the new green crop of volunteer. It was a cold sunny morning. As soon as he saw the pony, Jody knew he was worse. His eyes were closed and sealed shut with dried mucus.

His head hung so low that his nose almost touched the straw of his bed. There was a little groan in each breath, a deep-seated, patient groan. Billy lifted the weak head and made a quick slash with the knife. Jody saw the yellow pus run out. He held up the head while Billy swabbed out the wound with weak carbolic acid salve. He nearly tossed off a careless assurance, but he saved himself in time. If he doesn't get pneumonia, we'll pull him through. You stay with him. If he gets worse, you can come and get me.

The pony didn't flip his head the way he had done when he was well. The groaning in his breathing was becoming more hollow. Doubletree Mutt looked into the barn, his big tail waving provocatively, and Jody was so incensed at his health that he found a hard black clod on the floor and de- 29 John Steinbeck liberately threw it.

Doubletree Mutt went yelping away to nurse a bruised paw. In the middle of the morning, Billy Buck came back and made another steam bag. Jody watched to see whether the pony improved this time as he had before. His breathing eased a little, but he did not raise his head. The Saturday dragged on. Late in the afternoon Jody went to the house and brought his bedding down and made up a place to sleep in the hay.

He didn't ask permission. He knew from the way his mother looked at him that she would let him do almost anything. That night he left a lantern burning on a wire over the box stall. Billy had told him to rub the pony's legs every little while. At nine o'clock the wind sprang up and howled around the barn. And in spite of his worry, Jody grew sleepy. He got into his blankets and went to sleep, but the breathy groans of the pony sounded in his dreams.

And in his sleep he heard a crashing noise which went on and on until it awakened him. The wind was rushing through the barn. He sprang up and looked down the lane of stalls. The barn door had blown open, and the pony was gone. He caught the lantern and ran outside into the gale, and he saw Gabilan weakly shambling away into the darkness, head down, legs working slowly and mechanically.

When Jody ran up and caught him by the fore- lock, he allowed himself to be led back and put into his stall. His groans were louder, and a fierce whistling came from his nose.

Jody didn't sleep any more then. The hissing of the pony's breath grew louder and sharper. He was glad when Billy Buck came in at dawn. Billy looked for a time at the pony as though he had never seen him before. He felt the ears and flanks.

You run up to the house for a while. I'm going to open a little hole in his windpipe so he can breathe. His nose is filled up. When he gets well, we'll put a little brass button in the hole for him to breathe through. It was awful to see the red hide cut, but infinitely more terrible to know it was being cut and not to see it.

I'm sure. If you stay, you can hold his head. If it doesn't make you sick, that is" The fine knife came out again and was whetted again just as carefully as it had been the first time. Jody held the pony's head up and the throat taut, while Billy felt up and down for the right place.

Jody sobbed once as the bright knife point disappeared into the throat. The pony plunged weakly away and then stood still, trembling violently. The blood ran thickly out and up the knife and across Billy's hand and into his shirtsleeve: The sure square hand sawed out a round hole in the flesh, and the breath came bursting out of the hole, throwing a fine spray of blood.

With the rush of oxygen, the pony took a sudden strength. He lashed out with his hind feet and tried to rear, but Jody held his head down while Billy mopped the new wound with carbolic salve. It was a good job. The blood stopped flowing and the air puffed out of the hole and sucked it in regularly with a little bubbling noise. The rain brought in by the night wind began to fall on the barn roof. Then the triangle rang for breakfast. He was too dispirited to tell Billy how the barn door had blown open and let the pony out.

He emerged into the wet grey morning and sloshed up to the house, taking a perverse pleasure in splashing through all the puddles. His mother fed him and put dry clothes on. She didn't question him. She seemed to know he couldn't answer questions. But when he was ready to go back to the barn she brought him a pan of steaming meal.

But Jody did not take the pan. He said, "He won't eat anything," and ran out of the house. At the barn, Billy showed him how to fix a ball of cotton on a stick, with which to swab out the breathing hole when it became clogged with mucus. Jody's father walked into the barn and stood with them in front of the stall.

At length he turned to the boy. I'm going to drive over the hill" Jody shook his head. Billy turned on him angrily. It's his pony, isn't it? His feelings were badly hurt. All morning Jody kept the wound open and the air passing in and out freely. At noon the pony lay wearily down on his side and stretched his nose out. Billy came back. Jody went absently out of the barn. The sky had cleared to a hard thin blue. Everywhere the birds were busy with worms that had come to the damp surface of the ground.

Jody walked to the brush line and sat on the edge of the mossy tub. He looked down at the house and at the old bunkhouse and at the dark cypress tree. The place was familiar, but curiously changed.

It wasn't itself any 32 The Red Pony more, but a frame for things that were happening. A cold wind blew out of the east now, signifying. At his feet Jody could see the little arms of new weeds spreading out over the ground. In the mud about the spring were thousands of quail tracks.

Doubletree Mutt came sideways and embarrassed up through the vegetable patch, and Jody, remembering how he had thrown the clod, put his arm about the dog's neck and kissed him on his wide black nose.

Doubletree Mutt sat still, as though he knew some solemn thing was happening. His big tail slapped the ground gravely. Jody pulled a swollen tick out of Mutt's neck and popped it dead between his thumb-nails. It was a nasty thing. He washed his hands in the cold spring water. Except for the steady swish of the wind, the farm was very quiet. Jody knew his mother wouldn't mind if he didn't go in to eat his lunch. After a little while he went slowly back to the barn. Mutt crept into his own little house and whined softly to himself for a long time.

Billy Buck stood up from the box and surrendered the cotton swab. The pony still lay on his side and the wound in his throat bellowed in and out. When Jody saw how dry and dead the hair looked, he knew at last that there was no hope for the pony.

He had seen the dead hair before on dogs and on cows, and it was a sure sign. He sat heavily on the box and let down the barrier of the box stall. For a long time he kept his eyes on the moving wound, and at last he dozed, and the afternoon passed quickly. Just before dark his mother brought a deep dish of stew and left it for him and went away. Jody ate a little of it, and, when it was dark, he set the lantern on the floor by the pony's head so he could watch the wound and keep it open.

And he dozed again until the 33 John Steinbeck night chill awakened him. The wind was blowing fierce- y, bringing the north cold with it. Jody brought a blanket from his bed in the hay and wrapped himself in it. Gabilan's breathing was quiet at last; the hole in his throat moved gently. The owls flew through the hayloft, shrieking and looking for mice. Jody put his hands down on his head and slept. In his sleep he was aware that the wind had increased.

He heard it slamming about the barn. It was daylight when he awakened. The barn door had swung open. The pony was gone. He sprang up and ran out into the morning light. The pony's tracks were plain enough, dragging through the frostlike dew on the young grass, tired tracks with little lines between them where the hoofs had dragged. They headed for the brush line halfway up the ridge. Jody broke into a run and followed them. The sun shone on the sharp white quartz that stuck through the ground here and there.

As he followed the plain trail, a shadow cut across in front of him. He looked up and saw a high circle of black buzzards, and the slowly revolving circle dropped lower and lower. The solemn birds soon disappeared over the ridge. Jody ran faster then, forced on by panic and rage. The trail entered the brush at last and followed a winding route among the tall sage bushes. At the top of the ridge Jody was winded. He paused, puffing noisily.

The blood pounded in his ears. Then he saw what he was looking for. Below, in one of the little clearings in the brush, lay the red pony. In the distance, Jody could see the legs moving slowly and convulsively. And in a circle around him stood the buzzards, waiting for the moment of death they know so well. Jody leaped forward and plunged down the hill. The wet ground muffled his steps and the brush hid him. When he arrived, it was all over. The first buzzard sat 34 The Red Pony on the pony's head and its beak had just risen dripping with dark eye fluid.

Jody plunged into the circle like a cat. The black brotherhood arose in a cloud, but the big one on the pony's head was too late. As it hopped along to take off, Jody caught its wing tip and pulled it down.

It was nearly as big as he was. The free wing crashed into his face with the force of a club, but he hung on.

The claws fastened on his leg and the wing elbows battered his head on either side. Jody groped blindly with his free hand. His fingers found the neck of the struggling bird. The red eyes looked into his face, calm and fearless and fierce; the naked head turned from side to side.

Then the beak opened and vomited a stream of putrified fluid. Jody brought up his knee and fell on the great bird. He held the neck to the ground with one hand while his other found a piece of sharp white quartz. The first blow broke the beak sideways and black blood spurted from the twisted, leathery mouth corners. He struck again and missed. The red fearless eyes still looked at him, impersonal and unafraid and detached. He struck again and again, until the buzzard lay dead, until its head was a red pulp.

He was still beating the dead bird when Billy Buck pulled him off, and held him tightly to calm his shaking. Carl Tiflin wiped the blood from the boy's face with a red bandana. Jody was limp and quiet now. His father moved the buzzard with his toe. Don't you know that? It was Billy Buck who was angry. He had lifted Jody in his arms, and had turned to carry him home. But he turned back on Carl Tiflin.

He had been to the barn, had thrown rocks at the swallows' nests under the eaves until every one of the little mud houses broke open and dropped its lining of straw and dirty feathers. Then at the ranch house he baited a rat trap with stale cheese and set it where Doubletree Mutt, that good big dog, would get his nose snapped.

Jody was not moved by an impulse of cruelty; he was bored with the long hot afternoon. Doubletree Mutt put his stupid nose in the trap and got it smacked, and shrieked with agony and limped away with blood on his nostrils.

No matter where he was hurt, Mutt limped It was just a way he had. Once when he was young, Mutt got caught in a coyote trap, and always after that he limped, even when he was scolded.

When Mutt yelped, Jody's mother called from inside the house, "Jodyl Stop torturing that dog and find something to do. Then he took his slingshot from the porch and walked up toward the brush line to try to kill a bird. It was a good slingshot, with store-bought rubbers, but while Jody had often shot at birds, he had never hit one.

He walked up through the vegetable patch, kicking his bare toes into the dust. And on the way he found the perfect slingshot stone, round and slightly flattened and heavy enough to carry through the air. He fitted it into the leather pouch of his weapon and proceeded to the brush line. His eyes narrowed, his mouth worked strenuously; for the first 36 The Red Pony time that afternoon he was intent. In the shade of the sagebrush the little birds were working, scratching in the leaves, flying restlessly a few feet and scratching again.

Jody pulled back the rubbers of the sling and advanced cautiously. One little thrush paused and looked at him and crouched, ready to fly. Jody sidled nearer, moving one foot slowly after the other. When he was twenty feet away, he carefully raised the sling and aimed.

The stone whizzed; the thrush started up and flew right into it. And down the little bird went with a broken head. Jody ran to it and picked it up. The bird looked much smaller dead than it had alive. Jody felt a little mean pain in his stomach, so he took out his pocket-knife and cut off the bird's head.

Then he disemboweled it, and took off its wings; and finally he threw all the pieces into the brush. He didn't care about the bird, or its life, but he knew what older people would say if they had seen him kill it; he was ashamed because of their potential opinion.

He decided to forget the whole thing as quickly as he could, and never to mention it. The hills were dry at this season, and the wild grass was golden, but where the spring-pipe filled the round tub and the tub spilled over, there lay a stretch of fine green grass, deep and sweet and moist.

Jody drank from the mossy tub and washed the bird's blood from his hands in cold water. Then he lay on his back in the grass and looked up at the dumpling summer clouds. By closing one eye and destroying perspective he brought them down within reach so that he could put up his fingers and stroke them. He helped the gentle wind push them down the sky; it seemed to him that they went faster for his help. One fat white cloud he helped clear to the mountain rims and pressed it firmly over, out of 37 John Steinbeck sight.

Jody wondered what it was seeing, then. He sat up the better to look at the great mountains where they went piling back, growing darker and more savage until they finished with one jagged ridge, high up against the west. Curious secret mountains; he thought of the little he knew about them. At last you come to the ocean" "But what's in the mountains?

It's dangerous, with cliffs and things. Why, I've read there's more unexplored country in the mountains of Monterey County than any place in the United States. And not much water. There's nothing there. He could feel within himself that this was so. No one But there's nothing just rocks and cliffs 38 The Red Pony He said to his mother, "Do you know what's in the big mountains?

He thought often of the miles of ridge after ridge until at last there was the sea. When the peaks were pink in the morning they invited him among them: and when the sun had gone over the edge in the evening and the mountains were a purple-like despair, then Jody was afraid of them; then they were so impersonal and aloof that their very imperturbability was a threat. Now he turned his head toward the mountains of the east, the Gabilans, and they were jolly mountains, with hill ranches in their creases, and with pine trees growing on the crests.

People lived there, and battles had been fought against the Mexicans on the slopes. He looked back for an instant at the Great Ones and shivered a little at the contrast. The foothill cup of the home ranch below him was sunny and safe. The house gleamed with white light and the barn was brown and warm. The red cows on the farther hill ate their way slowly toward the north. Even the dark cypress tree by the bunkhouse was usual and safe. The chickens scratched about in the dust of the farmyard with quick waltzing steps.

A man walked slowly over the brow of the hill, on the road from Salinas, and he was headed toward the house. Jody stood up and moved down toward the house too, for if someone was coming, he wanted to be there to see.

By the time the boy had got to the house the walking man was only halfway down the road, a lean man, very straight in the shoulders. Jody could tell he was old only because his heels struck the ground with hard jerks. As he approached nearer, Jody saw that he was dressed in blue jeans and in a coat of the same material. He wore clodhopper shoes and an old flat-brimmed Stetson hat. Over his shoulder he carried a gunny sack, lumpy and full. In a few moments he had trudged close enough so that his face could be seen.

And his face was as dark as dried beef. A mustache, blue-white against the dark skin, hovered over his mouth, and his hair was white, too, where it showed at his neck. The skin of his face had shrunk back against the skull until it defined bone, not flesh, and made the nose and chin seem sharp and fragile. The eyes were large and deep and dark, with eyelids stretched tightly over them. Irises and pupils were one, and very lack, but the eyeballs were brown.

There were no wrinkles in the face at all. This old man wore a blue denim coat buttoned to the throat with brass buttons, as all men do who wear no shirts.

Out of the sleeves came strong bony wrists and hands gnarled and knotted and hard as peach branches. The nails were flat and blunt and shiny. The old man drew close to the gate and swung down his sack when he confronted Jody. His lips fluttered a little and a soft impersonal voice came from between them.

He turned and looked at the house, and he turned back and looked toward the barn where his father and Billy Buck were. He turned abruptly, and ran into the house for help, and the screen door banged after him. His mother was in the kitchen poking out the clogged holes of a colander with a hairpin, and biting her lower lip with concentration.

Come on out. He came walking. Gitano had not moved. Tiflin asked. Gitano took off his old black hat and held it with both hands in front of him. He repeated, "I am Gitano, and I have come back. Back where? His right hand described the circle of the hills, the sloping fields and the mountains, and ended at his hat again. I was born here, and my father, too. When the rancho broke up they put no more lime on the 'dobe, and the rains washed it down. I can milk a cow, feed chickens, cut a little wood; no more.

I will stay here. The old man was standing as he had been, but he was resting now. His whole body had sagged into a timeless repose. Tiflin motioned to the old man. He wants to do a little work and stay here. We don't need any more men.

He's too old. Billy does everything we need. I come back where I was born. In the 'dobe house over the hill. It was all one rancho before you came. I will stay here now on the rancho. This isn't a big ranch. I can't afford food and doctor bills for an old man. You must have relatives and friends. Go to them. It is like begging to come to strangers. Carl Tiflin didn't like to be cruel, but he felt he must.

We'll give you your breakfast in the morning, and then you'll have to go along. Go to your friends. Don't come to die with strangers" Gitano put on his black hat and stooped for the sack. Carl turned away. Jody, show him the little room in the bunkhouse. Tiflin went into the house, saying over her shoulder, "I'll send some blankets down. There was a cot with a shuck mattress, an apple box holding a tin lantern, and a backless rocking-chair in the little room of the bunkhouse.

Gitano laid his sack carefully on the floor and sat down on the bed. Jody stood shyly in the room, hesitating to go. At last he said, "Did you come out of the big mountains?

I went with my father:' "Way back, clear into the mountains? A little wrinkled strain came between his brows. The boy was held by a curious fascination. He didn't want to go away from Gitano.

His shyness returned. The Red Pony Gitano stood up and put on his hat and prepared to follow. It was almost evening now. They stood near the watering trough while the horses sauntered in from the hillsides for an evening drink.

Gitano rested his big twisted hands on the top rail of the fence. Five horses came down and drank, and then stood about, nibbling at the dirt or rubbing their sides against the polished wood of the fence. Long after they had finished drinking an old horse appeared over the brow of the hill and came painfully down.

It had long yellow teeth; its hoofs were flat and sharp as spades, and its ribs and hip-bones jutted out under its skin. It hobbled up to the trough and drank water with a loud sucking noise. He's thirty years old. Jody's father and Billy Buck came out of the barn and walked over. He hated his brutality toward old Gitano, and so he became brutal again. That's better than stiffness and sore teeth.

Maybe they like to just walk around. He could jump a five-bar gate in stride. I won a flat race on him when I was fifteen years old. I could of got two hundred dollars for him any time. You wouldn't think how pretty he was. Jody's father had a humorous thought. He turned to Gitano.

He had been probed often. His father knew every place in the boy where a word would fester. He likes Easter. That was the first horse he ever owned. Gitano seemed to be more at home in the evening. He made a curious sharp sound with his lips and stretched one of his hands over the fence.

Old Easter moved stiffly to him, and Gitano rubbed the lean neck under the mane. Only by a jerkiness in his movements and 46 The Red Pony by the scuffling of his heels could it be seen that he was old. The attacks against him worsened after The Grapes of Wrath. In Salinas and Oklahoma—home to the working people he championed in that great novel—upstanding citizens bought the book in great numbers, piled them up and built bonfires.

Priests called John Steinbeck a pornographer and politicians called him a Communist. Steinbeck dropped out of college and worked as a manual laborer before achieving success as a writer. His works often dealt with social and economic issues. What does the red pony symbolize?

Category: books and literature travel books. For instance, the pony in the Red Pony , serve as a symbol of the leading character - Jody's boyhood and simplicity in addition to the symbol of his future and when the pony is dead, the reader feel a sense of loss, because the pony's death symbolizes Jody's loss of innocence Review, What is the climax of the Red Pony? How many pages is the red pony? Product Details. How old is Jody in the red pony?

Who is Junius Maltby? Red Pony from a child's view. What seems to have been the significance of the crossing for Jody's grandfather? What happens in the Pearl?