A second technique, perhaps most widely used in the intercalary chapters, is that of dramatization: The use of a collage of vignettes, monologues, and dialogues designed to show the social and historical processes behind the events that were occurring in the story of the Joads. In Chapter 9, for example, we hear the frustrations of the farmers forced to sell their belongings through an economic system they don't understand, strengthened with the repeated comment, "Can't haul 'em back." Similar to medieval mystery plays that brought biblical stories to life for the understanding of the common people, Steinbeck uses generalized characters and dialogue to illustrate the plight of the dispossessed tenants. Not wishing to merely tell about social or historical facts that composed the backdrop of his plot, Steinbeck allows his readers to find out for themselves the effect of the drought on the sharecroppers, or the gradual deterioration of the houses abandoned by farmers forced to migrate westward.
The dramatically differentiated prose styles used in the intercalary chapters allows Steinbeck to soften the chapters' somewhat moralizing tone and avoid the accusation that they could be grouped together as their own separate section of the novel. The newsreel style of a contemporary of Steinbeck's, author John Dos Passos, is seen in the used car salesman chapter, while the depiction of the boy and his Cherokee girl dancing in Chapter 23 is almost cinematic. The earthy, folk language employed by the Joads, Wainwrights, Wilsons, and other characters in the primary narrative is echoed in the comments of the generalized characters in the intercalary chapters. In keeping with the purpose of these chapters as general expansions of specific events, however, quotation marks indicating precise speakers are quite obviously absent. These conversational collages strengthen the function of these intercalary chapters to provide an overview of the social situation affecting the Joads.
