What literary devices are used in Chapter 1 of The Grapes of Wrath?

Steinbeck uses a whole raft of specific sensory details in this opening chapter to create a visceral image of the effects of the drought. Outside of the use of such specific, sense-oriented language, Steinbeck also uses personification and comparison. 

In particular, Steinbeck uses comparisons to create precise images as when he writes: 

"Now the dust was evenly mixed with the air; an emulsion of dust and air." 

In this description, the term emulsion connotes a comparison between the sky and a liquid mixture and conjures ideas of saturation, suspension, and chemical infusion. The purpose here, again, is to create a specific image that dramatizes the physical setting of the novel. 

For the most part, the language hews to the literal and the sensory. 

What literary devices are used in Chapter 16 of The Grapes of Wrath?

In Chapter Sixteen of The Grapes of Wrath, there are several literary devices at work:

Figurative language

• Steinbeck describes the Joad and Wilson families as in flight across the Panhandle, a country "lined and cut with old flood scars," with "scar" as metaphor for the flood lines.
• Another metaphor occurs near the end of the chapter as the one-eyed man returns to his mattress and cries as the cars whiz past, only strengthening "the walls of his loneliness."
• A simile is used in the description of the vastness of land: "The land rolled like great stationary ground swells."
• Another simile occurs as Rose of Sharon is described,

She tried to arch her whole body as a rigid container to perserve her fetus from shock.

• Casy mentions his observation of all the cars headed to California and uses a simile: "...it's like they was runnin' away from soldiers."
• Granma has dementia and acts "[L]ike a little baby." Earlier, she lay back and opened her jaw, baying, Al says, "'like a moonlight hound' dog.'"
• There is another simile in the description of the Panhandle's land as it "rolled like great stationary ground swells."

Color imagery is utilized to suggest mood:

A huge red billboard stood beside the road ahead, and it threw a great oblong shadow.

Later Al is red with anger and the family has "shadows" of problems.

Symbolism

• "The land turtles crawled through the dust..." Since Chapter III, the turtle has been symbolic of the the Joads and other families who have persevered.
• When Ma revolts against the men's decision for Tom and the preacher to remain behind and fix the truck, she then becomes symbolically "the power" as she takes control of the family, retaining its unity.  This act represents the later organization and unification of the migrant workers. 

Foreshadowing

• Tom's leadership abilities are demonstrated as he talks with the one-eyed man at the gast station where he and Casy go in order to find a replacement rod for the truck.  Tom is able to point to the man's faults and motivate him to clean up and be encourage enough to desire going to California himself.
• That there may be hostility ahead of them is also foreshadowed as Tom is confronted by the proprietor of a camp where the rest of his family is. This proprietor wants to charge Tom to pull in.  "He was watchful and ringed with trouble."
• Most foreboding of all is Tom's encounter with the poor man returning from California who says that he is returning to starve because too many people are going to apply for too few jobs.  Much like the Chorus of a Greek tragedy, the men that the Joads meet along the road to California presage doom for the family.

What literary devices are used in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath?

John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is full of literary devices. Before we get to some of them, let's make sure we know what a literary device is.

Think about what a device is. A phone could be a device, so could a computer or a tablet. What do we do on these devices? We receive and send out information, even if that information is just a smiley face emoji.

Literary devices, too, are a way to convey information. Less technically, literary devices are ways for an author to tell a story or articulate an idea in a captivating or compelling manner.

One big idea in Grapes of Wrath is the evil nature of the bank. Steinbeck employs an array of literary devices to let us know how harmful banks are.

One such device is hyperbole. What does Steinbeck call the bank? He calls it a "monster." Perhaps he could've used a more subtle world. Maybe he could've dispassionately articulated to us what made the bank a monster. Yet by using such a dramatic, intense, and hyperbolic term, it becomes sharply clear to us, the readers, that the bank is bad.

Likening the bank to a monster is also a form of personification. No, Steinbeck is not calling the bank a person proper. Yet he is assigning an inanimate, insentient entity—the bank—traits and characteristics of a living and breathing thing.

When the tenants tell the owners that they might get their guns, how do the owners reply? They say,

You'll be stealing if you try to stay, you'll be murderers if you kill to stay. The monster isn't men, but it can make men do what it wants.

Keep in mind, we're talking about a bank, not a person. Yet the way the owners refer to the bank, it's as if they're talking about a person—a powerful person, a tyrannical person, or a monster.

We might say "the monster" is a motif of The Grapes of Wrath. That's another literary device. A motif is a recurring message or theme. We might want to think about how "the monster," the bank, and the general need for money is the primary cause of the Joad family's woes.

The list of literary devices used in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is a long one, but here are just a few examples.

Literary devices are forms of figurative language, also known as figures of speech. They are not to be taken literally: these statements are descriptive in nature, making what is being discussed or described more vivid in the reader's mind.

For example, there is the simile. This literary device compares two dissimilar things as if they were the same. They are, in fact, not the same, but they do share similar characteristics, and "like" or "as" is used. "She's like the wind" compares "she" to "wind." It does not mean that when she is around trees, trashcans and power lines are knocked down, or that she can lift a kite in the air. More likely it means that she is a free spirit and cannot be contained or controlled, anymore than the wind. 

In this example from the novel, several devices are used:

The Bank--or the Company—needs—wants—insists—must have—as though the Bank or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them.

First, a simile is used. The "Bank" or "Company" is compared to a monster. The bank is not a living thing, but associated with it is monstrous behaviors. It personified: that is, it is given human characteristics of needing, wanting, insisting, and thinking (and being monstrous—inferring intelligence). (It is also capitalized, as a name would be.) This quote also uses metonymy, where the name given to some thing comes from things associated with it. The bank is not a living thing, but those who run the bank—management, stockholders, etc.—are referred to en total as the "Bank" or the "Company" rather than managers or owners, and it is not the building's behavior that is monstrous, but the actions of those associated with it.

Personification is used again here:

And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.

A fact does not scream, and repression does not work or knit.

The next quote is ironic. The definition of irony varies: it can be the difference between what is said and what is meant, or it can be the difference between what you expect to happen and what really happens.

You're bound to get idears if you go thinkin' about stuff.

It is an ironic statement in that ideas can only come by thinking; it is, however, inferred that one might avoid getting "idears" if one avoids thinking about things.

Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration. In the following, thousan' is used to indicate the wealth of possible life outcomes. While people have choices regarding how they choose to live or work, a thousand is an exaggeration. 

Up ahead they's a thousan' lives we might live, but when it comes it'll on'y be one.

There may be dozens of opportunities—choices to define our lives— but here the use of thousan' does not refer to an exact number, but to the vast amount of hope there is for a different life. The opportunities may be wide-ranging, but in the end we can choose only one. This infers that the choice is an important one, for it may be the only one we get.

Finally, personification is used again here:

Death was a friend, and sleep was Death's brother.

Death is not a human being: it is a state of being. Therefore, it cannot have the human characteristics of being a friend—or a brother; neither can sleep be a brother.