Steinbeck says of the age of commercial farming, “Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died” (p. 36).

The question asks you to personify the land. Before commercial farming or agribusiness, there was a connection between the farmer and his land. This is why the sharecropper met the Cat tractor with a shotgun. His land was worthless but it was a part of him, a part of his identity. Under commercial farming people got disconnected from the land and what they eat. Instead of working to grow our food we go to grocery stores. Most people have no clue how their food is grown or produced. When small scale farmers farmed their land, they were part of their harvest. Is the land still alive? It is alive but the connection most urbanized people have to it is pretty much dead.