PENGUIN ACTIVE READING Teacher Support Programme Teacher’s notes LEVEL 4 The Red Pony John Steinbeck Ruth, his father, Carl, and the cow-hand, Billy Buck. Carl is a stern unemotional man whereas Billy is warmer and spends a lot of time teaching Jody how to look after the horses. Jody is a thoughtful but lonely boy. He doesn’t have any brothers or sisters and he spends a lot of time alone. Jody listens to people’s conversations and starts to grow up, but he doesn’t always understand the things that happen around him. He thinks about what is right and wrong and learns some important lessons about life, death and growing old. Story 1 The Gift (Part 1): One September morning Carl Tiflin and Billy Buck ride into town with six milk cows. They return home very late and Carl tells Jody that he is About the author going to need him in the morning. After breakfast the next John Steinbeck is one of America’s best known authors. day, Carl takes Jody out to the barn and shows him a red He was born in Salinas, California in 1902. Many pony colt. The pony is a gift for Jody, who has to promise of his stories are based around the Salinas Valley. He to look after him. Jody calls the horse Gabilan after the attended Stanford University and then did a number of nearby mountains and Billy offers to help him to take care jobs – picking fruit, painting houses and working as a of the horse. After school that day, Jody brings his friends journalist. His first book, Cup of Gold (1929) wasn’t a back to the ranch and proudly shows them the pony. From success, but he achieved popular acclaim for his second that day on, Jody gets up very early to spend time with book, Tortilla Flat (1935). This was followed by In his pony. At first, it is like a dream for him. He worries on Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937) and The the way to the barn that the pony won’t be there. Then Red Pony (1937). Much of his work concerned the plight he begins to understand the pony with Billy’s help. He of America’s rural population. His most famous book, The notices everything about him, the way he moves, sleeps Grapes of Wrath (1939), tells the story of a dispossessed and drinks water. In the early fall, Jody and Billy begin family from Oklahoma, who make a difficult journey to train Gabilan. They want to get him used to wearing a to California to find work. East of Eden (1952) is set at saddle so that Jody can ride him at Thanksgiving. the time of the First World War and tells the story of Story 1 The Gift (Part 2): Winter arrives and Jody has to the difficult relationship between a father and his sons. keep Gabilan in the barn so that he doesn’t get wet. One During the Second World War, Steinbeck worked as a war day, the sun comes out and Jody decides to leave Gabilan correspondent. During the period of the Cold War, he was out in the fields when he goes to school. Billy promises to widely criticized for his support of the underprivileged and put him back in the barn if it rains. By the afternoon, it is his attention to social issues. His books Of Mice and Men, raining heavily and when Jody gets back from school, he The Grapes of Wrath, and East of Eden have all been made finds the pony standing sadly in the field. Billy had been into very successful movies. The Red Pony was first made away from the ranch all day. Jody dries the pony and tries into a movie in 1949 and then again in 1973. Steinbeck to feed him, but he’s not interested. The next day, Gabilan married three times in 1930, 1943 and 1950. In 1962, is sick, but Billy promises he will get better. When Jody he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in gets back from school later that day, the pony is worse. New York in 1968. He has a big lump under his chin. Billy cuts the lump and lets the poison run out the next day and Jody stays with Summary the pony all day and night. The next day, the pony can’t The four stories in The Red Pony are about a ten-year-old breathe and Billy cuts a hole in his throat. At first, the boy, Jody Tiflin, growing up on a small ranch in California pony finds new strength but then he gets worse and Jody early in the twentieth century. He lives with his mother, knows there is no hope. That night, the pony escapes from the barn and goes off into the hills to die. c Pearson Education Limited 2009 The Red Pony - Teacher’s notes 1 of 3 PENGUIN ACTIVE READING Teacher Support Programme Teacher’s notes LEVEL 4 The Red Pony Story 2 The Great Mountains: Jody is fascinated by the attacks, but Carl tries to change the conversation. The high mountains to the west of the ranch. His father and next morning, Grandfather overhears Carl criticizing him Billy tell him there is nothing there, but he feels they hold for telling the stories and his feelings are hurt. Carl tries a mysterious secret and he longs to explore them. One unsuccessfully to apologize. Jody asks Grandfather to go day, an old man arrives at the ranch. His name is Gitano on the mouse hunt, but he says he would just prefer to sit (Spanish for gypsy) and he claims he was born in a house in the sun. Jody goes to sit with his grandfather and listens on the ranch, which has now disappeared. He says he has to his story. He says that he knows his stories are not come home to die and wishes to stay there until that day interesting to people anymore. He knows that what was arrives. Carl says it is impossible, although he does agree important was not the adventure or fighting the Indians, to let him stay one night. Gitano tells Jody that he has but moving west and discovering new lands. Now that the been to the great mountains but he remembers very little. continent has been discovered, there is nowhere left to go. That night, Jody secretly visits Gitano, who has a beautiful Grandfather feels old and sad, which makes Jody unhappy silver knife in his hands. He says he got it from his father. too. Jody goes back to bed, believing he mustn’t tell anybody about the knife so as not to destroy some special truth. Background and themes The next day, Gitano has gone. He has taken the family’s The American West: The Red Pony is set in the American oldest horse and a neighbor says he saw him riding into West in the early twentieth century, where Steinbeck grew the brush with something shiny in his hand. up. At this time, the wars against the American Indians Story 3 The Promise: Carl and Billy decide that Jody were still remembered by the people who had fought should have another horse, raising it from birth. Carl says them. This reminds us that America at that time was still a that Jody must take their mare, Nellie, to a neighboring very young country, which had only recently been settled. farm to mate. This will cost five dollars, so Jody has to Growing up: Jody is at an age when he is learning about promise to work all summer to pay his father back. After life through the relationships he has and the things he Nellie has mated, Jody waits impatiently to see some sign experiences. He learns how life and death can be cruel and of change in the horse and he worries that something will how promises are not always kept. He has to deal with the go wrong as it did with Gabilan. Billy feels bad about difficult relationship he has with his father and come to this. A year passes and eventually Jody sees that Nellie’s accept the differences between them. stomach is big and tight. Billy promises to let Jody Old age: The problems and worries of the older help him when the time comes for Nellie to give birth. generation are reflected in the characters of Gitano and Unfortunately, things don’t go well and Billy has to kill Grandfather. They show how the old have to face up to Nellie and deliver the colt by cutting a hole in Nellie’s the fact that times have changed and how they are no stomach. longer useful in the same way as they were in the past. Story 4 The Leader of the People (Part 1): Carl arrives home one day with a letter from his father-in-law saying Discussion activities that he is coming to visit. Carl is not happy about this Before reading because he always tells the same story about Indians and 1 Research: Divide the class into two groups. Ask when he led a wagon train across the country. When he one group to do some research using the Internet arrives, Jody is very pleased to see him and asks him if he about the Salinas Valley in California. Ask the other wants to go on a mouse hunt. Grandfather finds this very group to do some research about America in the early twentieth century.