Throughout Miguel Street, animals, particularly dogs, are presented as the street’s co-inhabitants. In this street where enigma is valued, those who do not wish to show themselves instead display their animals to show their character. As the repressiveness of Hat’s relationship with Dolly accelerates, ‘the birds were caged’, and ‘the Altsatian was chained’. This captive vocabulary reflects the hold the relationship has on Hat, and paints Miguel Street as somewhat of a zoo: an environment confined from the wider world, where each resident is a spectator in the lives of others. Similarly, in Steinbeck’s novel, the ‘land turtle’ is seen ‘Dragging his high-domed shell’ as his ‘feet threshed slowly’. With the laborious connotation of the verbs, the readers parallel the Joad family and this migrating turtle. The impulsiveness of the turtle’s movements are antithetical to what its species is typically synonymous with, thus suggesting the rewiring of the Joad family’s natural dynamics throughout their gruelling journey. During its extended journey across the road, the turtle is caught in a near-accident, in response to which it ‘jerked into its shell’ but ‘hurried on, for the highway was burning hot’. The instinctive implications of the turtle ‘jerk[ing]’ into a realm of protection in response to a man-made blunder is thus undercut by its response to nature’s temperaments. Caught between the whims of humans and nature, this could be extended metaphorically to the Joad family. The fragility of the shell, the turtle’s centre of security, reflects the Joads' housing situation, one which plagued America at the time. The Resettlement Administration planned more than two dozen camps in1935, though by 1940, with New Deal budgets slashed, only fifteen were actually completed or under construction. The ‘ragged, torn’ tent reflects the mobile nature of their home and how the façade of security of the ‘neat and sturdy’ camp, ‘boosting’ their dreams, is as fragile as the turtle’s shell. Both novels circulate around the theme of adjustment combined with allusions to animals to establish a theme of natural selection. In order to become accustomed to the ‘barking dogs’ on Miguel Street, the narrator would walk ‘slowly’ and ‘lengthen out’ his exposure. The hyperbolic vision of this experience as ‘torture’ conveys the simplicity of life on Miguel Street, and acts as a microcosm of how one must become accustomed to their poverty in order to survive on the street. By contrast, the Joad family become accustomed to their hardships through a more passive transition, as they remain attached to any hopeful prospects. Just as the turtle’s ‘old humorous eyes looked ahead’, the Joad family’s vision is left ‘blank with tears’. The disappointment and threat of pursuing escapism is aptly portrayed in Miguel Street. The euphoric and suspended connotations of the ‘leap[ing] and bark[ing]’ the dogs commit to, in the hope that the ‘ropes would break’ are punished for these rogue undertakings as they are ‘poisoned’, thus muting their fantasies. The limitations imposed on the Joad family by the disruptions of industry are projected onto the animals. For example, when the Joads’ dog is run over it is presented as a ‘clot of blood and tangled, burst intestines’. The almost artistic connotations of this anatomical entanglement marks the amazement at any presentation of colour and vitality.