How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Tod didn't laugh at the man's rhetoric. He knew it was unimportant. What mattered were his messianic rage and the emotional response of his hearers. (19.124)
In other words, the fact that people respond positively to this dude's crazy words is more meaningful than the craziness of those words. After all, people wouldn't latch on to such blatant tomfoolery unless they were already hopeless, having endured so many disappointments in their lives that snake-oil salesmen are their only hope.
Quote #8
All their lives they had slaved at some kind of dull, heavy labor [...] saving their pennies and dreaming of the leisure that would be theirs when they had enough. (27.18)
Finally, during the riot that closes the novel, Tod fully explains his theory on "the people who come to California to die." To our surprise, they're just regular people: working stiffs who slaved away their entire lives for a blissful, preferably tropical retirement. Their only mistake was landing in Los Angeles. Should have kept flying, folks.
Quote #9
They haven't the mental equipment for leisure, the money nor the physical equipment for pleasure. Did they slave so long just to go to an occasional Iowa picnic? (27.19)
After retirement, these people realize they've been sold a bill of goods. Silly rabbit: retirement is for the rich. Additionally, it's important to note that The Day of the Locust was written in the midst of the Great Depression, when the disparity between the haves and have-nots was higher than at any other period in American history.