Grapes of Wrath
1. The protagonist of this story is Tom Joad. Tom must overcome several conflicts when he is paroled from jail and let out into an economically depressed country. Tom's physical conflict throughout the novel is the task of surviving the horrible starving conditions of America's Great Depression. He also has physical conflicts with people who only wish to destroy the hopes of migrant workers such as the police and strikebreakers. Tom's emotional conflict deals with his inability to get good work and take care of his family. Tom had feelings of worthlessness until he decided to run away and attempt to organize the migrant workers against the wealthy California landowners with inspiration from his close friend Jim Casey. Tom becomes a character with much moral integrity, and devotes himself to the lives of his fellow migrant workers. The main conflict is basically shown in a battle of good vs. evil. As the novel progresses it becomes more evident that the migrant workers must band together in order to survive against the wealthy and greedy landowners. Ma Joad said that survival is the ultimate principal and it is also the ultimate conflict of Grapes of Wrath.
2. The plot of Grapes of Wrath follows a simple flowing pattern where every event leads clearly into the next. There are no points in the novel where the reader is taken off track from the main plot of the story. The ending to the novel is neither happy nor unhappy. The Joad family has been largely split apart, however, Tom has decided to take a moral position that could possibly better the lives of many migrant workers. Ma Joad and the rest of the family are forced to leave their newest home because of a horrible rainstorm. But Ma Joad's strength and w...
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... difficult to predict that the Joad family is going to have to relocate to California because of the dust bowl in Oklahoma. It is also very predictable that they would have a hard time finding work and food with the migrant worker population so vast. Throughout the novel I found that I could generally think of just about everything that the Joad family went through. However, one event in the novel was not predictable. I never would have thought that an ex-convict could have been so loyal to his friend's cause. I am speaking of course of Tom Joad and his decision to take on the work of organizing migrant workers after Jim Casey is killed. Also most readers would expect a happy ending for the Joad family after enduring so much during the course of the book. The book ends with some hope for the future of the Joad family as Rose of Sharon nurses a sickly man to health.
Throughout the novel, The Grapes of Wrath there are intercalary chapters. The purpose of these chapters are to give the readers insight and background on the setting, time, place and even history of the novel. They help blend the themes, symbols, motifs of the novel, such as the saving power of family and fellowship, man’s inhumanity to man, and even the multiplying effects of selfishness. These chapters show the social and economic crisis flooding the nation at the time, and the plight of the American farmer becoming difficult. The contrast between these chapters helps readers look at not just the storyline of the Joad family, but farmers during the time and also the condition of America during the Dust Bowl. Steinbeck uses these chapters to show that the story is not only limited to the Joad family,
California in search for a brighter, economic future. The name Joad and the exodus to
Grapes of Wrath. In the beginning of the novel The Grapes of Wrath, the Joads are faced with the challenge of traveling Route 66 all the way to California. This is their solution to being tractored off their land and having no way to support the large family. This challenge is similar to the depression of 1929, when many people lost their jobs, homes, and their whole lives.
The tale of The Grapes of Wrath has many levels of profound themes and meanings to allow us as the reader to discover the true nature of human existence. The author's main theme and doctrine of this story is that of survival through unity. While seeming hopeful at times, this book is more severe, blunt, and cold in its portrayl of the human spirit. Steinbeck's unique style of writing forms timeless and classic themes that can be experienced on different fronts by unique peoples and cultures of all generations.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is considered a classic novel by many in the literary field. The trials and tribulations of the Joad family and other migrants is told throughout this novel. In order to gain a perspective into the lives of "Oakies", Steinbeck uses themes and language of the troubling times of the Great Depression. Some of these aspects are critiqued because of their vulgarity and adult nature. In some places, The Grapes of Wrath has been edited or banned. These challenges undermine Steinbeck's attempts to add reality to the novel and are unjustified.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is a novel that does not end with any sort of hope, but does end with the reader learning about how real this novel really was. You do not put this book down after you read it and smile and wish that you could have been living in this era. This is why he ended the novel the way that he does and not 40 pages earlier where he could have made it a happy ending. Steinbeck is just like his novel and he wants you to know what happened, and why it happened. All of this happened because people were forced out of their homes and the only place they had to go was west and almost all of the families ended up like the Jones; with no money, nowhere to go and nothing to look forward to. Even though this is not the way that you wanted the ending of this novel to go, there was no other way that it could have ended.
He learns his family has moved in with his uncle John and decides to travel a short distance to see them. He arrives only to learn they are packing up their belongings and moving to California, someplace where there is a promise of work and food. This sets the Joad family off on a long and arduous journey with one goal: to survive. In this novel Steinbeck set forth with the intention of raising awareness to the general public of the difficulties and injustices these migrants faced during this period in time. It exposed the methods of the California farmer to use the migrants in order to lower their costs and make their profit margin higher. How they starved and cheated the poor, working man, in order to keep him desperate for food and too weak to protest.
The ending of The Grapes of Wrath maintains its historical accuracy by enforcing the idea of the women being the force that holds the family together. From even the beginning of this text we can see that Ma Joad is an incredibly strong ch...
In literature as in life, people often find that they must make difficult choices in order to survive. The reasons behind their decisions and the results of their subsequent actions affect our opinion of them. In the Grapes of Wrath, written by John Steinbeck, the author portrayed situations where two main characters became involved. The nature of their choices, the reasons behind their decisions, and the results that followed affected them greatly. However, the choices that they made were surmounted successfully. Ma Joad and Tom Joad are two strong characters who overcame laborious predicaments. Their powerful characteristics helped to encourage those that were struggling.
Tom Joad experiences many struggles in The Grapes of Wrath. Due to his struggles, he undergoes an immense change that causes him from being unconcerned and impassive to being contemplative and expressive. The journey with Casy and his family affects how he achieves success to become a true, strong character. With his responsibility of taking care of the family, he carries great burden and doubtful decisions of leading them to California. Throughout the journey, he faces trials and sufferings that lead him to have an inner conflict with himself in order for his family to have the golden opportunity to live prosperously in the scarce but hopeful land. His moments of feeling helplessness and vulnerability in the position of a deterred migrant,
Tom Joad is an ex-convict that was only into his own self-interest and lived by a mantra of live your life day by day and not concerned with the future, to becoming a man who thinks about the future and someone with morals and an obligation to help others. Ma Joad is a typical woman of the early 1900’s whose main role was a mother only with a role of caring and nurturing. Later in the novel, she becomes an important figure for the family and is responsible for making decisions in keeping the family together and emphasizes the importance of unity. Another important transition in the book is the family starting off as a single close knit unit to depending on other families to survive. This common interest and struggle bonded the community of individual families to a single one. Steinbeck wrote this novel very well, by having great character dynamics and development that displays the characters strengths and also their
In the Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck uses intercalary chapters to provide background for the various themes of the novel, as well to set the tone of the novel".
Although both the novel and movie form of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath are considered to be American classics, the novel provides a deeper understanding of the story's time and meaning. Absent from the film, the novel's interchapters provide a greater understanding of the time in which The Grapes of Wrath takes place. First, in the movie it is unclear why the Joads are forced to abandon their farm. It is described very briefly by Muley Graves, leaving the audience in a state of confusion. However, in the novel, Chapter 5 explains exactly why the farmers are forced to leave. In this interchapter, Steinbeck uses a dialogue between a farmer and a representative from a bank; the farmer is forced to leave because the bank, or the"Monster" as Steinbeck says, needs to make a profit, and if the farmer cannot produce any goods to pay off debts, then the bank forecloses the land. This happened to many farmers in the 1930's due to a dr...
Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is a realistic novel that mimics life and offers social commentary too. It offers many windows on real life in midwest America in the 1930s. But it also offers a powerful social commentary, directly in the intercalary chapters and indirectly in the places and people it portrays. Typical of very many, the Joads are driven off the land by far away banks and set out on a journey to California to find a better life. However the journey breaks up the family, their dreams are not realized and their fortunes disappear. What promised to be the land of milk and honey turns to sour grapes. The hopes and dreams of a generation turned to wrath. Steinbeck opens up this catastrophe for public scrutiny.
The Grapes of Wrath is a novel by John Steinbeck that exposes the desperate conditions under which the migratory farm families of America during the 1930's live under. The novel tells of one families migration west to California through the great economic depression of the 1930's. The Joad family had to abandon their home and their livelihoods. They had to uproot and set adrift because tractors were rapidly industrializing their farms. The bank took possession of their land because the owners could not pay off their loan. The novel shows how the Joad family deals with moving to California. How they survive the cruelty of the land owners that take advantage of them, their poverty and willingness to work.