Symbolism In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath In The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, a novel about the hardships of an Oklahoma family, the Joads, migrating to California in hopes for a better life during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl after the bank stripped them from their home. Steinbeck uses narrative description and symbolisms of a land turtle, through contextual and cultural content; the turtle being hit by a truck, and the turtle’s hard shell and his ability to withstand the damage and proceed with his life. The turtle symbolizes the new life and struggles of the journey to the west, the promise land. The turtle appears throughout giving the contextual symbolism of the struggles of the Joad family’s survival during the family’s travels to the west and new life. The turtle’s travels alongside the highway on the hot pavement and survives an attack by a driver who purposely swerved to hit the turtle, “And now a light truck approached, and as it came near, the driver saw the turtle and swerved to hit it. His front wheel struck the edge of the shell, flipped the turtle like a tiddly-wonk, spun it like a coin, and rolled it off the highway. The truck went back on its course along the right side”

snub-nosed monsters, raising the dust and sticking their snouts into it, straight down the country, across the country, through fences, through dooryards, in and out of gullies in straight lines”(Steinbeck, 35). The author uses symbolism of the banks breaking the Joad family and the rest of the inhabitants living in Oklahoma, down like driver’s attempt to hit the turtle, the bank is taking away their only home and what they previously knew. The history of the Joad’s family, a part of them, was within the soil of the land. The banks are stripping away a part of them much like the driver’s attempt to strip the life of the turtle away from it as the driver swerves to hit