The Grapes Of Wrath

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The Grapes of Wrath is a novel that shows a nation when it is at one of its lowest points economically. During the 1930’s the great depression too place and this story is a depiction of what many families who owned farmland during that time went though. The Joads were a average farming family in Oklahoma until the dust bowl hit. During the dust bowls there was always dirt in the air because all of the farm land had dried up and the land was left as a pile of dry dirt. Because they were no longer able to farm the government took many farms right out from under people and left them with nowhere to turn. The Joads were no exception to this. Tom Joad had just gotten out of the penitentiary for killing a man when he found out what had happened to his family in his absence. When he finally found them, they were all packed up to go to California. On the way to California they lost both Grandma and Grandpa. This shows what a sacrifice they were forced to make because they had nowhere else to turn. Once they get to California they find out that all of the handbills had been wrong and there was hardly enough work there for all the immigrants that were coming from all over the Midwest. The Joads certainly see the worst and the best that California has to offer. From locally run farms with bad cops to government run camps with running water and enough of everything to go around. With they had some luck along they way the Joads eventually run out of money and are forced to take refuge in a barn. While in this barn they find a man who is dying and because Rose of Sheran has unused milk she breast feeds the man. The novel ends with this sentence “She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously.” This is suc...

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... they are only looking out for themselves. I think that in the end of the novel he is really just restating what he showed readers throughout the rest of the novel through little scenes like this one. While there are many bad critiques of Steinbeck’s ending, there are also some positive ones as well. By putting this strange scene in the novel I think that Steinbeck is trying to show that even when some people’s worlds are turned upside down they can come out of it and still be willing to put the lives of others before themselves. While the ending of this novel is without a doubt a sign that the Joads do not make it out together in the end Steinbeck still gives readers some hope by showing the good nature of Rose of Sharon and Ma.

Work Cited

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. Web. 25 September 2014.

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