“But I hold on to this hope and the promise that He brings. That there will be a place with no more suffering.” These are lyrics from a song by Jeremy Camp and describe the story of the Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and Kumalo and his tribe in Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. Throughout the novels, the characters are faced with many difficult situations. They rely on their hopes to get them through. Like the lyrics say, they hold on to hope that there will come a time of no more suffering. A sense of hope in difficult times gives people the strength and courage to keep going.
One of the first examples of hope seen in both The Grapes of Wrath and Cry, the Beloved Country to keep the family united. This is portrayed
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In both novels, the protagonists are faced with numerous trials that leave them with nothing left to hope for but the future. These dreams of better times in the future are often what help the characters keep moving forward. In The Grapes of Wrath, Rose of Sharon and Connie are constantly talking about what they plan to have in the future. These dreams give them hope that things will get better. “An’ we’ll go to pitchers whenever. An’ Connie says I’m gonna have a doctor when the baby’s born; an’ he says we’ll see how times is, and’ maybe I’ll go to a hospiddle. An’ we’ll have a car, little car” (Steinbeck 224). Rose of Sharon’s hope helps her keep going even when Connie leaves, because she still has hope for her baby. Her hope and dreams of the future also help her family as her dreams give her relatives hope that the future will be better for them. This is similar to how Kumalo’s dreams give not only him hope for the future, but also give the tribe hope. Kumalo helps restore the land, and through the help of Jarvis, his dreams became a reality. The final paragraph of the novel is one of hope. The tribe is on its way to being restored through the hope of the people. “The great valley of the Umzimkulu is still in darkness, but the light will come there. Ndotsheni is still in darkness, but the light will come there also. For it is the dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries never failing” (Paton
The Grapes of Wrath explicates on the Dust Bowl era as the reader follows the story of the Joads in the narrative chapters, and the migrants in expository chapters. Steinbeck creates an urgent tone by using repetition many times throughout the book. He also tries to focus readers on how the Dust Bowl threatened migrant dreams using powerful imagery. As well as that, he creates symbols to teach the upper class how the Dust Bowl crushed the people’s goals. In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck utilizes imagery, symbolism, and repetition to demonstrate how the Dust Bowl threatened the “American Dream.”
People just don’t seem to give up, they continue fighting till the very end rather than lay down and succumb to the challenge faced. In “The Grapes of Wrath”, John Steinbeck uses symbolism and religious allusions as unifying devices to illustrate the indomitable nature of the human spirit.
When Rose of Sharon is first introduced in The Grapes of Wrath, we learn that she is expecting a child from her new husband, Connie Rivers. She is described as a mystical being whose primary concern is the well-being of her child, even at the almost ridiculously early stage of her pregnancy at the start of the novel. It is this concern that illustrates Rose of Sharon’s transformation from misfit to Madonna through the Joad’s journey.
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,
The play “Our Town” is a 1938 three-act play by American playwright Thornton Wilder that is set in a small town called Grover’s Corners. It tells the story of a couple citizens in their everyday lives in the early nineteenth century. Grover’s Corners is a small town, no famous people really come out of it, and everybody knows everybody for the most part. These families that live in Grover’s Corners do not leave the town for the entire book, the people are even buried there. This is the exact opposite of what happens in the novel “The Grapes of Wrath”. The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck that sets the stage of one “Tom Joads” and also the life of a farmer in the Midwest during the Great Depression. Unlike the people in Grover’s Corners, these people leave their hometown not because they want to, but because they have to. The people of Grover’s Corners are ignorant about the gift of life while the people in “The Grapes of Wrath” suffer through a catastrophe that makes them realize how important life really is.
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 Fruits of Passion and Dreams in A Raisin in the Sun and The Grapes of Wrath
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.
Even though there is tragedy there-what Steinbeck seems to be saying is that the human spirit can and will endure despite immense privations. The will to live and endure will always overcome defeated hopes.
In literature as well as in life always find themselves making difficult choices. However, their decisions and actions can greatly affect the outcome. In The Grapes of Wrath, we learned that the characters also found themselves in tough predicaments. Nevertheless, the nature of their choices helped to make a triumphant result. Ma and Tom made hard decisions and survived.
Wolfshiem. In 'The Grapes of Wrath' unity is shown by Oakies in the government camp, where the Oakies have the power, and are free from corruption. Steinbeck is suggesting that this is what the Oakies need to accomplish externally to achieve their dream, and without unity the Oakies will never prevail. The pursuit of the American Dream is a major theme throughout the novels 'The Great Gatsby' and 'The Grapes of Wrath'.
Fear and Redemption in Cry the Beloved Country & nbsp; Fear grips all black societies and is widespread not only among black people but also white people. An unborn child will inherit this fear and will be deprived of loving and relishing his country because the greater he loves his country, the greater will be his pain. Paton shows us this throughout this book, but at the same time he also offers deliverance from this pain. This, I believe, is the greater purpose of this book. & nbsp; When Stephen goes to Johannesburg, he has a childlike fear for "the great city" Johannesburg. Khumalo's fears about his family are exactly the same as every other black person in South Africa.
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 book, Grapes of Wrath, follows the life of the Joad family, who live in Oklahoma during the Depression. The story begins with the return of Tom Joad from prison, where he has spent the last few years. He killed a boy in a bar fight and is now on parole. He is taken by surprise when he returns to Oklahoma only to find that his house is in ruins and his family is not there. He doesn’t know that, while he was gone, the banks forced his family and thousands of others off their land. Tom is accompanied by a former priest, Casey, who searches with Tom for his family. Tom and Casey find the Joad family at Tom’s uncle’s house. The family is preparing to move west to California in hopes that they will find jobs and escape the Dust Bowl drought. The Dust Bowl drought has killed all the farmer’s crops and the land has lost it’s richness. Tom decides to travel with his family, even though he’s going against parole rules by leaving the state.
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.