The Character of Casey in The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck passionately describes a time of unfair poverty, unity, and the human spirit growth in the classic novel, The Grapes of Wrath. The novel tells of real, diverse characters that experience growth through turmoil and hardship. Jim Casy, a personal favorite character, is an ex-preacher that meets with a former worshiper, Tom Joad. Casy continues a relationship with Tom and the rest of the Joads as they embark on a journey to California with the hopes of prosperity. Casy represents how the many situations in life impact the ever-changing souls of human beings and the search within to discover one's true identity and beliefs. Casy, however, was much more complex than the average individual. His unprejudiced, unified, Christ-like existence twists and turns with every mental and extraneous disaccord. Jim Casy is an interesting, complicated man. He can be seen as a modern day Christ figure, except without the tending manifest belief in the Christian faith. The initials of his name, J.C., are the same as those of Jesus Christ. Just as Jesus was exalted by many for what he stood for and was supposed to be, Casy was hailed and respected by many for simply being a preacher. Casy and Jesus both saw a common goodness in the average man and saw every person as holy. Both Christ and Casy faced struggles between their ideals and the real world. Despite Casy's honesty, goodness, and loyalty to all men, he would not earn a meal or warm place to stay. Although Jesus had many followers, still others opposed his preaching until the very end. These prophets attempted to disengage man from the cares of the world and create a high spiritualism that stemmed joy from misery. All the migrants found pleasures along their trips and kept their hope and spirit throughout the journey. Thanks to Jesus, the saddest, dullest existence has had its glimpse of Heaven. Casy once remarked, I gotta see them folks that's gone out on the road. I gotta feelin' I got to see them. They gonna need help no preachin' can give 'em. Hope of heaven when their lives ain't lived? Holy Sperit when their own sperit is downcast an' sad?" (page #) Casy wished to reach out to others in spite of his own troubles. He wanted to give them sprit; hope and he wanted to rejuvenate their souls.
An example of Holden’s changes is when he realizes that he can’t stop even half of the “f**k you’s” in society. You may think it is not important, but it is a vary symbolic point because he realizes that he cannot be the protector or catcher in the rye. Holden dreams of shielding all of the innocent kids from mean words or hurtful comments were shattered by this single declaration. An example of this is when Holden sees the "f**k you" for the first time on the wal...
Steinbeck's relationship to the transcendentalists [Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman] was pointed out soon after The Grapes of Wrath appeared by Frederick I. Carpenter, and as the thirties fade into history, Jim Casy with his idea of the holiness of all men and the unreality of sin seems less a product of his own narrowly doctrinaire age than a latter-day wanderer from the green village of Concord to the dry plains of the West.
Like many events in the novel, many characters in Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath symbolize the theme of Christianity. The most obvious character would be that of Jim Casy. Jim Casy was previously a preacher, but he gave up preaching because he felt he had sinned. He travels with the Joad family on their journey to California, and although he insists that he has given up his counseling past, he continues to act as a preacher for the Joad family.
In 1939, The Grapes of Wrath was published and came under fire for its content. Vulgarity and the misrepresentation of a preacher were the main complaints that led to the ban and burning of the novel from St. Louis, Missouri libraries in September 1939. Vulgarity may be prevalent in the book, but it has its purpose. Steinbeck used some vulgar terms to accurately represent the lingo and slang that was used by the people of the 1930's. Most of the terms that were considered vulgar may be a bit distasteful, but is nothing that is not heard on the streets today. Extreme profanity is not extraneous in the novel, in fact, it is tame compared to slang terms used today. Casy, the former preacher that was traveling with the Joads, is not be given the connotation as the most holy man. Casy did not consider himself a minister at the time The Grapes of Wrath takes place. "But I ain't a preacher no more" is spoken many times by Casy in denial that he is a man of the cloth. Indeed, Casy is brutally killed in the novel, but it does not go into graphic, violent detail. Once again, Casy's feelings against the employers and government were common to the time and were used to state that idea.
The Native American Two-Spirit is a unique cultural phenomenon that reveals much about gender variance and sexuality. A further understanding of Two-Spirit people speaks to both traditional Native American society and to our larger sexually diverse modern society. Like many topics in the academic sphere, the interest in studying Two-Spirit people ebbed and flowed until finally gaining momentum. Interest in the topic increased during the American Indian civil rights movement, the feminist movement and LBGTQ activism. With each new generation of scholarship the analysis of Two-Spirit people evolved from anthropological, feminist, and post-modernist perspectives, amongst others. These analyses as well as the influence of cultural changes have created interpretations of the Two-Spirit phenomena as both a traditional shaman and contemporary LBGTQ icon.
The gained unity the team accomplished brought a new attitude of race for the rest of TC Williams as well as the community of Alexandria. The community of Alexandria began to integrate with each other with race not being a problem anymore. In the film Remember the Titans, through Yakin’s uses of setting, dialogue, and characterization, he takes the problem of race and intolerance to bring out tolerance, unity, and friendships.
In conclusion, littering needs to be terminated all together, though it will take more than a couple of months, it is possible. With a couple of community service organizations in Indianapolis trying their best to pick up all the litter, that is a first step towards a cleaner and healthier environment. The consequences of litter are very harmful and yet, more people are littering everyday not knowing what that they are putting themselves at risk. If cops become stricter about this law and look out for more litterers, and make the punishment much stricter, I believe in the future, littering will be much more uncommon and the environment will look more beautiful.
It’s Raymond’s blindness which eventually allows the narrator to see. The one thing that the narrator thought made him superior to Raymond, the ability to visualize what’s around him, is actually what’s made him inferior this entire time and only through experiencing the world as Raymond experiences it is he able to understand that there is much more to life than just looking at things from the outside. He realizes that in order to be able to sincerely appreciate his surroundings he needs to take more time to sit down and think about the things in front of him, even the ever...
Prior to 15th century colonization, indigenous peoples of North America enjoyed a gender system that included not only women and men, but also a third gender known as Two-Spirit. In Native American culture, individuals who identified as Two-Spirit were revered by society and held important roles among tribes. In their article “The Way of the Two-Spirited Pe...
The French Revolution was a war in France between the French royalty and the French serfs, which lasted ten years, from seventeen eighty-nine to seventeen ninety-nine. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens is set before and during the French Revolution. In his novel, Dickens used many metaphors to add enhancement. He also used many themes throughout the novel, one of them being the theme of fate. Dickens improved his novel excellently through his use of the innovative metaphors of a storm, knitting, and water to convey the theme of fate.
In the novel, The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck brings to the reader a variety of diverse and greatly significant characters. However, the majority of each characters' individuality happens to lie within what they symbolize in the microcosm of the Joad family and their acquaintances, which itself stands for the entire migrant population of the Great Depression era. One such character is that of Jim Casey, a former preacher and long-time friend of the Joads. In this story, Casey represents a latter-day Christ figure who longs to bring religious stability to the burgeon of migrant families facing West.
An organization’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) drives them to look out for the different interests of society. Most business corporations undertake responsibility for the impact of their organizational pursuits and various activities on their customers, employees, shareholders, communities and the environment. With the high volume of general competition between different companies and organizations in varied fields, CSR has become a morally imperative commitment, more than one enforced by the law. Most organizations in the modern world willingly try to improve the general well-being of not only their employees, but also their families and the society as a whole.
A child soldier is defined as someone who is under eighteen years of age and is actively fighting in war. It is estimated by UNICEF that some 300,000 child soldiers, both boys and girls, are currently fighting in wars. A majority of children are turned into child soldiers through recruitment or force while others join because they live in a poverty stricken area or a war zone. (UNICEF) Most child soldiers range ...
In this assignment my goals is to compare and contrast two images that represent popular American icons a unique way. The two images that were gathered to compare and contrast are of Superman and Batman. Throughout my analysis we can determine that the Superman and Batman characters, have three major features that are as follows; posture, costumes and the background of the photos.
Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to Corey Morgan, Central Community College-Hastings Campus, East Highway 6, Hastings, NE 68901. Email: Corey75231@cccneb.edu