Daniel Graham
AP English Literature
1 August 2017
The Importance of Family In the novel, Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, the Joad family was kicked off their farmland in Oklahoma by wealthy farmers and are forced to travel to California so they can find work and not starve to death. Along their travels to California, they encounter many different situations and the Joad’s ability to change their family roles so that the family can get through their travels easier. As well as the Joad’s ability to lean on their family members gets them through these harsh times. And their ability to also expand and contract their “family” based on kinship helps ease their travel west. The Joad family is able to complete their journey to California because
So the Joad’s and the other migrant families need to rely on new connections and new kinships to be formed to create a family. Where in the migrant communities “twenty families became one family, the children were children of all”. (Steinbeck 342). This connection and kinship is also seen when the Joad’s and the Wilson’s meet, the two different biological families quickly become one new family and collectively share each other’s hardships and commitments to survival. This new family is able to form because both the Joad’ and the Wilson’s are able to relies that this kinship is needed for both families to survive in this new reality. Another example of how the Joad’s are able to shape their family into one that is based on kinship is inside of the unions that Tom Joad and Jim Casy, a former preacher, set out to create to protect the people from the wealthy and the government. The lives of the migrants’ rest on the unions ability to look out for one another in the face of danger. Tom Joad eventually realizes the fact that “his people are all people” (Steinbeck 393), and that he has created one big family that will protect each
This importance is not only show in the chapters about the Joad’s, but also in the chapters that follow the movement of thousands of men and women during the Dust Bowl. The Joad family undergoes a transformation throughout the novel. At the start of the novel, the Joad family follows a very traditional family structure, in which the males are the leaders of the family while the females do as the males say. And by the end of the novel the mother is in complete control of the family, while the father is withdrawn from the family and it stuck in thought. This family structure shift helps the Joad’s overcome with the trials of moving west. The traditional family members also shift, families are no longer determined by biological means, but instead families are made through fellowship and kinship. This allows families to grow and become more supportive of each other. This shift gives migrant a boost because they know that they are not alone and that the other migrants will welcome them and support them on their journey to California. Families, and the many changes to families, helps each one of the migrants along on their journey from their farmland to the promise land of
As the Joad family faces the same trials that the turtle faces, and as the desperate farmers have to deal with car dealerships, the intercalary chapters help to set the tone of, as well as integrate the various themes of The
Steinbeck meets his standard by celebrating the migrant workers’ drive and sense of community in the face of the Great Depression. The Joad family and many others, are dedicated to conquering all odds: “[t]hus they changed their social life–changed as in the whole universe only man can change” (Steinbeck 196). There are no other options available for these tenant families than to take the trek to California in hopes of finding work. The fears they once had about droughts and floods now lingered with
Most of Steinbeck’s work conveys a deeper meaning or message to the readers, and The Grapes of Wrath presents no exception, as redemption’s prevalence influences the growth of each character. Although the book ends with a tragic flood after the family has faced the loss of Rose of Sharon’s newborn baby, the novel still ends in happiness, since characters such as Jim Casy, Uncle John, Tom Joad, and Rose of Sharon attain redemption and in doing so, become saviors for migrant families. Steinbeck manifests the idea the migration did not necessarily implicate the Joads would find prosperity in the promised land of California, but would instead fulfill the quest for absolution, which results in their heroic
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.
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,
Steinbeck's intercalary chapters in The Grapes of Wrath have nothing to do with the Joads or other characters of the novel, but help describe the story in different terms. They are similar to poems, offering different viewpoints of the migration, and clarifying parts of the story that the reader might not understand. An excellent example of this use can be seen in chapter 21, where an examination of the attitudes of migrant Okies and the residents of California reveals the changing nature of land ownership among the changing population of California and gives greater meaning to the fierce hostility that the Joads meet in California.
In fact, one principal character who was involved in a difficult situation was Ma Joad. She was a wife and mother whose only occupation in life was a housewife. She lived in an unfair time period; women were forced to do almost everything that the man commanded. However, Ma Joad was different. Ever since the family traveled to California, she slowly began to take charge. This was first seen when Tom, Ma’s son, suggested that the family continue driving while he and Casy, the preacher, stayed behind to fix the Wilson’s (a family the Joads met on their way to California) automobile. Ma Joad was furious with this idea. She brought out a jack handle and said, “ ‘You done this ‘thout thinkin’ much. What we got lef ‘in the world’? Nothin’ but us. Nothin’ but the folks…An’ now, right off, you wanna bust up the folks’ “ (Steinbeck 218). Ma J...
The Joad’s were facing many conflicts and in the process of losing their house. They heard there was going to be work in California and wanted to take the risk and move out there to find a job to provide. The Dust Bowl and The Great Depression were pretty huge topics in history and the novel about The Grapes of Wrath had some pretty raw details about their journey and similar to both histories. The Joad family pushed each other to have a better life in California and did everything they could to have a job to provide and eat, and mainly survive to live another day. In the novel, the beginning, the Joad family faced and struggled with nature, dust nature, just like the people that experienced this during the Dust Bowl. The people in the Southern plains dealt with a huge dust storm and the Joad family were also faced with this storm but struggled from these dust storms because of no work. No work means you can’t eat and
The Joad family members were facing hardships from the beginning. Before the journey, Tom Joad had been in prison and that was a downer to everyone. In the scenes of overcoming this problem, Tom was released and his family was so excited and full of joy to see him. Before they could celebrate too much, they found themselves having to leave the land that most of them were born on, raised on and labored for. They decided that as shady as it was to be forced off their own land, the drought had shattered any hopes of prospering from it anyway. With the hope of a better life out in California and a flyer that said pickers needed, they set out for the proclaimed promised land.
Do you have any friend or relatives that are considered to be broken or disorganized family? Do you know that many disorganized family are likely to ties with their extended family? If you know any broken or disorganized families, you may realized that a broken family usually faced many difficulties, such as financial problem, missing family members, and they tend to be unhappy comparing to others. Moreover, missing a father figure in the house for a child could cause numbers of problems. In the novel “Looking for Work” the main character and also the author who named Gary Soto, a nine year old Mexican American boy, he was from a disorganized and broken family. That Gary desire to live out a life style just like the standard white American
From an article released shortly after The Grapes of Wrath was published, Frank J. Taylor writes that “the experiences of the Joad family… are not typical of those of the real migrants” (Hollister). Taylor also writes that “no migrant family hungers in California unless it is too proud to accept relief” (Hollister). This is a very different perspective from Steinbeck who writes that “groups of sodden men [go] out… to the towns, to the country stores, to the relief offices, to beg for food, to cringe and beg for food, to beg for relief, to try to steal, to lie” (Steinbeck 433). These two contradicting views raise the question of which side is telling the truth, most likely neither are exactly true so the reader must compromise and settle for the middle
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
On the way to California, the Joad's encountered other people that had already been to California and were now returning. One of these encounters, with the ragged man with the sunburned face, is described on page 242. The ragged man had children that died because wages were too low and work was too scarce to afford food for his children and wife. His story was one of pain and despair and was evidence of the cruel and inhumane treatment which resulted from the California farmers prejudice towards the migrant workers.
In John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family and the changing world in which they live is portrayed from a naturalistic point of view. Steinbeck characterizes the Joads and their fellow migrants as simple, instinct-bound creatures who are on an endless search for paradise (Owens 129). The migrants and the powers which force them to make their journey--nature and society--are frequently represented by animals. The Joads, when they initially leave home, are a group of simplistic, animal-like people who barely understand or even realize their plight, but as the story progresses, they begin to grow and adapt to their new circumstances. They evolve from a small, insignificant group of creatures with no societal consciousness into a single member of a much larger family--society.
While traveling in California, the Joads family meet many types of people. Some of the residents were quite rude and called them offensive names, such as, Okies, when they stopped to take a break at a camping ground. There were others that were kind, but felt they could only secretly help them because they feared the anger of the mean residents or that they may not have a farm the next year. The Joads met many people on their trip, some helping them more than others.