Symbolism in the Grapes of Wrath

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During the depression of the 1930's, the combined evils of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought left many southern farming families landless and weak. Little hope was left for them but to pack up and moved to California, which was widely advertised in circulated handbills that promised work and inspired hope. John Steinbeck’s epic novel, The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of the migrant farmers’ travels and what they met at their destination. Intertwined within the plot and the intercalary chapters of the story is a profound use of symbolism in various forms and with many meanings. John Steinbeck deeply incorporates symbolism into the characters and plot of The Grapes Of Wrath to convey the adversity and the attitudes of the migrant farmers as well as other people involved in and effected by the dust bowl migration of the 1930's.

The journey of the land turtle in the opening of the novel is a near direct representation of the travels of the dust bowl migrants. The turtle, just like the migrants, embarks on a slow, yet steady journey in a clear direction with an unclear destination. Both meet several obstacles on the way, the turtle meets a hard to climb embankment, the migrants meet troubles with their cars and terrain. There are those who make the migrants’ journeys much more impossible such as deputies and salesmen, the turtle meets the truck that nearly causes its death. And when the turtle is on its back, just as the migrants lives are void of all hope, slowly, but surely they get themselves upright and back on track.

Jim Casey, the retired preacher introduced early in the plot is a symbol of transcendentalism, the idea of the Emersonian over soul, that all people are part of one great spirit, and serves as a Christ figure in the novel. He frequently refers to this single, great soul of the world, “maybe all men got one big soul ever’body’s a part of”(33). Casy’s role as a Christ figure in the novel fits very well into the journey of Christ portrayed in the bible. He takes a trek into the woods to sort things out, he followed the Joads on their journey west to help people along the way, “I got to go where the folks are goin’,” and sacrifices himself to the deputy in California to save Floyd and Tom for their aggression against the deputy(127).

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