The American Dream In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

Every age has its representative writer, whose career follows its major interests, whose

voice is its voice. In him we can see the moods, if not the actual events of his time, most clearly

reflected and its strongest drives most forcefully crystallized.

John Steinbeck is one of the few American writers who can be discussed in relation to the

past as well as the present. He is generally regarded as the most versatile artists of contemporary

American fiction. As Joseph Warren Beach rightly put it “An American writer who had appeared

with a sure and subtle sense for literary effect, a story-teller worthy to be compared to Chekov or

Anatole France for his skill in shaping up the stuff of human lives in forms that delight the mind

and imagination”,

However, they did not realize that an ideal

life was nearly impossible and it corrupted the minds of those in search of it. John Steinbeck

emphasized the unattainable nature of the American Dream of economic stability in The Grapes

of Wrath through the Joads’ cross country migration, their constant and unpredictable changes in

employment, and their eventual failure to find success in California.

The Joads’ migration from Oklahoma to California destroyed the existence of an

economically secure life. Before the Joad family headed west, they had a home, land,

and money. Migrating to California meant starting all over again. The Joads decided to leave

their old life in hopes of beginning a new, successful one. And many more migrants in search of

the American Dream were headed west, as well. The Joads did not think about the repercussions

that occurred from this move. Never once did they doubt that “there’s work there, and never gets

cold” 3 . They were drawn to the rumors that insisted “you can reach out anywhere and pick an

orange” 3 . Exotic descriptions like this, from an unheard-of land, propelled the Joads and