The Grapes of Wrath Prompt 1
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.”
Throughout the course of The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck applies repetition conveying an urgent tone that demonstrates how the Dust Bowl threatened
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the “American Dream.” An example of this is when, in the first chapter, Steinbeck keeps repeating the words “misfortune” and “it was all right” displaying how in most families, they had to repeat such things to convince themselves that everything would be okay (Steinbeck 7). Another example is in chapter twenty-one, an expository chapter about the migrants, that displays the true fear in not only the migrants, but others as well, “Men of property were terrified for their property. Men who had never been hungry saw the eyes of the hungry. Men who had never wanted anything very much saw the flare of want in the eyes of the migrants” this quote conveys the need and the yearning of the migrants, describing just how desperate they seem (Steinbeck 386). In chapter twenty-seven there is quite a bit of repetition, “crooked scales” for instance puts significance on how the cotton farmers and the cotton pickers both want that extra bit of money, even if it means accusing the other man of lying (Steinbeck 557). A last example of repetition is in the second chapter where the phrase “good guy,” referring to the truck driver, is used a multitude of times, Steinbeck wants to emphasize the importance of being a good guy in the Dust Bowl Era, as you never wanted to be on the wrong side when the metaphorical storm hits (Steinbeck 11). Throughout the text, repetition plays a key role in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath novel. In the novel The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck utilizes imagery as a way of focusing in on how the Dust Bowl cost the migrant people their dreams. For example, in chapter one the author, John Steinbeck, conveys the migrants struggle with the imagery: The last rains came gently, they did not cut the scarred earth. The plows crossed and recrossed the rivulet marks. The last rains lifted the corn quickly and scattered weed colonies and grass along the sides of the roads so that the gray country and the dark red country began to disappear under a green cover… the sun flared down on the growing corn day after day until a line of brown spread along the edge of each green bayonet.. The surface of the earth crusted, a thin hard crust (Steinbeck 3). Words like “flared down” and “weed colonies” paints the picture of how the migrants lives were being completely torn apart because of the Dust Bowl that took place (Steinbeck 3). Another example is in chapter eighteen when the Joads are in the desert, “their eyes were stony, and their brown faces were damp with perspiration. The burnt land and the black, cindery hills broke the even distance and made it terrible in the reddening light of the setting sun” outlining how most immigrants’ journeys through the desert were long and hard (Steinbeck 302). It truly shows the Joad family breaking in a way, since they begin to see that the “American Dream” is not real, it’s all just a hoax to bring the banks more money. Also, the example of imagery in chapter twenty-two where it reads: “The truck moved along the beautiful roads, past orchards where the peaches were beginning to color, past vineyards with the clusters pale and green, under lines of walnut trees whose branches spread half across the road. At each gate there was a sign: ‘No help wanted. No trespassing.’” this details how everything in California comes off as beautiful and really is what every American aspires to have, but the migrants can’t touch it (Steinbeck 434). The imagery throughout the novel truly portrays the disintegrating “American Dream.” Also, Steinbeck constructs symbols in The Grapes of Wrath to enlighten the higher class on how the Dust Bowl crushed the migrant’s dreams.
One symbol appears throughout chapter three, the turtle. It is a symbol for the migrants and how some people will go out of their way to knock them down, “the driver saw the turtle and swerved to hit it” simply because they want to, they want to feel like they are powerful (Steinbeck 22). However, some of the people go out of their way to avoid hurting the migrants, “she saw the turtle and swung to the right, off the highway, the wheels screamed and a cloud of dust boiled up” because they know that it would be immoral to hurt something, although they have more power (Steinbeck 22). Another example of a symbol is Rose of Sharon’s pregnancy, it holds new life for the family, except when the baby is born it is “a blue shriveled little mummy” that “‘Never breathed’ said Mrs. Wainwright softly. ‘Never was alive.’” symbolizing how the Joads never really had a chance (Steinbeck 603). They believe in their hearts that they persevere throughout their trials, but in the end they realized their certain doom as soon as they left for California, maybe even
before. Overall, the author, John Steinbeck encourages the upper class to see the Dust Bowl era in a new light in The Grapes of Wrath, as it killed the American Dream for many migrants. Steinbeck uses repetition to convey an urgent and demanding tone for people to change their ways and see how we are killing the dreams we all long to aspire to. He utilizes imagery to further his point, and he generates symbols to deepen the reader’s understanding of the text. The Grapes of Wrath is an American classic that praises unification and reprimands the evil that the government and society will sometimes promote to better itself.
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.
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 1930s, America’s Great Plains experienced a disastrous drought causing thousands of people to migrate west. As their land was devastated by the Dust Bowl, deprived farmers were left with few options but to leave. The Grapes of Wrath depicts the journey of the Joads, an Oklahoma based family which decides to move to California in search of better conditions. Coming together as thirteen people at the start, the Joads will undertake what represents both a challenge and their only hope. Among them are only four women embodying every ages: the Grandma, the Mother and her two daughters, the pregnant Rose of Sharon and the young Ruthie. Appearing in Chapter Eight the mother, who is referred to as “Ma”, holds a decisive role in Steinbeck’s novel. She is, along with her son Tom (the main character of the book), present from the early stage of the story until its very end. We will attempt to trace back her emotional journey (I) as well as to analyze its universal aspects and to deliver an overall impression on the book (II).
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.
One of America’s most beloved books is John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. The book portrays a family, the Joads, who leave Oklahoma and move to California in search of a more prosperous life. Steinbeck’s book garnered acclaim both from critics and from the American public. The story struck a chord with the American people because Steinbeck truly captured the angst and heartbreak of those directly impacted by the Dust Bowl disaster. To truly comprehend the havoc the Dust Bowl wreaked, one must first understand how and why the Dust Bowl took place and who it affected the most. The Dust Bowl was the result of a conglomeration of weather, falling crop prices, and government policies.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is considered a classic novel by many in the literary field. The trials and tribulations of the Joad family and other migrants is told throughout this novel. In order to gain a perspective into the lives of "Oakies", Steinbeck uses themes and language of the troubling times of the Great Depression. Some of these aspects are critiqued because of their vulgarity and adult nature. In some places, The Grapes of Wrath has been edited or banned. These challenges undermine Steinbeck's attempts to add reality to the novel and are unjustified.
“Everybody wants a little piece of lan'. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It's just in their head. They're all the time talkin' about it, but its jus' in their head.” (Steinbeck) The Grapes of Wrath is most often categorized as an American Realist novel. It was written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. As a result of this novel, Steinbeck won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and prominently cited the novel when he won the Nobel Prize a little over twenty years after the text’s publication. This text follows the Joad family through the Great Depression. It begins in Oklahoma, watching as the family is driven from their home by drought and economic changes. Within the introduction of the novel the living conditions is described, “Every moving thing lifted the dust into the air: The walking man lifted a thin layer as high as his waist, and a wagon lifted the dust as high as the fence tops and an automobile boiled a cloud behind it.” (Grapes, 1) This novel is and will remain one of the most significant novels of the Great Depression. Despite its controversial nature it is timeless. In fact, the ending of this text is one of the most controversial pieces of literature written during the time period, and has never accurately made its way into film. The ending to John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath is the most significant portion of the novel due to its historical accuracy as well as its message about the American spirit.
John Steinbeck’s acclaimed novel, The Grapes of Wrath, embodies his generation’s horrific tragedy. John Steinbeck’s writing gives insight on the devastating effects of the Dust Bowl on thousands of families and those who helped them. While Steinbeck's novel focuses on the Joad's family journey, he also includes writing of the general struggle of many families at the time. In John Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath, the usage of the term “Okies” degrades the workers, while the personification of the cars help depict the struggle of the journey, to exemplify the adaptation the migrant workers had to make to survive the new life.
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.
The Grapes of Wrath was written John Steinbeck, it was published in 1939. Steinbeck was interested in social and economic issues, the Grapes of Wrath is set during The Great Depression in America and follows one migrant farming families struggle. The southern states where farming was high such as Oklahoma, Arkansa, Texas and Nebraska were badly affected. Farmering families were unable to make any profit because of atrocious farming conditions. Harsh drought led to crop growth failure, then heavy winds blew away the topsoil on the land, resulting in vast amounts of Dust all over the land. Oklahoma became known as the “Dust bowl”. John Steinbeck sums up what many migrant families were forced to do in The Grapes of Wrath, “the dispossessed were drawn west from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out. Car-loads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand.” 1 From 1930 to 1935, almost 750,000 farms were lost through bankruptcy or sheriff sales. 2
“Those who overcome great challenges will be changed, and often in unexpected ways. For our struggles enter our lives as unwelcome guests, but they bring valuable gifts. And once the pain subsides, the gifts remain. These gifts are life's true treasures, bought at great price, but cannot be acquired in any other way” (Steve Goodier, Author). The themes displayed in both John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle revolve around the idea of overcoming struggles to learn lessons and achieve goals. The Grapes of Wrath tells a story of the Joad family living during the Great Depression and having to travel to California to work and survive after losing their land in Oklahoma. On their journey they encounter various
The last clear definite function of man—muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need—this is man. To build a wall, to build a house, a dam, and in the wall and house and dam to put something of Manself, and to Manself take back something of the wall, the house, the dam; to take hard muscles from the lifting, to take the clear lines and form from conceiving. For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. This you may say of man—when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward,
The Dust Bowl of Oklahoma devastated thousands of families living in Oklahoma during the 1930’s. The drought, destruction of crops, and ultimately failing economies drove these families out of their home in search of work. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, follows the journey of the Joad family as they venture away from a dry and dusty Oklahoma, in search of the luscious, orange filled California. Through his diction and use of perspective, John Steinbeck conveys to his audience the value of strength and perseverance, and is able to compose and unseemingly connection between the reader and the Joad family.
Money, the ultimate regarded affair in America, a topic still regarded today. John Steinbeck criticizes America constantly in The Grapes of Wrath. The Dust Bowl hit America hard; money and jobs were nowhere to be found, especially by the Joad family traveling toward California. Syntax, details, and colloquial diction reveal the growing capitalism in America as criticized by Steinbeck.
The author of “Tortilla Flat”, and many other novels, is John Steinbeck. John Steinbeck, an American author, was born on February 27,1902 and died December 20, 1968. He was raised in a humble family with three sisters. At the age of fourteen, Steinbeck started locking himself in his room to write; it was at this age that he became a writer. At the age of seventeen he enrolled at Stanford University, not as a personal interest but more to please his parents. After six years of being in and out of school, Steinbeck dropped out as he saw no use for college.