John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath: “And then the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out. Carloads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless – restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do – to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut – anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place to live. Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land.” This, just a small excerpt from Steinbeck’s novel, depicts the hardships and struggles that farmers faced during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. The Grapes of Wrath is an excellent source of information for this time period and includes historical facts, themes, and intricate details of living conditions of the migrant farmers.
John Steinbeck’s portrayal of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl is quite accurate. His descriptions of the Dust Bowl, the causes and what the “bowl” looked like, were precise according to Alan Brinkley’s text, The Unfinished Nation. Steinbeck and Brinkley both wrote that the worst drought in history had struck the Great Plains and lasted for a decade in the early 1930s. And at this time farmers had been tempted by high crop prices, which lead them to plow up the grass for more crop room and kept working the same crop, which eventually exhausted the soil. This and the lack of rainfall turned these regions into “virtual deserts,” and the great winds caused the dust to blow across the plains in clouds. Steinbeck went into great detail describing what this had looked liked. In his novel he described the Dust Bowl: “The wind increased, steady, unbroken gusts. The dusts from the roads fluffed up and spread out and fell on the weeds besides the fields . . . the sky was darkened by the mixing dust, and the wind felt over the earth, loosened the dust, and carried it away.” For the people living in these devastated lands, this was a very accurate account as to what the “weather” was like for weeks and months.
In The Grapes of Wrath the story followed the Joad family from their home in Oklahoma to California. They were forced to leave their home behind in search of work and land.
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.”
To begin with the “Dust Bowl” was one of the causes of economic fallout which resulted in the Great Depression because the “Dust Bowl” destroyed crops which were used to sell and make profit and the government had to give up a lot of money in order to try and help the people and land affected by the “Dust Bowl”. The “Dust Bowl” is referring to a time during the 1930’s where the Great Plains region was drastically devastated by drought. All of the including areas (Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico) all had little to no rainfall, light soil, and high winds, which were not a very suitable combination. The drought lasted from 1934 to 1937, most of the soil during the drought lacked the better root system of grass. Therefore it was easy for the
California in search for a brighter, economic future. The name Joad and the exodus to
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 Dust Bowl, a tragic era lasting from 1930 to 1939, was characterized by blinding dust storms.
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.
The Dust Bowl was a treacherous storm, which occurred in the 1930's, that affected the midwestern people, for example the farmers, and which taught us new technologies and methods of farming. As John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath: "And then the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out. Carloads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless - restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do - to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut - anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place to live. Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land." The early thirties opened with prosperity and growth. At the time the Midwest was full of agricultural growth. The Panhandle of the Oklahoma and Texas region was marked contrast to the long soup lines of the Eastern United States.
In the novel, The Grapes Of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, gender and stereotype role is present most of the time in this story. My thesis statement is Men act like Women and Women act like Men. The narrator of The Grapes of Wrath shows general portraits of life in a clear picture of the roles of men and women. The men consider the losses, while the women look on silently, reading their husband's expressions. Men make decisions, and women tend to the house chores. Men slaughter and hunt, while women prepare and cook.
The film Grapes of Wrath, directed by John Ford in 1940 is based on John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, in which a family migrates from the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma to California, after economic depression caused their family farm to collapse. The main characters of the three generation family are Ma and Tom Joad. They are joined by Jim Casy, a former preacher, now fallen out of religion who inspires Tom to support the cause of the working poor. Migrating to California, the Joads and Jim Casey have to overcome a variety of different problems. The central argument made in the movie is that people had to stick together during the time of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression in order to overcome hardships, such as trouble with the law, starvation,
“Well, the folks that owns the lan’ says, ‘we can’t afford to keep not tenants.” The owners of where the Joads lived had to move them out because they could not afford anyone to stay on their land. This shows the struggles and effects of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression on families’ and everyone involved. In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck shows his disgust with capitalism and how it victimizes poor families who will do anything for money.
In the Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck uses intercalary chapters to provide background for the various themes of the novel, as well to set the tone of the novel".
Throughout history, many devastating economic, social, and environmental changes have occurred causing people to rise and overcome immense odds. In the 1930s, The Great Depression and the Dustbowl Disaster, a drought with horrific dust storms turning once-fertile agricultural lands of mid-America into virtual wastelands, forced thousands of destitute farmers to pack their families and belongings into their cars in search of agricultural work in central California. Years of degradation stemming from the end of slavery beginning at the conclusion of the Civil War destructed the old southern aristocratic families. These different external influences impact on the characters is seen in John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath, and William Faulkner’s novel, The Sound and the Fury. Steinbeck illustrates and advocates drastic external changes in the economy and life style of the downtrodden migrants, as he follows the Joad family from Oklahoma to California. Faulkner depicts the decline of the aristocratic south through the eyes of the Compson children.
A major drought, over-cultivation, and a country suffering from one of the greatest depressions in history are all it took to displace hundreds of thousands of Midwesterners and send them, and everything they had, out west. The Dust Bowl ruined crops all across the Great Plains region, crops that people depended on for survival. When no food could be grown and no money could be made, entire families, sometimes up to 8 people or more, packed up everything they had and began the journey to California, where it was rumored that jobs were in full supply. Without even closing the door behind them in some cases, these families left farms that had been with them for generations, only to end up in a foreign place where they were neither welcomed nor needed in great quantity. This would cause immense problems for their futures. It is these problems that author John Steinbeck spent a great deal of his time studying and documenting so that Americans could better understand the plight of these migrant farmers, otherwise known as "Okies." From touring many of these "Hoovervilles" and "Little Oklahomas" (pg. v) Steinbeck was given a firsthand look at the issues and hardships these migrant workers faced on a daily basis. With the help of Tom Collins, manager of a federal migrant labor camp, Steinbeck began a "personal and literary journey" (pg. v), revealing to the world the painful truth of these "Okies" in his book Harvest Gypsies.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is a novel depicting the struggle and distraught brought towards migrant workers during the Great Depression. The Grapes of Wrath follows one Oklahoma family, the Joads, as they journey down Route 66 towards the earthly paradise of California. While on route to California, the Joads interact with fellow besieged families, non-hospitable farmers, and common struggles due to the Depression. Steinbeck uses these events to show strong brotherhood through biblical allusion, character development, and inter chapters.
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.
One of the most important parts of a book is its title. Some authors like to put a meaning in their title that can only be understood once the book has been read. John Steinbeck, the author of The Grapes of Wrath is no exception.