The Grapes of Wrath by John Stienbeck

379 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Civilization and savagery in grapes of wrath

The Grapes of Wrath by John Stienbeck

In The Grapes of Wrath, Stienbeck illustrates such powerful images using his own values. When the Joad family starts deciding to move to California for a better life, the story begins. Tom comes home from prison and the family is reunited. The hopes of all are refreshed and the move seems to be a good idea. And here we have one of Steinbecks greatest value, the family or the group, and the ties that lie within it. This value is seen through many different examples in this novel.

The first and the main example of the family value would most obviously be seen through the Joad family. Even though each person has his or her own separate and unique personalities, as a family they act as though they are one person. It makes important decisions as a group; such as moving to California. Then moving as a group; taking everyone at all costs. It reacts to major events the same. As a group, the Joad family makes the long journey across the country. As the story plays on, the Joads merge with Wainwrights and the Wilsons. Bringing the sense of a whole back to the immagrants. And again like the Joad family, everyone shares to make things work out for all. This idea is the value of family that Steinbeck is portraying.

In the Government camp, Steinbeck's values are shown on a larger scale. With the cooperation of hundreds of men and women, a suitable camp is formed in the midst of a corrupt society. The people act as one; they elect their own leaders, and obey the laws that are set. A set of laws that must be followed because without the laws, there would be no group. Allowing the group to prosper from all the individuals. In one scene there are three people who try to cause trouble at a dance. With the unison of the camp, the outcasts are surrounded and discarded without any ruckus. Steinbeck shows that with a group, things can get done.

As the story comes to a close, the Joad family is almost all broken up. In a bigger perspective than the government camp, the final scene implies what Cassy was trying to say from the beginning; that nobody has an individual soul, but everybody's just got a piece of a great big soul.

Show More
Related

  • Grapes Of Wrath

    2419 Words  | 5 Pages

    He learns his family has moved in with his uncle John and decides to travel a short distance to see them. He arrives only to learn they are packing up their belongings and moving to California, someplace where there is a promise of work and food. This sets the Joad family off on a long and arduous journey with one goal: to survive.      In this novel Steinbeck set forth with the intention of raising awareness to the general public of the difficulties and injustices these migrants faced during this period in time. It exposed the methods of the California farmer to use the migrants in order to lower their costs and make their profit margin higher. How they starved and cheated the poor, working man, in order to keep him desperate for food and too weak to protest.

    Read More

  • Intercalary Themes In 'The Grapes Of Wrath'

    354 Words  | 1 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Tom Joad's Redemption In The Grapes Of Wrath

    797 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Ma Joad in the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

    1030 Words  | 3 Pages

    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).

    Read More

  • The Grapes Of Wrath Chapter Analysis

    480 Words  | 1 Pages

    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,

    Read More

  • Making Hard Choices in The Grapes of Wrath

    905 Words  | 2 Pages

    In literature as in life, people often find that they must make difficult choices in order to survive.  The reasons behind their decisions and the results of their subsequent actions affect our opinion of them.  In the Grapes of Wrath, written by John Steinbeck, the author portrayed situations where two main characters became involved.  The nature of their choices, the reasons behind their decisions, and the results that followed affected them greatly.  However, the choices that they made were surmounted successfully.  Ma Joad and Tom Joad are two strong characters who overcame laborious predicaments.  Their powerful characteristics helped to encourage those that were struggling.

    Read More

  • Grapes of Wrath

    1018 Words  | 3 Pages

    California in search for a brighter, economic future. The name Joad and the exodus to

    Read More

  • The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

    1007 Words  | 3 Pages

    The first and most obvious conflict the Joad family faces in the beginning of the novel is the ongoing struggle with nature. Beginning the novel is a description of the "Dust Bowl" and the families trying to work the land and make a living. The Joad family's home and land is taken away because they cannot grow any crop during the drought and are forced from their home by the bank. This is when they decide to move west to California and find work and a better life there.

    Read More

  • Steinbeck's Social Commentary in The Grapes of Wrath

    679 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Transformations In John Steinbeck's Grapes Of Wrath

    1413 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Grapes Of Wrath

    1368 Words  | 3 Pages

    From a more romantic perspective one might be inclined to say the main theme behind this story is choices made by man as a unit when obstacles and circumstances arise, perhaps perseverance through hardship. But this book rarely displays romantic or idealistic interactions among the characters or moments in the plot. Although there is one example of slight romantisicm at end, the book for the most part is an excellent illustration of naturalism in a piece of literature. To shine this main theme under a naturalistic light, the reader must be allowed to examine the deep psychological, emotional and physical connection between man and his land so often demonstrated and greatly emphaisized throughout the book. The cliffsnotes state that this connection is a basic fundament to the Jeffersonian agrarian theory. A great example of when Steinbeck incorporates this philosophy is when the representatives of the bank are telling the tenant farmers that they need to get off the land. They feel that since they lived and died on the land, it is rightfully theirs. "Funny thing how it is. If a man owns a little property, that property is in him, it's part of him, and it's like him (37)." Since the bond between the farmer and his property is so strong, once it is broken the people loose their self-respect, dignity, and meaning. Steinbeck uses this idea to foreshadow and help explain the events of Grandpa's death and to further drive the ideas Casy preaches. Casy suggests at the funeral that Granpa died the moment he was torn from his land. He also speculates that only if the band together and make sacrifices for the unit, the Joads and the Wilsons can they survive. "We on'y got a hundred an' fifty dollars. They take forty to bury Grampa an' we won't get to California (140)." They decide that for the family the best thing to do is to bury him on the road.

    Read More

  • The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

    526 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Grapes of Wrath

    1194 Words  | 3 Pages

    Because of the devastating disaster of the dust bowl, the Joad family was forced to leave their long-time home and find work and a new life elsewhere. They, like many other families, moved to California. "The land of milk and honey". The people in the dust bowl imagined California as a haven of jobs where they would have a nice little white house and as much fruit as they could eat. This dream was far from the reality the migrant farmers faced once in California. The dreams, hopes, and expectations the Joads had of California were crushed by the reality of the actual situation in this land of hate and prejudice.

    Read More

  • The Theme of Man vs. Environment in The Grapes of Wrath

    1405 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Intercalary Chapters In The Grapes Of Wrath

    488 Words  | 1 Pages

    The narrative only tells the story of Tom Joad’s family. Without the intercalary chapters, we would not get to learn about other situations. A perfect example of this is chapter fifteen, in which Steinbeck incorporates a few different scenarios. First off, he explains an incident where a lady was crashed into by a reckless driver. “Drove like he’s blin’ drunk. Jesus, the air was full a bed clothes an’ chickens an’ kids. Killed one kid. Never seen such a mess” (Steinbeck 215). This shows that not every person’s story about moving westward had a happy ending, and not every story was the same as the family of Tom Joad. In this chapter, we also see different people’s money situation. There was a lot of negotiating done in order for people to get what they not only want, but need. This added to the narrative about Tom Joad’s

    Read More

More about The Grapes of Wrath by John Stienbeck

Open Document