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Different types of journeys in literature
The analysis of the character in novel the grapes of wrath
The analysis of the character in novel the grapes of wrath
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In the novel, The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, there are numerous characters that go through different transitions throughout the novel. Tom Joad, is a man who just got out of jail, who finds his purpose in life. Ma Joad, becomes the “unofficial leader” of the family. Pa Joad, who was originally the “man” of the household, loses his title. These three main characters go through many alterations throughout their journey from Oklahoma to California. They come across many challenging obstacles that change the way they go through life. For Tom and Ma, these changes are positive, but unfortunately for Pa, his changes are not. Two main characters and one minor character are transformed in one way or another near the end of the book. Tom …show more content…
Only until that person dedicates their life for a group of others, who have a great enough cause, will the effect be grand. He realizes he can no longer stay devoted to his family, because his actions are only helping them and not others. Tom finds his passion through the teachings of Casy and through his findings. He kicks out three rabble rousers who were spies at the Weedpatch. Then while at the peach farm, he wants answers of those picketing outside the gate. These are only a couple of his findings. Casy shares with Tom many of his ideas. His ideas of having another person to help someone up when they fall, because two is greater than one. Then the other idea, of creating much more heat when with someone, than by oneself. It is also much harder to stop two than to stop one. He wants to be like Casy and help orchestrate the workers’ campaign and fight inequality. Tom finds his passion and purpose in life. To help the migrants and the next generation of workers get a better future. This is when Tom makes his final transition. He learns to forget his philosophy of “living for today”, carpe diem, and becomes devoted to creating a better …show more content…
With this strength, she earns the unofficial title as “head” of household. In the beginning, Steinbeck shows that Ma is already a tough woman. She beat a tin peddler with a chicken because she forgot which hand held the ax. Ma contains her feelings from the beginning of the story to the end. She does not show her family the pain she felt losing all her possessions, which she had to burn, the land, and the house. Her biggest show of strength was when she rode in the back of the truck with Granma, nurturing her, until she passed away in her arms. Ma waits to tell her family of her passing until they see the valley. The Joads look to her to see if they should feel any sort of emotion. So she remains calm throughout all of these tragedies, so they will never be able to know pain and fear. This gives her power to her title as “head” of household. The Joads do not look to Pa to see whether they should be afraid. Additionally, Ma does the same work she did before she left Oklahoma. She feed the family, cleaned their area, and took care of the household. On the road to California and when they arrived there, these duties became the top priority. This also helped give her the title as “head” of household. On their journey Pa decides to leave Tom with the broken tour car. Ma will not allow this to happen. Her main priority and dream is to arrive to California with the family still together. Pa obeys Ma and
When times get tough, many people turn away from everyone and everything. It must be part of human nature to adopt an independent attitude when faced with troubles. It is understandable because most people do not want to trouble their loved ones when they are going through problems, so it is easier to turn away than stick together. Maybe their family is going through a rough patch and they reason they would be better off on their own. This path of independence and solitude may not always be the best option for them or their family, though. Often times it is more beneficial for everyone to work through the problem together. It is not always the easiest or most desirable option, but most times it is the most efficient and it will get results in the long run. In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck makes this point very clear through several characters. Many characters throughout
Along with Jim Casy and Uncle John, Tom Joad secures redemption by leaving to protect his family, promising to continue Casy’s legacy, and developing into a stronger character who aspires to restore justice to the migrants, despite his previous nonchalant attitude toward his crime. Initially, Tom Joad has no inclination for absolution, remarking, “I’d do what I done again...I killed a guy in a fight, knocked his head to plumb to squash” (Steinbeck 35). His words indicate his feelings about his crime, and reveal his apathetic and uncaring persona. However, Tom’s attitude shifts when he kills another man shortly after Casy’s death, and “did not sleep. The nerves of his wounded face came back to life...to shake him” (Steinbeck 528). This foreshadows
Among them are only four women of all 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 describes Ma as a strong woman, physically “heavy, thick with childbearing and work” (Chap.8).
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,
In fact, one principal character who was involved in a difficult situation was Ma Joad. She was a wife and mother whose only occupation in life was a housewife. She lived in an unfair time period; women were forced to do almost everything that the man commanded. However, Ma Joad was different. Ever since the family traveled to California, she slowly began to take charge. This was first seen when Tom, Ma’s son, suggested that the family continue driving while he and Casy, the preacher, stayed behind to fix the Wilson’s (a family the Joads met on their way to California) automobile. Ma Joad was furious with this idea. She brought out a jack handle and said, “ ‘You done this ‘thout thinkin’ much. What we got lef ‘in the world’? Nothin’ but us. Nothin’ but the folks…An’ now, right off, you wanna bust up the folks’ “ (Steinbeck 218). Ma J...
Tom is good natured and deals with what life throws at him, during the long trip towards work the family has realized the can count on Tom to help protect them. His past isn't going to define his future or change the way he feels about his family. As they arrive to California they get the devastating news that work is sparse and many people are dying of starvation, including Grampa who dies of a stroke. When the major change of losing a family member Tom realizes that life can be gone faster than you think and you see him changing into a more considerate person and a more sentimental person towards others. After they have buried Grampa, Tom comes across a “one eyed mechanic” who he helps fix his touring car. An act that he would probably never do in his past. Steinbeck shows Toms development into a more considerate person as the book
Throughout the book Steinbeck uses personification through Charley to create the idea that Charley is more than just a dog but he is a friend to Steinbeck, someone to rely on throughout his journey. Charley is alluded to a French gentleman poodle. He is portrayed as extremely wise and his uses for making connections with the people they encounter on their journey across the US. My understanding from reading the book and seeing how the book is portrayed gives me the idea that Charley has dignity and pride. The book states “Charley was torn three ways—with anger at me for leaving him, with gladness at the sight of Rocinante, and with pure pride in his appearance. For when Charley is groomed and clipped and washed he is as pleased with himself
Ma is supposed to be seen as the matriarchal archetype, a strong-willed, beautiful woman who can take care of her family. While men were distracted by how bad things got, “the women knew how the past would cry to them in the coming days”. (111) Steinbeck implants thoughts of both patriarchal dismissal and feminine uprising throughout the novel when Ma gradually makes more of the decisions and personally sacrifices more for her family, and both men and women in the family turn to her for traditionally male
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.
In the novel The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, a fictitious migrant family, the Joads, travel west in search of a new life away from the tragedies of the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma. Along the way, Steinbeck adds a variety of minor characters with whom the Joads interact. Steinbeck created these minor characters to contrast with the Joad’s strong will power and to reflect man’s fear of new challenges, and to identify man’s resistance to change. Three minor characters who fulfill this role are Muley Graves, Connie Rivers, and the tractor driver.
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
In the novel The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck the author uses excessive profanity, religion, and migrants to show the hard times family’s had to go through in the 1930’s. Most people believe that Steinbeck novel is too inappropriate for high school students because of its content. This novel should be banned from the high school curriculum.
The Grapes of Wrath is a novel written by John Steinbeck, which focuses on an Oklahoman family that is evicted from their farm during an era of depression caused by the Dust Bowl. The Joad family alongside thousands of other refugees (also affected by the dirty thirties) migrates west towards California seeking employment and a new home. John Steinbeck’s purpose for writing this novel was to inform his audience of how many of their fellow Americans were being mistreated and of the tribulations they faced in order to attain regain what they once had. As a result, The Grapes of Wrath triggered its audience’s sympathy for the plight of the Dust Bowl farmers and their families.
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.
Ma believed that as long as a preacher was with them, nothing could go wrong. As the story progressed, her optimistic state of mind about the preacher being with them was ruined. Casy tells Ma that he is not a preacher anymore but Ma believes, “once a preacher, always a preacher.” Anytime grace was needed, she insisted Casy say it. The Joad family loses a few family members on the way to California, so Casy is forced to say a few words as they bury them. Casy even happens to make an impact on Tom throughout the story. Tom manages to memorize a few bible verses that Casy referred to and also begins to see the truth in those verses. Casy is killed by police, leading Tom to decidethat it is safer for him to leave the family and go out on his own so that he does not cause them anymore trouble. So Tom gives Ma peace as he tells her about his plans to follow in Casy’s footsteps and help people start labor strikes for higher wages, just as he