In Chapter 26 of The Grapes of Wrath, Ma Joad tells the store worker, “Learnin’ it all a time, ever’ day. If you’re in trouble, hurt or need help, go to the poor. They’re the only ones that’ll help, the only ones” (Steinbeck 376). She states this after she goes back and forth with the store clerk if she can come back later with her pay slip but take the food at that moment, however, the worker says he would get fired if he did that. With Ma’s persuasion, the worker ends up using his dime for her food, saying she can pay him back personally. This shows how others who are poor or lowly will help those who are destitute, while those who have money to spare aren’t willing to help. We can see this quote come alive throughout the whole book. The wealthy are cruel and dehumanize the migrant …show more content…
These men didn’t offer jobs, money, or food to the families living in poverty, and if they did, it was very little to nothing. However, we see that those who are in the same situation as the impecunious support those who are desperate. All around, we can see that the poor migrant families are just more compassionate towards others overall. In every camp, the families try to help each other out as much as they can. We can see that Ma Joad fed many little kids who were circling her while she was making dinner at the Weedpatch government camp for her and her family. However, because of her sympathy and compassion, she gave those children some of the limited food she had, knowing what it’s like to have a lack of food. In short, we can conclude that the wealthy, at least in The Grapes of Wrath, were heartless, uncompassionate human beings. They saw countless people, every day, come in and out of camps and jobs starving, having not enough money to even feed their own families, and yet would not take any consideration of
John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath, is one of the most influential books in American History, and is considered to be his best work by many. It tells the story of one family’s hardship during the Depression and the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s. The Joads were a hard-working family with a strong sense of togetherness and morals; they farmed their land and went about their business without bothering anyone. When the big drought came it forced them to sell the land they had lived on before anyone could remember. Their oldest son, Tom, has been in jail the past four years and returns to find his childhood home abandoned.
One of the ironies of Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath was that, as Ma Joad said, "If your in trouble or hurt or need -- go to poor people. They're the only ones that'll help -- the only ones."(pg 335) The irony is that if you need something you have to go to the people who have nothing.
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.
The Joad’s were facing many conflicts and in the process of losing their house. They heard there was going to be work in California and wanted to take the risk and move out there to find a job to provide. The Dust Bowl and The Great Depression were pretty huge topics in history and the novel about The Grapes of Wrath had some pretty raw details about their journey and similar to both histories. The Joad family pushed each other to have a better life in California and did everything they could to have a job to provide and eat, and mainly survive to live another day. In the novel, the beginning, the Joad family faced and struggled with nature, dust nature, just like the people that experienced this during the Dust Bowl. The people in the Southern plains dealt with a huge dust storm and the Joad family were also faced with this storm but struggled from these dust storms because of no work. No work means you can’t eat and
People often give up everything that have for others, not because they have a lot to give, but because they know what it feels like to have nothing.
Steinbeck strikes at the fear in every man’s soul, with his portrayal of the poverty stricken life of the Joads as they travel from one stage of abandonment and what would seem like a helpless state to a journey of enduring perseverance. The Joads, Steinbeck’s creation in the Novel Grapes of Wrath is a large close-knit family living in Oklahoma during the “Dust Bowl” era. Steinbeck documents their journey beginning with their homelessness due to the crop failures to them surviving in a box car at the end of their journey. I think Steinbeck’ intention is to illustrate to the reader that being poor doesn’t always equate with being helpless. The Joads demonstrate this by their resilience to overcome homelessness, death, and prejudice.
John Steinbeck wrote a book, The Grapes of Wrath, which would change forever the way Americans, thought about their social classes and even their own families. The novel was completed in 1938 and then published in 1939. When this novel was released the critics saw it as being very controversial. Some critics called it a master piece, while others called it pornography. Steinbeck's attack of the upper-class and the readers' inability to distinguish the fictitiousness of the book often left his readers disgruntled. The time period in which this book was written was the 1930's while there was a horrible drought going on in the Oklahoma pan handle and during the Great Depression. Thousands of Oklahoma families were forced off their land because of their failure to farm and as a result they were unable to pay their bills so the banks were foreclosing on their houses. This resulted in a huge population of people all migrating west to California, because they were promised work by big fruit plantations. Unfortunately, when this mass of people showed up the jobs with high wages advertised on the pamphlets were not there. This left them homeless and in deep poverty with no where to go. The families would stay in California though either in hoovervilles or government camps. Steinbeck brings you along with the Joads on their journey to California. Although Steinbeck shows some comparisons between the Joads and the greater migrant community, the Joads do not serve as a microcosm of that culture because they differ in regards to leadership of the family and also the Joads' willingness to give to anyone.
From an article released shortly after The Grapes of Wrath was published, Frank J. Taylor writes that “the experiences of the Joad family… are not typical of those of the real migrants” (Hollister). Taylor also writes that “no migrant family hungers in California unless it is too proud to accept relief” (Hollister). This is a very different perspective from Steinbeck who writes that “groups of sodden men [go] out… to the towns, to the country stores, to the relief offices, to beg for food, to cringe and beg for food, to beg for relief, to try to steal, to lie” (Steinbeck 433). These two contradicting views raise the question of which side is telling the truth, most likely neither are exactly true so the reader must compromise and settle for the middle
On the Joad’s journey to the land of milk and honey, they encounter people that are cruel and brutish. Yet they still find it in themselves to help others as well as some people helping the Joad’s out. At their first official camp, the Joad’s unpack and cook something to eat, stew to be exact. As the stew is cooking, the smell of food attracts a slew of children. They try to help Ma out as she is cooking; doing everything they can to be fed. Ma knows she doesn’t have enough to feed the children seeing that she can barely feed her own family, yet she still decides to do the right thing, “I’m a-gonna set this here kettle out, an’ you’ll all get a little tas’, but it ain’t gonna do you no good,”” but Ma could see the children starve, “I can’t he’p it. Can’t keep it from you.”” (Steinbeck 258) Ma is incapable of leaving children to starve.
In his novel, The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck uses Biblical allusions to tell the story of a migrant worker family, the Joads. John Steinbeck grew up in a little farming town named Salinas with nothing more to read than a Bible. It is no wonder then that so many of his books have Biblical allusions in them. For example, Jim Casy compares to Jesus Christ. In his novel, The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck uses Biblical allusions to tell the story of a migrant worker family, the Joads.
The Grapes of Wrath: No One Man, But One Common Soul. & nbsp; & nbsp; Many writers in American literature try to instill philosophy of their choosing into their reader. This is often a philosophy derived at from their own personal experiences. John Steinbeck is no exception to this. When traveling through his native California in the mid-1930s. Steinbeck witnessed people living in appalling conditions of extreme poverty due to the Great Depression and the agricultural disaster known as the Dust Bowl. He noticed that these people received no aid whatsoever. from neither the state of California nor the federal government. The rage. he experienced from seeing such treatment fueled his novel The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck sought to change the suffering plight of these farmers. who had migrated from the Midwest to California. Also, and more.
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.
Often in Grapes of Wrath, the affluent people stereotype the migrants as poor and penniless. As the Joads pull into the gas station, the attendant immediately asks, “Got any money?” He views the Joads as one of many poor, migrant families arriving to beg for some gas. But not all people who view migrants as poverty-stricken, hungry people see them in such a way. Mae, a waitress at one of the restaurants pities a family asking for bread and shows her compassion by letting the children have candy for much less than its worth. Instead of the anticipated let-down, the migrants receive pity from those with compassion and sympathy.
The novel, The Grapes of Wrath, written by John Steinbeck, describes the journey of the Joad family, as well as other families, as they migrate towards California in attempt to find a job. While making their journeys across America, the jobless men of these families would begin to talk to each other, realizing that they have a similar background. Many of them lost their farms due to the Dust Bowl, and many lost their homes due to foreclosure. These men would then bind their families together, and try to make the trip to California as one. Eventually, more and more families would come together to form what Steinbeck called a zygote. Steinbeck’s idea of the zygote is accurate, because the scientific definition of a zygote is an organism developing from a living cell — as did the people from a single idea, to revolutionize the system. The theory of the zygote is expressed when Steinbeck describes the formation of it, the danger of it, and finally how the system tries to prevent it from revolutionizing.