The Experience of Suffering in John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath

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Imagine going down south to the Promised Land (California), getting a new job that pays very and well. Finally have enough food on the table for the entire family in order for them to survive and not die of starvation. The ideal American Dream for all the migrants who are hardly surviving the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. John Steinbeck’s ultimate goal by writing this phenomenal, very controversial and outrageous novel was to bring the reader back in time in order for them to experience the life of the migrants suffering during the great Depression but also to criticize all the high authorities—most particularly in the farming industry—who have mistreated the migrants and given them false hopes. Steinbeck’s clever use of a raw but yet interesting vocabulary, the fresh and original narration, the portrayal of the characters in the novel and the pacing (fluency) of the story itself and grasps the reader’s attention.

As mentioned previously, Steinbeck’s ultimate goal was to sensitize the reader—in other words to open the readers eyes—to the hard and very poor life of the mi...

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