Hopes and the Loses of the Grapes of Wrath

One common and occurring theme from “Grapes of Wrath” that comes to mind is “false hope”. The theme “false reality” is meant to describe a vision, or dream that a character later realises is false, and not true. This theme can easily be found in multiple sections of the book, within some dialogue between the Joad family. Grandpa Joad, and a few other family members have vision California as a country with overflowing wealth, and peaches. Their ideal of California is that everybody spends their time eating a never ending flow of peaches.

Throughout John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath, many concepts appear that were noted in How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster. However, the three chapters of Foster’s how-to guide that most apply to Steinbeck’s novel were “It’s All About Sex…,” “Every Trip is a Quest (Except When It’s Not),” and “It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow.” On more than one occasion these concepts are hidden within the book, and two of them actually seem somewhat linked together. After reading between the lines, The Grapes of Wrath has an extremely intricate plot and many ulterior meanings. Foster’s book helps to solve these meanings and make it so that the novel can be completely understood.

One would say that on a literal level The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is about the Joad family's journey to California during The Dust Bowl. However, it is also about the unity of a family and the concept of birth and death, both literal and abstract. Along with this, the idea of a family unit is explored through these births and deaths.

April 14th, 1939, John Steinbeck published the novel, The Grapes of Wrath. The novel became an immediate best seller, with selling over 428,900 copies. Steinbeck, who lived through both the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, sought to bring attention to how families of Oklahoma outdid these disasters. Steinbeck focuses on families of Oklahoma, including the Joads family, who reside on a farm. The Joad family is tested with hardship when life for them on their farm takes a corrupt turn. Steinbeck symbolizes the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, as the monster, by focusing on bringing attention to how the families in Oklahoma bypass the disastorous weather, greedy bankers, and also the unreceptive greeting by the

By working together, the poor people can help each other and make sure that they are being treated fairly. This is put into practice in Grapes of Wrath, where people banded together to make sure they weren’t being unfairly treated. One example of this occurred when the workers went on strike to protest against unfair wages. While this was often unsuccessful, it still harmed the people who thought that they could take advantage of the immigrants and got the message across that the “Okies” could still fight back. Another example of this occurred when the people in Weedpatch worked together to make sure that the saboteurs sent by the Farmer’s Association couldn’t start a fight inside of the camp. They only succeeded in stopping these saboteurs because they were able to work together and cooperate, which shows how important it was for the immigrants to band together. By using all of these examples, Steinbeck offers the solution that people who are being oppressed because of their lack of wealth can achieve freedom by uniting and working

Early in the 1930's Steinbeck wrote, "The trees and the muscled mountains are the world-but not the world apart from man-the world and man-the one inseparable unit man and his environment. Why

The Grapes of Wrath is set in the horrible stage of our American history, the Depression. Economic, social, and historical surroundings separate the common man of America into basically the rich and poor. A basic theme is that man turns against one another in a selfish pride to only protect themselves. For example, the landowners create a system in which migrants are treated like animals and pushed along from one roadside camp to the next. They are denied decent wages and forced to turn against their fellow scramblers to simply survive.

In Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath, he describes the struggle of the small farmer and farmworker. The principal characters define quiet dignity and courage in their struggle to survive and in the caring for their loved ones. Through this novel, Steinbeck displays his respect for all the poor and oppressed of our world.

The 1930s were a time of hardship for many across the United States. Not only was the Great Depression making it difficult for families to eat every day, but the Dust Bowl swept through the plains states making it nearly impossible to farm the land in which they relied. John Steinbeck saw how the Dust Bowl affected farmers, primarily the tenant farmers, and journeyed to California after droves of families. These families were dispossessed from the farms they had worked for years, if not generations (Mills 388). Steinbeck was guided by Tom Collins, the real-life model for the Weedpatch camp’s manager Jim Rawley, through one of the federal migrant worker camps. He was able to see for himself,

The Dust Bowl, a series of severe dust storms in the 1930’s, left the southern plains of the United States as a wasteland. The storms occurred due to the lack of use of dryland farming techniques to prevent wind erosion. Powerful winds would pick up loose soil and carry the sediment around the countryside. Called “black blizzard” or “black rollers”, these storms had the potential to black out the sky completely. Due to the inability to grow and sell crops, banks evicted families and foreclosed their properties, leaving them homeless and without an income. The author of The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck, wrote his American realist novel to allow readers to understand the experiences of the migrants from the Dust Bowl era. Not many

In John Steinbeck’s tragic, mangled novel, The Grapes of Wrath, the reader is shipped off into the heart of the great Dust Bowl in the American Midwest in the peak of American hardship. Through his use of realism in the era of the modern age, Steinbeck reveals the hardships that were faced by common American citizens during the Great Depression, and utilizes the Joad family in an effort to depict the lives of the farmers who had to flee to new land in the high hopes of a new and better life. The obstacles the family faces are similar to what countless other families had to face, with very little of the population able to successful thrive at the time. By utilizing the empowering endeavors unforeseen by these poor families and the meteorological catastrophes overlooking the Midwest, Steinbeck illustrates the nationwide panic faced by many Americans in an effort to delineate their confusion and uncertainty.

“They had no argument, no system, nothing but their numbers and their needs. When there was work for a man, ten men fought for it – fought with a low wage. If that fella’ll work for thirty cents, I’ll work for twenty-five”(Steinbeck). The renowned novel, The Grapes of Wrath, is a realistic portrayal of life and social conditions during the 30’s when the Dust Bowl swept across the nation, causing many to fall deeper into the depression. This caused many families to leave their homes in search of a safer and more hopeful land. The Grapes of Wrath follows Tom Joad, his family, and many other migrant farmers as they migrate from their Oklahoma farms into their new, hope filled life in California. The struggles that these characters endure

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck uses numerous literary techniques to advocate for change in the social and political attitudes of the Dust Bowl era. Simile, personification, and imagery are among the many devices that add to the novel’s ability to influence the audience’s views. Moreover, through his use of detail, Steinbeck is able to develop a strong bond between the reader and the Joad clan. This bond that is created evokes empathy from the audience towards the Joads as they face numerous challenges along their journey. The chapters go between the Joad’s story and a broad perspective of the Dust Bowl’s effect on the lives of Mid-western farmers in which Steinbeck illustrates dust storms devastating the land, banks evicting tenant

“At the heart of every immigrant’s experience is a dream- a vision of hope that is embodied in his or her destination” (Gladstein 685). In the novel, The Grapes of Wrath the migrants imagined the absolute aspects of living care free to the west. However, everything changed once they traveled to the west, realizing the simple concept turned into hazardous problems. John Steinback emphasized the American dream of economic stability and truculent situations towards the Joads family's point of view. Throughout the immigration, the Joads family goes through constant and unpredictable changes in employment, and their eventual failure to find success in California. The novel has been called by critics "a celebration of the human spirit", in several ways it is true due to the aspects of human nature. Despite the hazardous actions people can do, it is important to realize everything around us.

Stating that “there ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do. It's all part of the same thing. And some of the things folks do is nice, and some ain't nice, but that's as far as any man got a right to say.” (23). Steinbeck uses Jim Casy’s self-indulgence that tells of pleasure before rules and presumes to deny punishment is highly unusual for a one-time preacher. Casy struggled with his inner faith, and also his actions and speeches that defied what a regular man of the trust would do. The spiritual being of Jim Casy was evolving and furthermore conflicting from a man of thought to a man of action. Towards the beginning of the book, Casy would spend many nights sleep deprived, philosophizing to himself. But he would publicly declare how selfish people can act and react towards one another. Either people do beautiful things such as the Joad family, or they don’t do fair things such as the justice system where it is truly unfair to those who haven’t commit any plausible crimes. Keeping individuals of the migrant workers to isolate themselves from society and not cooperate on wanting a better