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¶ … narrative structure of the Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is a realistic novel that chronicles the journey of the Joad family during the dustbowl era. The Joads have lost their farm and are looking for work in California. They are contemptuously called 'Oakies' because they are itinerant migrants from Oklahoma. Steinbeck weaves the conventional narrative structure of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution with musings about the nature of America, its farmland, and the economy.
The story begins with the Joads getting ready to leave their farm, which has been repossessed by the bank because the Joads have been unable to plant anything in the dusty soil. Steinbeck portrays the banks as greedy monstrosities: "They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money" (Steinbeck 32). The son Tom Joad is currently on parole but he decides to follow his family. His friend, a wandering preacher named Jim Casy agrees...
This sets the scene for the first question that will drive the novel: will the promised land of California be the solution to the Joad family's worries? The Joads invest everything in the journey: they kill all of their pigs, the only livestock they have, so they can salt and bring the meat on the journey. The scene of the slaughter creates a sense of foreboding regarding the journey.
As the Joads travel, their luck begins to worsen. The Joads' dog is hit by a car and dies. Grandma and Grandpa die. The family is treated with contempt wherever they go, even by members of the working poor, like a gas station attendant who is angry because he thinks they are begging from him. People are so poor they are trading merchandise with him for gas. "Why one fella wanted to give me his shoes for a gallon" (Steinbeck 127). Although times are hard, however, Steinbeck also portrays more prosperous members of the city through which the Joads travel and the truckers…
Work Cited
Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin 2002.
For two years prior to the publication of the Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck spent his time with a group of migrant workers making their way towards California. Travelling and working with the laborers, Steinbeck found the heartfelt material in which to base his book." (Cordyack, 1) This shows in his gritty but sympathetic portrayal of the American working class. This is an idea which illuminates perhaps the most important of
Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck's novel, "The Grapes of Wrath," described the economic divide that existed in America during the Great Depression of the 1930's and the tragedies that occurred as a result. A native Californian, Steinbeck used his home state as the backdrop for a story of a family of migrant farm workers; derisively called "Okies" for their area of origin: Oklahoma. Devastated by a natural disaster commonly referred to
Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck's novel, "The Grapes of Wrath," described the economic divide that existed in America during the Great Depression of the 1930's and the tragic result that occurred as a result. A native Californian, Steinbeck used his home state as the backdrop for a story of a family of migrant farm workers, derisively called "Okies" for their area of origin, Oklahoma. The troubles the family faced, although originally
Grapes of Wrath The Epic in the Grapes of Wrath This paper discusses how the idea of the epic can be found in The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. The novel itself is an enormous work of approximately 500 pages. And in the words of Howard Levant, it is "an attempted prose epic, a summation of national experience of genre" (Levant 91). Because Steinbeck is depicting more than just a "slice
But the value and meaning of life and love described by Casy is manifested by the outsiders, the Okies, the rejects, the wanderers, the strangers, and the oppressed. They are the socially marginal characters of a self-satisfying culture. They are the ones Steinbeck admires in his novel for they are the ones who "wander through the wilderness of hardships, seeking their own Promised Land" (Shockley 87). They await the
Grapes of Wrath There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do," Jim Casy tells Tom in Chapter Four of The Grapes of Wrath. This quote from Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel illustrates the author's ability to celebrate humanity and embrace human faults with compassion. A former preacher who learns through experience that judging human beings according to strict moral doctrine is no way to cultivate compassion,