Exploring Journey Themes in The Grapes of Wrath

276 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: The grapes of wrath writing style

Journey Theme in The Grapes of Wrath The Grapes of Wrath is a novel that can be read on many levels. The concept of a journey is evident at every level of interpretation, from its most simple, the journey of the poor Joads travelling from Oklahoma to California, to a complex one where it is a spiritual journey ......... In painting a literary portrait of the plight of itinerant farm workers called Okies, Steinbeck describes to America what he perceives as an unjust society. ........ Steinbeck uses the idea of the journey as one of the many themes of this novel, whether it be a spiritual, mental or physical journey. Consciousness comes in stages so the structure brings stages of awareness. ....... At a deeper level of reading, Casy exemplifies a journey of the spirit. He is a former preacher, ........ Perhaps it is more than a coincidence that his initials are also JC. By the end of their physical journey, the Joads have almost lost their family identity. However they have replaced it with something equally worthwhile: they have found kinship with other migrant families........ Journey demonstrates themes. When isolated families fuse with one another, a larger family, a family of Man develops. Numerous characters and events in The Grapes of Wrath help....... Thus the journey structure serves Steinbeck very well. It enables him to show the Joads' progress as a family into the wider family of migrants, suggesting humanity's direction for the better......

Show More
Related

  • The Grapes Of Wrath Chapter Analysis

    480 Words  | 1 Pages

    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,

    Read More

  • Okonkwo's Self-Destructive Masculinity in Things Fall Apart

    2752 Words  | 6 Pages

    Throughout the novel, Oknonkwo does many things to prove his masculine quality. Many of these things are debatable as to whether they affirm Okonkwo's masculinity or if they bring out his true weakness and lead to his destruction. (Goldman 2)

    Read More

  • Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

    782 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Jon Krakauer’s book “Into the Wild”, Krakauer describes the travels of Chris McCandless, a young man, who travels alone into the Alaskan wilderness. Krakauer details Chris’s painful demise from starvation was at the age of 24 in an abandoned bus deep in Alaska. According to Krakauer, Chris McCandless left for Alaska because he was seeking refuge from his betrayal by his father. Chris was searching for truth; something he could believe in after he had found out his dad led a double life; one with Chris and his mother and another with another woman and another son. It seems McCandless was looking to test himself; to prove he could survive in the wild without society, but mostly without his father’s help. Chris was searching for something, Independence. During Chris journey to Alaska, he found what he was looking for an escape but also found his identity. During his final days in the bus, Chris’s mindset changed; he determined he needed people. Some say Chris was foolish but he was a smart kid in unfortunate circumstances.

    Read More

  • Alcohol and Spiritual Deadlock--John Berryman

    2644 Words  | 6 Pages

    Ultimately, Berryman was not able to forgive his father, evade his "goblins," or find his "inner resources." Near the end of his life, he wrote a poem that contained all the same sentiments of an alcoholic, anguished, depressive Henry:

    Read More

  • Making Hard Choices in The Grapes of Wrath

    905 Words  | 2 Pages

    In literature as in life, people often find that they must make difficult choices in order to survive.  The reasons behind their decisions and the results of their subsequent actions affect our opinion of them.  In the Grapes of Wrath, written by John Steinbeck, the author portrayed situations where two main characters became involved.  The nature of their choices, the reasons behind their decisions, and the results that followed affected them greatly.  However, the choices that they made were surmounted successfully.  Ma Joad and Tom Joad are two strong characters who overcame laborious predicaments.  Their powerful characteristics helped to encourage those that were struggling.

    Read More

  • Chris Mccandless Argument Essay

    566 Words  | 2 Pages

    While reading “ Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer, many opinions can be formed of Chris McCandless. One, in particular, was the author's opinion which he blatantly stated on page 85. He didn't think that Chris was some reckless foolish insane idiot. He believed that competent otherwise he wouldn't have lasted so long. I agree with Krakauer, things Chris did on this journey did not show signs of some careless person. Chris was just an adventurer looking to get away from the expectations society had of him to see the world for what it really was.

    Read More

  • Steinbeck's Social Commentary in The Grapes of Wrath

    679 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Finding Hope in The Grapes of Wrath

    624 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Joad family members were facing hardships from the beginning. Before the journey, Tom Joad had been in prison and that was a downer to everyone. In the scenes of overcoming this problem, Tom was released and his family was so excited and full of joy to see him. Before they could celebrate too much, they found themselves having to leave the land that most of them were born on, raised on and labored for. They decided that as shady as it was to be forced off their own land, the drought had shattered any hopes of prospering from it anyway. With the hope of a better life out in California and a flyer that said pickers needed, they set out for the proclaimed promised land.

    Read More

  • Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

    975 Words  | 2 Pages

    Okonkwo’s fear leads him to treat members of his family harshly, in particular his son, Nwoye. Okonkwo often wonders how he, a man of great strength and work ethic, could have had a son who was “degenerate and effeminate” (133). Okonkwo thought that, "No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man" (45).

    Read More

  • Is the Fellow Traveler in Young Goodman Brown Friend or Foe?

    683 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the beginning of the story, after Goodman Brown leaves his wife and begins his journey through the woods, fear starts overcoming him. He creeps slowly along the path in the forest and is in constant torment because he isn't sure of what lies behind every rock and tree. He even said out loud, "What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow!" (Hawthorne 383). Then, just as he turns around, a man appears. How ironic. The man tells Goodman Brown that the "clock of the Old South was striking" as he came through Boston and that was "fifteen minutes agone" (Hawthorne 383). If thought is put into this statement, you will come to realize that this is impossible. The story took place in Salem Village and Boston is seventeen miles away from there. Traveling by horse, because that was the quickest way to travel in the 1800's, this journey would have taken an entire day; no one could have possibly made the trip in fifteen minutes.

    Read More

  • The Theme of Man vs. Environment in The Grapes of Wrath

    1405 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Grapes of Wrath is a novel by John Steinbeck that exposes the desperate conditions under which the migratory farm families of America during the 1930's live under.   The novel tells of one families migration west to California through the great economic depression of the 1930's.  The Joad family had to abandon their home and their livelihoods.  They had to uproot and set adrift because tractors were rapidly industrializing their farms.  The bank took possession of their land because the owners could not pay off their loan.  The novel shows how the Joad family deals with moving to California. How they survive the cruelty of the land owners that take advantage of them, their poverty and willingness to work.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Shakespeare's Sonnet 75 And Sonnet 116

    1314 Words  | 3 Pages

    William Shakespeare’s sonnets are renowned as some of the greatest poetry ever written. He wrote a total of 154 sonnets that were published in 1609. Shakespearean sonnets consider similar themes including love, beauty, and the passing of time. In particular, William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 75 and Sonnet 116 portray the theme of love through aspects of their form and their display of metaphors and similes. While both of these sonnets depict the theme of love, they have significantly contrasting ideas about the same theme.

    Read More

  • Response to The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

    809 Words  | 2 Pages

    The woman behind this work of literature portrays the role of women in the society during that period of time. "The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is a well written story describing a woman who suffers from insanity and how she struggles to express her own thoughts and feelings. The author uses her own experience to criticize male domination of women during the nineteenth century. Although the story was written fifty years ago, "The Yellow Wallpaper" still brings a clear message how powerless women were during that time.

    Read More

  • Shakespeare’s Most Famous Sonnet

    689 Words  | 2 Pages

    "Shakespeare Sonnet 18 - Shall I compare thee to a summer's day." Shakespeare Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.

    Read More

  • Appearance and Love in Sonet 13 by William Shakespeare

    644 Words  | 2 Pages

    In sonnet 130, Shakespeare’s confession of love to his woman is very rare because he writes about love in an unconventional way. Shakespeare compares his beloved unfavorably to a number of other beauties. Shakespeare refuses to describe his woman in the Petrarchan sonnet form, which is “the first and most common sonnet named after one of its greatest practitioners, the Italian poet Petrarch” (“Poetic Form: Sonnet”). Women in the Petrarchan sonnet are described as ideally beautiful. Sonnet 130 mocks the typical Petrarchan metaphors by telling the truth, rather than making his woman into a goddess. For example, Shakespeare notes that her eyes are "nothing like the sun,"(1). Her lips are less red than coral and her breasts are dun-colored when compared to the whiteness of snow. Shakespeare even says that “music hath a far more pleasing sound” (9) than her voice. However, in the couplet, Shakespeare reverses all the disparaging comments he has made: “And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare / As any she belied with false compare” (13-14). Shakespeare shows his intent to insist that love does not...

    Read More

More about Exploring Journey Themes in The Grapes of Wrath

Open Document