Jonathan Hernandez
March 24, 2014
Hist-215-003
Professor Kane
Journey Through the Dust
There are few novels that have the ability to shed light on historical context while simultaneously tell a captivating story. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck does an excellent job of telling a fascinating story and juxtaposing the historical importance of the time period. Set during the great dustbowl of the 1930’s, Steinbeck wrote this evolutionary tale to inform Americans across the country about the hardships faced by those who were left destitute by the natural disaster. Although the subject of the novel is the social and economic climate of America during the dust bowl, Steinbeck described different themes to illustrate how impactful the incident truly was. The dustbowl not only left thousands homeless, hungry, and poor, it also altered the social dynamic of the United States. Family dynamics changed, new prejudices developed, and religion became more prevalent. Through the themes of race, religion, gender, and class Steinbeck immerses the reader into the time of the great dust bowl. The reader becomes a 1930’s destitute farmer, who is looking to support his family in any manner possible.
One of the themes discussed by Steinbeck is race. Although the dust bowl affected a large number of American farmers, those who migrated west were mostly Caucasian farmers. Nonetheless there are a few instances of racial tension in the novel that prove to be significant. The topic of race is not as much an overlying subject compared to the other themes of the novel. The subject of race is mostly visible in discussions between characters. Steinbeck subtly placed the issue of race in the dialogue of his characters. A perfect example of this is found...
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...e. Think any of us folks’d live like that?” The migrant farmers were not even considered Americans; they were viewed as foreigners and second-class citizens. The economic inequality that developed during the 1930’s not only left thousands of Americans impoverished and it created a large division in the class structure of America.
The Grapes of Wrath is a classic piece of American literature that provides an in depth analysis of the great dust bowl. The author, John Steinbeck, illustrated the everyday life of a migrant farmer from the perspective of the Joad family. By describing many important motifs, Steinbeck illustrates the many social and economic transformations that America experienced in the 1930’s. These themes include race, religion, gender, and class. The changes that occurred during this time period forever changed the American way of life.
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.
In the year of 1939, the Great Depression affected the lives of many located within the United States. This was a severe, and most widespread depression which affected people across the world. For the reason that there was a fall of the stock market, a drought ravaged the agricultural heartland. Those who were dependent on their farmland to provide for their families became imposed by coercion to retreat and re-locate their entire families. This migration was a struggle during this period because the lack of resources and money to survive. Among other elements, starvation and homelessness caused many to die at an early age. John Steinbeck's, The Grapes of Wrath, exhibits the Joad's, a family who undergoes the collapse of the agrarian lifestyle, while forced to move their entire family to possibly a more advantageous situation. This presumed liberating destination California, is supposed to provide a positive outlook on the future of the Joad family. Similar to other families, the Joad's migrated towards an aspiration of a better life. Although there was a collaboration of feelings regarding this immense transition, a sense of struggle and hesitancy was prevalent as well. Within this complex struggle, there were different components created known as macro factors, which arose and ultimately affected the many families directly related to the situation.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck followed the struggle of farmers recovering from the 1930’s Dust Bowl and accepting their new identities as migrants. Throughout the book Steinbeck used detached diction, a mocking tone, and pathos to point out the social vices that plagued the migrants in hopes of potentially making people angry enough to cause change.
The traditional human family represents a necessary transition between self and community. In the difficult era of the 1930's, the family's role shifted to guard against a hostile outside world rather than to provide a link with it. With the drought in the Dust Bowl and other tragedies of the Great Depression, many were forced to look beyond the traditional family unit and embrace their kinship with others of similar necessity. In his novel The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck uses the theme of strength through unity to comment on the relationship between the dissolution of individual families and the unification of the migrant people. The journey of the Joad family west illustrates this as they depart a parched Oklahoma, arrive in a hostile California, and eventually settle in amongst others as unwelcome there as they are.
In the Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck has achieved an interesting effect by breaking the narrative at intervals with short, impressionistic passages recorded as though by a motion picture camera moving quickly from one scene to another and from one focus to another. The novel is a powerful indictment of our capitalistic economy and a sharp criticism of the southwestern farmer for his imprudence in the care of his land. The outstanding feature of the Grapes of Wrath is its photographically detailed, if occasionally sentimentalized description of the American farmers of the Dust Bowl in the midthirties of the twentieth century.
The Dust Bowl was a treacherous storm, which occurred in the 1930's, that affected the midwestern people, for example the farmers, and which taught us new technologies and methods of farming. As John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath: "And then the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out. Carloads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless - restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do - to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut - anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place to live. Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land." The early thirties opened with prosperity and growth. At the time the Midwest was full of agricultural growth. The Panhandle of the Oklahoma and Texas region was marked contrast to the long soup lines of the Eastern United States.
John Steinbeck’s acclaimed novel, The Grapes of Wrath, embodies his generation’s horrific tragedy. John Steinbeck’s writing gives insight on the devastating effects of the Dust Bowl on thousands of families and those who helped them. While Steinbeck's novel focuses on the Joad's family journey, he also includes writing of the general struggle of many families at the time. In John Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath, the usage of the term “Okies” degrades the workers, while the personification of the cars help depict the struggle of the journey, to exemplify the adaptation the migrant workers had to make to survive the new life.
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath chronicles the destruction and chaos of the lives of the dust bowl victims and their families. The classic novel works on two levels. On the one hand, it is the story of a family, how it reacts, and how it is unsettled by a serious problem threatening to overwhelm it. On the other hand, the story is an appeal to political leaders that when the common working-class is put upon too harshly, they will revolt. In this aspect it is a social study which argues for a utopia-like society where the powerful owners of the means of production will be replaced by a more communal and egalitarian community like the ones that spring up along the highway by the migrants seeking a higher ground. Their lives are destroyed by poverty and the dust bowl and all that matters is finding a more decent life somewhere west. Survival and getting to a new kind of life are all that matter, so much so that Ma lies next to a dead Granma all night because she is afraid the family will not get through is she seeks help "I was afraid we wouldn' get acrost,' she said. 'I tol' Granma we couldn' he'p her. The fambly had ta get acrost. I tol' her, tol' her when she was a-dyin'. We couldn' stop in the desert...The fambly hadda get acrost,' Ma said miserably" (Steinbeck 237). Throughout the novel the lure of communism lurks subtly in the background as a reminder that in desperate circumstances, pushed too far, the people will revolt.
To conclude, During the 1930's, there was the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought left many southern families. John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath talks
In many ways, Steinbeck manages to accurately capture the suffering experienced by countless laborers during the dust bowl by chronicling the Joads’ trying journey. His novel, The Grapes of Wrath, he covers the extensive journey of the Joads. Their adventure is long, occasionally needing to be propelled by coincidences, for Steinbeck to deliver many of his broad messages about unity, power, and politics. Yet, even though his story takes a more “bigger picture” stance on the dust bowl period, Steinbeck doesn’t fail to forcibly capture the difficulties that many faced.
Steinbeck, in The Grapes of Wrath, was trying to do much more than just show the plight of one family. He wanted to show the plight of the working class; he felt people must know of the suffering and injustices that were endured. Thus, the novel had a distinctly anti-capitalist, procommunist sentiment. This was inherent in the plot and events of the novel, as well as stated implicitly through the characters themselves. The novel went further to almost explicitly tell of an impending revolution. Finally, the structure of the book itself makes an emotional appeal to the reader about the lives of one family, and tries to make the reader draw conclusions and generalities about the country and society as a whole.
Those who made the journey were met with incredible hardships. When they arrived, there wasn’t enough work to go around, so instead of being met with a new and prosperous life, the majority of migrant families were unable to find work, and those who could were barely making enough to survive. The Agricultural Adjustment Act was paying farmers not to develop large portions of their land to raise the price of farm products. Had this act not been passed, millions of acres of land would have been available to provide work for migrant families. Hoovervilles, or small shantytowns, formed along the edges of every town in California as very few migrants could afford a place to stay. John Steinbeck’s novel “The Grapes of Wrath” describes in detail the struggle of these migrant families using the Joad family. The Joads, like many migrant families during the 1930s, relied on their automobile, the kindness of others and the strength of their families to
The world is a small place, but a person’s perception of the world is even smaller. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath takes place during the Great Depression, following a family called the Joads as they make their way from Oklahoma to California. The Joad’s transition from the Dust Bowl to California is filled with death and despair, as they realize the size and depth of the world that they live in. The Grapes of Wrath details the journey from a dusty desert to a cruel, man-made wasteland, showcasing the range and depth that mankind will go when pushed to the brink.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is a story about life in the great depression. Steinbeck tells the story through the Joad family and how they struggle to survive. Also he has short chapters about the background and what was going on outside of the Joads.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck tells the story of the Joad family’s trip to California during the Dust Bowl and examines corporation’s corruption. His utilization of both regular and intercalary chapters allows him to examine its effect on the Joad family and the rest of the migrants. The seventh chapter tells the reader about car salesmen and examines why they have begun mistreating migrants. Those unjust actions are also evident in other portions of the novel. Steinbeck incorporates the theme of corporate corruption’s causes into chapter seven and includes it throughout the Joad chapters.