Life to the Migrant Worker Exposed in The Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath is an eye-opening novel that deals with the struggle for survival of a migrant family of farmers in the western United States. The book opens with a narrative chapter describing Oklahoma, and the overall setting. It sets the mood of an area which has been ravished by harsh weather. "The sun flared down on the growing corn day after day until a line of brown spread along the edge of each green bayonet. The surface of the earth crusted, a thin hard crust, and as the sky became pale, so the earth became pale, pink in the red country, and white in the gray country." (Steinbeck pg.3) Steinbeck, in a detailed fashion described the area in great detail. Not only was the area stricken by a drought and extreme temperatures, but to add to the difficulties, the families of the area were bombarded by high winds and dust storms which barraged their houses, crops, and moral. The idea was made clear, quite early, that the farming plains of Oklahoma were a cruel and difficult place for a family to make a successful living.
The reader is first introduced to a character by the name of Tom Joad, a man who has been released early from the penitentiary on parole after serving four years of his seven year sentence. Tom, once released, begins the trip back home to his family on their forty acre farming estate. Tom, through the aid of a helpful truck driver, is given a ride to the general area of his house. It is interesting to see how Tom manages to hitch a ride with the truck driver, who under normal circumstances, would not have given any rides to hitch hikers, simply due to a sticker on his cab which reads "No Riders." Tom however, through cunning reasoning skills, is able to get what he needs. "Can you give me a lift mister," said Tom. "Didn't you see the No Riders sticker on the wind shield?,"the driver proclaimed. "Sure, I seen it. But sometimes a guy will be a good guy even if some rich b&%#@rd makes him carry a sticker."(Steinbeck 11) Technically, if the driver refused, he would not be a "good" guy , and if he took the hitch-hiker, he would be a "good" guy, and would prove that he was not one whom a rich boss could kick around.
The Grapes of Wrath explicates on the Dust Bowl era as the reader follows the story of the Joads in the narrative chapters, and the migrants in expository chapters. Steinbeck creates an urgent tone by using repetition many times throughout the book. He also tries to focus readers on how the Dust Bowl threatened migrant dreams using powerful imagery. As well as that, he creates symbols to teach the upper class how the Dust Bowl crushed the people’s goals. In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck utilizes imagery, symbolism, and repetition to demonstrate how the Dust Bowl threatened the “American Dream.”
New beginnings and new land, while made out to seem as beacons of hope and chances for prosperity, are complete opposites; new beginnings offer neither success nor happiness, but rather more failures and recurring sorrows. John Steinbeck and Jack Hodgins introduce the idea of new beginnings and settlements just as they emphasize the importance of togetherness as a community and a family in The Grapes of Wrath and Broken Ground. However, it is important to consider that these new beginnings were involuntary and rather forced due to situational circumstances. These circumstances caused drastic changes in the lives of the characters, changes that ultimately led them towards a downward spiral. In both novels, change in location helped advertise new beginnings as a chance for a new, improved lifestyle, which turned out to be a mere lie. The “promised land” was simply a hoax, which they would later realize, as it left them with nothing more than the broken pieces of their woven dreams.
In "Livvie" the story is relayed by an omniscient third person narration. The narrator in this case provides insight into each of the characters, yielding to no one inparticular. The narrator uses subtle patterns in association wit...
A young man, misunderstood, confused, and unhappy with his life is not too uncommon. Most individuals in this situation would evolve or conform to his or her surroundings. In Willa Cather’s, “Paul’s Case,� this is far from the truth. Paul despises living his life on Cordelia Street in Pittsburgh, PA so much that he lies and steals to get away. Sherry Crabtree, a critic of this story, emphasizes the use of symbolism in this story; she notes that flowers are used to show how Paul is isolated for his existing world. Consequently, the main idea of “Paul’s Case� is the struggle of a young man’s isolation; Paul’s actions show how he is disgusted with the way his life is going and will do anything to alter his lifestyle. Cather does an exceptional job using symbols to represent the way Paul is isolated.
The Grapes of Wrath is a novel that shows a nation when it is at one of its lowest points economically. During the 1930’s the great depression too place and this story is a depiction of what many families who owned farmland during that time went though. The Joads were a average farming family in Oklahoma until the dust bowl hit. During the dust bowls there was always dirt in the air because all of the farm land had dried up and the land was left as a pile of dry dirt. Because they were no longer able to farm the government took many farms right out from under people and left them with nowhere to turn. The Joads were no exception to this. Tom Joad had just gotten out of the penitentiary for killing a man when he found out what had happened to his family in his absence. When he finally found them, they were all packed up to go to California. On the way to California they lost both Grandma and Grandpa. This shows what a sacrifice they were forced to make because they had nowhere else to turn. Once they get to California they find out that all of the handbills had been wrong and there was hardly enough work there for all the immigrants that were coming from all over the Midwest. The Joads certainly see the worst and the best that California has to offer. From locally run farms with bad cops to government run camps with running water and enough of everything to go around. With they had some luck along they way the Joads eventually run out of money and are forced to take refuge in a barn. While in this barn they find a man who is dying and because Rose of Sheran has unused milk she breast feeds the man. The novel ends with this sentence “She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously.” This is suc...
During the depression of the 1930's, the combined evils of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought left many southern farming families landless and weak. Little hope was left for them but to pack up and moved to California, which was widely advertised in circulated handbills that promised work and inspired hope. John Steinbeck’s epic novel, The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of the migrant farmers’ travels and what they met at their destination. Intertwined within the plot and the intercalary chapters of the story is a profound use of symbolism in various forms and with many meanings. John Steinbeck deeply incorporates symbolism into the characters and plot of The Grapes Of Wrath to convey the adversity and the attitudes of the migrant farmers as well as other people involved in and effected by the dust bowl migration of the 1930's.
The film Grapes of Wrath, directed by John Ford in 1940 is based on John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, in which a family migrates from the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma to California, after economic depression caused their family farm to collapse. The main characters of the three generation family are Ma and Tom Joad. They are joined by Jim Casy, a former preacher, now fallen out of religion who inspires Tom to support the cause of the working poor. Migrating to California, the Joads and Jim Casey have to overcome a variety of different problems. The central argument made in the movie is that people had to stick together during the time of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression in order to overcome hardships, such as trouble with the law, starvation,
In The Yellow Wallpaper we are presented with several characters but the main two are the narrator and John, her husband. The narrator is described to be a woman suffering from nervous depression amongst other personal conflicts within herself. Her husband, John is a well-known physician who truly believes that there is nothing wrong with his wife and belittles both her illness and concerns. Their relationship is not your typical marriage, besides the fact that they are husband and wife this carries over into his professional life as his wife is also his patient. I believe this to be one of the main factors that’s putting a strain on their personal relationship, he no longer looks or treats his wife as his wife but as a patient.
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.
The story is told in the third person point of view. The story would be different if we were told the thoughts or feelings of the characters. The narrator only explains the process of the
She cannot even find comfort in her family because her doctor is part of her family and has more influence over the outsiders’ interpretation of her life. With his status as both a man and a physician, John is able to control the narrator’s life by essentially limiting her options for her medical care and relationships. This imbalance of power fueled by gender and status leads to the narrator taking on a passive role in the marriage.
Seven percent of high school students drop out of high school every year. More than half of these high school dropouts are unemployed. One of the causes of dropping out could include experimenting with addictive drugs. Being engaged in drugs can lead to a downfall in health as well as emotional aspects. Students may drop out because of their emotional problems brought about by drinking excessively. Becoming pregnant at an early age
There are many terrible outcomes to the abandonment of pets, one of them being that animal shelters are forced to euthanize the pets who do not get adopted, as they run out of room to keep and care for them. In fact, every year, approximately 2.7 million pets are euthanized because of this issue. Also, of dogs entering shelters,
The Grapes of Wrath, revered as a classic among many, is an interesting tale, of a large family and their many struggles of day to day life as they travel from Oklahoma to California, searching for work during the Great Depression of the 1920s and 30s. It paints a very realistic, but sorrowful picture of the hardships that a great many Americans faced during the rough years of the Great Depression. While my personal taste in historical fiction greatly influenced my personal enjoyment of the story mostly for the better, I found the beginning of the story to be long and drawn out, taking a while for the story to get underway. I also found the conclusion and flow of the story to be far too loose and lacking in direction for it to be marked as
A lack of high school education creates disadvantages. Sometimes, it turns out, the reason for dropping out initially was because of similar disadvantages. These disadvantages could be anything from a lack of income at home to abuse in the household. It can be a seemingly endless loop. Other times, students simply become disengaged and feel no need to complete their education. On the other hand, students may often feel that skipping ahead and going directly into the workforce is the right choice for them. Regardless of the reason, dropping out of high school is a problem that can be solved with time and effort.