A Subtle Metamorphosis in The Grapes of Wrath

828 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Impact of minor characters in the grapes of wrath

A Subtle Metamorphosis in The Grapes of Wrath

The spirit of unity emerges as the one unfailing source of strength in John Steinbeck¹s classic The Grapes of Wrath. As the Joad family¹s world steadily crumbles, hope in each other preserves the members¹ sense of pride, of courage, and of determination. A solitary man holds a grim future; with others to love and be loved by, no matter how destitute one is materially, life is rich. This selflessness is not immediate, however; over the course of the book several characters undergo a subtle metamorphosis.

A recently paroled Tom Joad makes his first encounter with altruism as he attempts to hitchhike with a trucker whose employer has outlawed the practice. When the trucker points out the "No Riders" (11) sign his truck carries, Tom replies, "ŒBut sometimes a guy¹ll be a good guy even if some rich bastard makes him carry a sticker.¹" (11) Steinbeck has cleverly cornered the man by utilizing a tool often implemented in Depression-era literature: the classification of the guilty rich as anonymous, thus convincing the trucker that he is "not one whom any rich bastard could kick around." (11) Still, this generous gesture is caused by shame and guilt, not by an independent moral factor.

The notion of a collective spirit is explored when Tom meets the former preacher, Casy. Casy has given up classical religion because it lacks pragmatism and overemphasizes escapism. In a thesis statement that is repeated several times, he says, "ŒMaybe it¹s all men and women we love; maybe that¹s the Holy Sperit‹the human speritŠMaybe all men got one big soul and ever¹body¹s a part of.¹" (33) At this early poin...

... middle of paper ...

...ity. Rose of Sharon is selfish throughout most of the trip, especially when it comes to milk for her unborn baby. When Winfield needs milk to regain strength, she pouts, "I ain¹t had no milk. I oughta have some." (543) After delivering a stillborn baby, the family happens upon a starving man. She doesn¹t need to be prodded into breast-feeding him; "the two woman [Ma and Rose] looked deep into each other" (618) is all the interaction necessary. Her symbolic gesture of looking past her own worries to aid another, of giving of herself to inject another with life, of placing the nutrients designed for a relative into the body of a stranger, is a fitting way to end the book. That she "smiled mysteriously" (619) at this action means she has gained the knowledge Casy spoke of at the beginning of the book, proving that even the most selfish have room for redemption.

Show More
Related

  • How Does Steinbeck Overcome Homelessness In The Grapes Of Wrath

    716 Words  | 2 Pages

    The armed and intoxicated group of men let the Joads know in no uncertain terms that they aren’t allowing any Okies in their town. Steinbeck shows the frustration and anger of Tom Joad as he deals with this internal struggle to strike out against the men, “Tom shivered all over…And Tom tried to restrain his hard smothered sobbing” (382). Furthermore Steinbeck expresses the Joads support of one another with the comforting actions of Ma Joad towards Tom as she tells Tom “You done good,” Ma said tenderly. “You done jus’ good’” (382). Steinbeck concluded this event with the prejudice men with a rather emphatic statement by Ma Joad proclaiming that “...people like us will go on livin’ when all them people is gone…they ain’t gonna wipe us out…” (383).

    Read More

  • Grapes of Wrath Essay: Steinbeck's Political Beliefs

    991 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although Steinbeck argues for collective action to achieve specific goals, only the most unperceptive critics continue to argue that he is a collectivist in either philosophy or politics. Throughout his work he decries the mindless indoctrination of the totalitarians and maintains that only through reflection upon his bitter experience can learn the value of acting in concert with others for the relief of emergency conditions -- like the flood at the end of The Grapes of Wrath -- so that the individual may subsequently be free to realize his own potentialities. Nothing better illustrates Steinbeck's concept of social organization than the pictures in Chapter Seventeen of The Grapes of Wrath of the world that is created each night a people come together, and disappears the next morning when they separate.

    Read More

  • Faulkner's A Rose for Emely and Kate Chopin's Story of an Hour

    1034 Words  | 3 Pages

    Faulkner, William. “A Rose for Emily.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 12th ed. New York: Pearson, 2013. 549-51. Print.

    Read More

  • Animalism In Grapes Of Wrath

    1070 Words  | 3 Pages

    Animalistic nature is a quality many posses in the early stages of life. Some quickly evolve from this quality, while others retain it for a lifetime. In John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath the Joad family and the changing environment they live in are portrayed as animal-like situations. Steinbeck characterizes the Joads and their fellow migrants as modest, instinct-driven individuals that are on an infinite search for paradise. The so-called “Okies” and the forces that compel them to make their voyage, nature and society, are frequently represented by animals. When they first leave their home, the Joads are a group of simplistic, animal-like people who do not understand or even realize their dilemma. However, as the novel progresses, they begin to grow and adapt to their new surroundings. They progress from an individual, self-oriented family of animals to a part of a much more superior family – society.

    Read More

  • Faulkner's Rose For Emily is a Portrait Of The Post War South

    1943 Words  | 4 Pages

    Growing up in Mississippi in the late Nineteenth Century and the early part of the Twentieth Century, young William Faulkner witnessed first hand the struggles his beloved South endured through their slow progression of rebuilding. These experiences helped to develop Faulkner’s writing style. “Faulkner deals almost exclusively with the Southern scene (with) the Civil War … always behind his work” (Warren 1310. His works however are not so much historical in nature but more like folk lore. This way Faulkner is not constrained to keep details accurate, instead he manipulate the story to share his on views leading the reader to conclude morals or lessons from his experience. Faulkner writes often and “sympathetically of the older order of the antebellum society. It was a society that valued honor, (and) was capable of heroic action” (Brooks 145) both traits Faulkner admired. These sympathetic views are revealed in the story “A Rose for Emily” with Miss Emily becoming a monument for the Antebellum South.

    Read More

  • Grapes Of Wrath

    2419 Words  | 5 Pages

    John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath is one of the most influential books in American History, and is considered to be his best work by many. It tells the story of one family’s hardship during the Depression and the Dust Bowl of the 1930’s. The Joads were a hard-working family with a strong sense of togetherness and morals; they farmed their land and went about their business without bothering anyone. When the big drought came it forced them to sell the land they had lived on since before anyone can remember. Their oldest son, Tom, has been in jail the past four years and returns to find his childhood home abandoned. He learns his family has moved in with his uncle John and decides to travel a short distance to see them. He arrives only to learn they are packing up their belongings and moving to California, someplace where there is a promise of work and food. This sets the Joad family off on a long and arduous journey with one goal: to survive.

    Read More

  • A Rose for Emily by Charles Faulkner

    972 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “A Rose for Emily”, Charles Faulkner used a series of flashbacks and foreshadowing to tell Miss Emily’s story. Miss Emily is an interesting character, to say the least. In such a short story of her life, as told from the prospective of a townsperson, who had been nearly eighty as Miss Emily had been, in order to tell the story from their own perspective. Faulkner set up the story in Mississippi, in a world he knew of in his own lifetime. Inspired by a southern outlook that had been touched by the Civil War memory, the touch of what we would now look at as racism, gives the southern aroma of the period. It sets up Miss Emily’s southern belle status and social standing she had been born into, loner or not.

    Read More

  • Resistance to Change: Miss Emily Grierson

    811 Words  | 2 Pages

    Faulkner, William. "A Rose For Emily." 1930. Literature An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 11th ed. New York: Longman, 2010. 29-35. Print.

    Read More

  • Things are Not What they Seem to Be in Henry James’s The Turn of The Screw

    1615 Words  | 4 Pages

    Smith, Nicole. "Critical Analysis of “Turn of the Screw” by Henry James with Literary Crticism in Context." Articlemyriad. (2011): 1-4. Print.

    Read More

  • Transformations In John Steinbeck's Grapes Of Wrath

    1413 Words  | 3 Pages

    Tom Joad is an ex-convict that was only into his own self-interest and lived by a mantra of live your life day by day and not concerned with the future, to becoming a man who thinks about the future and someone with morals and an obligation to help others. Ma Joad is a typical woman of the early 1900’s whose main role was a mother only with a role of caring and nurturing. Later in the novel, she becomes an important figure for the family and is responsible for making decisions in keeping the family together and emphasizes the importance of unity. Another important transition in the book is the family starting off as a single close knit unit to depending on other families to survive. This common interest and struggle bonded the community of individual families to a single one. Steinbeck wrote this novel very well, by having great character dynamics and development that displays the characters strengths and also their

    Read More

  • Fallen from Grace: "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." Literature: An Introduction To Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. 3rd Compact Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc., 2003. 74-79.

    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

  • 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

  • The Role of Sexuality in Turn of the Screw

    845 Words  | 2 Pages

    Henry James's Turn of the Screw was written in a time when open sexuality was looked down upon. On the surface, the story is simply about a governess taking care of two children who are haunted by two ghosts. However, the subtext of the story is about the governess focusing on the children's innocence, and the governess trying to find her own sexual identity. Priscilla L. Walton wrote a gender criticism themed essay about the Turn of the Screw, which retells certain parts of the story and touches on the significance they provide for the sexually explicit theme. Walton's essay is accurate because James purposely put an undertone of sexuality and identity confusion in the Turn of the Screw.

    Read More

  • A Victim of Society in A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner

    558 Words  | 2 Pages

    Emily was kept confined from all that surrounded her. Her father had given the town folks a large amount of money which caused Emily and her father to feel superior to others. “Grierson’s held themselves a little too high for what they really were” (Faulkner). Emily’s attitude had developed as a stuck-up and stubborn girl and her father was to blame for this attitude. Emily was a normal girl with aspirations of growing up and finding a mate that she could soon marry and start a family, but this was all impossible because of her father. The father believed that, “none of the younger man were quite good enough for Miss Emily,” because of this Miss Emily was alone. Emily was in her father’s shadow for a very long time. She lived her li...

    Read More

More about A Subtle Metamorphosis in The Grapes of Wrath

Open Document