Years…
Born: 1902
Died: 1968
Wrote: He wrote The Grapes of Wrath in 1930’s and released it in 1939. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940.
Nationality: He was an American author who lived in Salinas, California. He was educated at Stanford University. He first worked as a fruit picker, but then moved to New York. He didn’t like it in New York so he moved back and became an author.
Style: John Steinbeck’s style is to write about something that he knows first hand. He likes to have all the details before writing his stories. Prior to writing The Grapes of Wrath, he caught up with some migrants from Oklahoma and rode with them on their journey to California.
His style in The Grapes of Wrath is to have a chapter with dialogue and the story, and to then give a picture of the times. He describes the depression of the 1930’s and gives the reader a full view of what the migrants were going through. There is a dialogue and ‘story’ chapter, which is followed or preceded by an ‘intercalary’ (between) chapter. The ‘intercalary’ chapters are what serve to show the migrant’s struggling, and the big picture of what times were like.
Genre: The Grapes of Wrath is considered a protest novel to many. Steinbeck originally wrote it to ask California farmers to have sympathy for the migrating ‘Okies’. However, today recognized as a classic, this would most likely fall under the genre of drama.
Notes: As you read The Grapes of Wrath you must take into consideration that Steinbeck has traveled with Oklahoma migrants so that he is writing from experience. However, because he wants to get sympathy for migrants he may exaggerate conditions a little. Steinbeck uses a lot of symbolism in his writing. He starts with a turtle symbolizing the Joad family and the hardships they will face. Characters symbolize and foreshadow events, and small things can play a larger role than expected. Steinbeck’s mastery of symbolism and his relating to the bible can be seen throughout the entire novel.
THE GRAPES OF WRATH
Conversion and the many changes that take place
Tom and his family undergo significant change due to uncontrollable forces that occur throughout the book. Through these events he and his family go through conversion, death and rebirth, migration, and are on constant pursuit for a better life. Many inner and outer changes occur throughout the entire novel. The Joad family begins the novel as self-centered individuals, and end the novel as a universal family with all the other migrants from Oklahoma, also known as ‘Okies’.
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,
Steinbeck's intercalary chapters in The Grapes of Wrath have nothing to do with the Joads or other characters of the novel, but help describe the story in different terms. They are similar to poems, offering different viewpoints of the migration, and clarifying parts of the story that the reader might not understand. An excellent example of this use can be seen in chapter 21, where an examination of the attitudes of migrant Okies and the residents of California reveals the changing nature of land ownership among the changing population of California and gives greater meaning to the fierce hostility that the Joads meet in California.
Steinbeck strikes at the fear in every man’s soul, with his portrayal of the poverty stricken life of the Joads as they travel from one stage of abandonment and what would seem like a helpless state to a journey of enduring perseverance. The Joads, Steinbeck’s creation in the Novel Grapes of Wrath is a large close-knit family living in Oklahoma during the “Dust Bowl” era. Steinbeck documents their journey beginning with their homelessness due to the crop failures to them surviving in a box car at the end of their journey. I think Steinbeck’ intention is to illustrate to the reader that being poor doesn’t always equate with being helpless. The Joads demonstrate this by their resilience to overcome homelessness, death, and prejudice.
In his novel, The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck uses Biblical allusions to tell the story of a migrant worker family, the Joads. John Steinbeck grew up in a little farming town named Salinas with nothing more to read than a Bible. It is no wonder then that so many of his books have Biblical allusions in them. For example, Jim Casy compares to Jesus Christ. In his novel, The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck uses Biblical allusions to tell the story of a migrant worker family, the Joads.
The Grapes of Wrath is a novel written by John Steinbeck, which focuses on an Oklahoman family that is evicted from their farm during an era of depression caused by the Dust Bowl. The Joad family alongside thousands of other refugees (also affected by the dirty thirties) migrates west towards California seeking employment and a new home. John Steinbeck’s purpose for writing this novel was to inform his audience of how many of their fellow Americans were being mistreated and of the tribulations they faced in order to attain regain what they once had. As a result, The Grapes of Wrath triggered its audience’s sympathy for the plight of the Dust Bowl farmers and their families.
The tale of The Grapes of Wrath has many levels of profound themes and meanings to allow us as the reader to discover the true nature of human existence. The author's main theme and doctrine of this story is that of survival through unity. While seeming hopeful at times, this book is more severe, blunt, and cold in its portrayl of the human spirit. Steinbeck's unique style of writing forms timeless and classic themes that can be experienced on different fronts by unique peoples and cultures of all generations.
John Steinbeck used a lot of different styles in The Grapes of Wrath. He liked using language that was in keeping with his characters. He was also really big on symbolism. Steinbeck also used intercalary chapters to provide some of the background information.
Rosen, David. Four ways your privacy is being invaded. 11 september 2012. 13 february 2014 .
In The Grapes of Wrath, the chapters go from vignettes to regular chapters. The vignettes describe how the dust bowl and the workers migrating to California affect other people and their surroundings. They also foreshadow the events of the Joads and migrant workers on their journey. In chapter 3, Steinbeck describes a turtle crossing a road and getting hit by a car. “And over the grass at the roadside a land turtle crawled.at last he started to climb the embankment.the driver saw the turtle and swerved to hit it,” (Steinbeck, 20-22).
In the Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck uses intercalary chapters to provide background for the various themes of the novel, as well to set the tone of the novel".
As Debatin, Lovejoy, Horn, and Hughes (n.d.) argue, the biggest privacy issue associated with new media is the unintentional public showcasing of private information. This can lead to a damaged reputation, stalking, misuse of this information, hacking and identity theft (Debatin et al., n.d.). This is a serious issue, with about 18% of people admitting to suffering from either of these negatives, in a survey conducted on this issue for the specific case of Facebook (Debatin et al., n.d.).
The Grapes of Wrath combines Steinbeck adoration of the land, his simple hatred of corruption resulting from materialism (money) and his abiding faith in the common people to overcome the hostile environment. The novel opens with a retaining picture of nature on rampage. The novel shows the men and women that are unbroken by nature. The theme is one of man verses a hostile environment. His body destroyed but his spirit is not broken. The method used to develop the theme of the novel is through the use of symbolism. There are several uses of symbols in the novel from the turtle at the beginning to the rain at the end. As each symbol is presented through the novel they show examples of the good and the bad things that exist within the novel.
In his book Holtzman discusses how new technology threatens our privacy and how the law is incapable of protecting us. Holtzman has received a B.S. in Computer Science (326). He has worked as a security advisor in several organizations (326). By restating the title of the book in the introduction Holtzman claims that having no control over our personal information has resulted in the loss of privacy (xix). As Senator Evan Bayh mentioned in the foreword, the book examines the thin border “between protecting the United States and protecting our civil rights” (vi). Altogether, the main point of Privacy Lost is to deliver the message that “you have the right to control information about yourself” (xxv).
In a world of Facebook and LinkedIn and YouTube and OKCupid and Google and IPhones and Ipads and Kindles and all the other hundreds of sites and devices designed to garner personal information, data-mine your information, to better advertise, sell, inform, and connect you with the people or the places that you want to experience. The wonderful world of the Internet helps connect millions of people with millions of other people in milliseconds all day, every day. All the swapping and sharing of information create a world of transparency, deception, fraud, and identity confusion. Avatars, aliases, and profiles are the ways most people advertise their goods and services and themselves. With this consideration an erosion of privacy has changed our culture in ways that some predicted years ago and some that are new to our era. This paper will explore some primary regarding how technology causes the changes in privacy and what are the effects brought on by these changes.
The Internet, in just twenty years, grew from having 16 million users to 3.3 billion globally, about 46% of the current population, and is still growing today, according to the Internet World Stats. With the availability of smartphones, the Internet can now be carried in users’ pockets, and more information is available to create, share, and spread. Tons of sensitive data is sent through the internet everyday, such as usernames and passwords, personal information, bank and credit card information, and details regarding identity. Sensitive data are regularly sent through and stored on secure and protected servers. As such, there is the saying, “nothing is impenetrable”, and some people figured that with such an amount of data constantly flowing in and out, it would be a good idea to try and draw information from the world’s largest source. In the book Privacy in Context: Technology, Policy, and the Integrity of Social Life, the author Helen Nissenbaum writes, “INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IS CONSIDERED A MAJOR THREAT TO privacy because it enables pervasive surveillance, massive databases, and lightning-speed distribution of information across the globe” (1). For example, software called malware, or malicious software, such as viruses, trojans, web bugs, adware, and