The Grapes Of Wrath: Symbolic Characters

The Grapes of Wrath: Symbolic Characters

Struggling through such things as the depression, the Dust Bowl summers, and trying to provide for their own families, which included finding somewhere to travel to where life would be safe. Such is the story of the Joads. The
Joads were the main family in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, a book which was written in order to show what a family was going through, at this time period, and how they were trying to better their lives at the same time. It wouldn't be enough for Steinbeck to simply write this story in very plain terms, as anyone could have simply logged an account of events and published it.
Critics have argued, however, that Steinbeck was too artificial in his ways of trying to gain some respect for the migrants. Regardless of the critical opinions, John Steinbeck utilized symbolism as a forum to convey the hardships and attitudes of the citizens of America during the 1930's in his book The
Grapes of Wrath.
The first aspect of the novel that must be looked at when viewing the symbolic nature is that of the characters created by Steinbeck and how even the smallest facets of their person lead to a much larger meaning. The first goal that Steinbeck had in mind, was to appeal to the common Midwesterner at that time. The best way to go about doing this was to focus on one of the two things that nearly all migrants had in common, which was religion and hardships.
Steinbeck creates a story about the journey of a family and mirrors it to that of biblical events. The entire family, in themselves, were like the Israelites.
"They too flee from oppression, wander through the wilderness of hardships, seeking their own Promised Land" (Shockley, 91). Unfortunately, although the
Israelites were successful, the Joads never really found what they could consider to be a promised land. They were never lucky enough to really satisfy their dreams of living a comfortable life. But, they were still able to improve on their situation.
Another symbolic character that was undoubtedly more religious than anyone else taking the journey was Jim Casy. He was a preacher that was picked up along the way by the Joads. Steinbeck manages to squeeze in a lot about this character, and a lot of the background he creates about Mr. Casy shows just how much of a biblical man he really is supposed to b...

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...to live through the 1930's, but it is hard to say if the Joads had life as tough as most.
However, Henry Moore states that the shining examples of good symbolism and truth in The Grapes of Wrath come in the interchapters, such as the turtle and tractor tales. The problem though, as he states it, is that "the contrapuntal chapters about the Joad family don't always have the continuous strength to carry them" (Moore, 60). Basically Dr. Moore is saying that if Steinbeck really wanted to use symbolism in this story to show the trials and tribulations of the migrants in the 1930's, he should have kept the story more realistic and down- to-earth in its approach to the topic.
Overall, John Steinbeck did appeal to the Midwesterners through his book
The Grapes of Wrath. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1962 while The
Grapes of Wrath won the Pulitzer Prize in 1939. He managed to explain many events of the current time period through his use symbolism, and obviously, many readers enjoyed it. By using characters, nature and events for forms of symbolism, Steinbeck keeps the reader interested and at the same time conveys his thoughts and beliefs.