Symbolism In The Grapes Of Wrath

How did Steinbeck use his unique writing in The Grapes of Wrath to provide a brutally frank and realistic memoir of migrants in America during the Great Depression?

Introduction: In 1939 John Steinbeck forever made an impact on the way The Great Depression is widely thought of by publishing The Grapes of Wrath. Within the book Steinbeck gives two perspectives on the Great Depression, one deeply personal about a family, the Joads and how they are affected, and at the same time that of the people they interacted with, the larger historical perspective, an economic perspective. The novel is largely a commentary on the American system, and takes a complicated look at capitalism. One reason Steinbeck’s book made an impact is

The name, The Grapes of Wrath, is directly quoted from Julia Ward Howe’s song “The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and while the song has been a widely known and patriotic song in America that has inspired thousands of people, grapes themselves symbolize a lot in the books. Several times throughout the book, grapes have been mentioned and used as a symbol of hope. In one instance, Grandpa Joad envisions his life in California and expresses how he will never go hungry again, and says “...I'll have a big bunch a grapes in my han' all the time, a-nibblin' off it all the time…”(Steinbeck, 141). The grapes represented the hope, the dream, the fantasy that the Southwest was to the millions of people that left their homes during the dust bowl migration, and that California was to the Joads. Details in the book are consistently repeated between the Joad family chapters and the more general chapters. The elements that Steinbeck repeated were often symbolic metaphors. The first example is carried from chapter three to four and then reoccurs in six. In chapter three Steinbeck describes a turtle making its way southwest across a highway that encounters a female driver that avoids hurting the turtle and a male truck driver that attempts to hit the turtle. The turtle also suffers an injury from a fire ant crawling into its shell. While the significance of the turtle can be argued, turtle can be seen as a symbolic metaphor for both the masses of farmers, as well as the Joads and their plight struggling to survive during the economic crash during the 30’s in the United States. Much like the Joads, the turtle in the road encounters both mercy and kindness at times and aggression at others, and works hard to stay alive. The turtle was described to be working so hard to get to where it wanted that it’s legs were “...straining like elephant legs...”(Steinbeck, 21). In addition, just like the