During the great depression, the midwest underwent a long drought. Exposed dry earth swept away with the wind and caused huge dust storms that prolonged the dry weather. With the lowered selling prices and the lack of crops the farmers had some major economic trouble. In Black Blizzard and John Steinbeck 's Grapes of Wrath, the literature develops the ideas of the poor distribution of wealth within the populations and the social aspects of people of different economic class. Social differences arise in the wealthy, the employed, and the unemployed throughout this period of hardship.
In this chapter, you are introduced to Floyd Knowles, a man the Joads meet while setting up tents for shelter, a Hooverville, as they are on the move along with many other families. Knowles warns them of how the police are treating certain groups with harassment. Casy decides to leave the Joads’ group because he insists that he is a burden to them, but decides to stay an extra day. Later, two men, one is a deputy, show up in a car to the tent settlement to offer fruit-picking jobs, but Knowles refuses which provokes the men. They try to falsely accuse him of breaking into a car lot so they can arrest him.
In the book Max dreams of becoming a boxer and fighting Hitler. Rudy finds out about Max after he has left the basement. After Hans is seen giving some bread to a Jew, they are both whipped by a Nazi officer. In the movie Max doesn 't have this dream.
In between each narrative chapter of The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck wrote intercalary chapters to add to the narrative. These sixteen chapters were a very effective way for Steinbeck to make his points, and progress the theme of the novel. The intercalary chapters were a wise way to summarize the entire struggle of the suffering people during the dust bowl. They showed how Joad family was one example of the millions of families who migrated to California during the dust bowl, and the general rage and resistance felt in the innocent farmers, brought on by rich privileged men who gain their power from the unstoppable big banks. These chapters strengthen my knowledge of the struggles of the time, and give me more information of what is not seen from the Joad’s struggles alone.
My theme is how humanity’s purpose should be to help one another in an upwardly manner. To help one another in times of need. To give to the collective. This is demonstrated by how Tom develops throughout the story. In the beginning of the book, Tom basically lives for the present movement.
Biblical Parallels Are All That Is Needed Weather has shaped this story into a Christian novel by giving Biblical parallels and giving another way to look into the eyes of the Joad’s and the migrants. Even in Biblical times weather has helped humanity by giving us a new start: Noah’s Ark or by leading us into something new that we will never be able to find: The Israelites wandering in The Desert for Forty Years. In The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, the reader rationalizes that Steinbeck hints that the novel is fundamentally Christian by using Biblical parallels: The Israelites in the Desert, Noah’s Ark, and God watching over them.
Being an altruistic person means doing things to help others, or truly being selfless. Human behaviors can be influenced by a altruism or selfishness. In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck shows many examples of altruistic behaviors carried out by the characters. Throughout chapters fourteen through seventeen, I think that Steinbeck assumed that altruism is the predominant motivator of human behavior. Steinbeck shows altruistic behaviors in many of his characters.
Intercalary Chapter Literary Analysis During the Great Depression, the nation as a whole was stripped of financial security and forced into a survivalist way of living. This changed the ways that people interacted with one another and the overall mentality of society. In the Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family is torn from their land and find themselves with nothing, a common story for migrant farmers of that time, derogatorily called “Okies” by Californians. But this is not the only group that is struggling, the entire county was in a state of panic and bruteness, no matter how “well off” they seemed to be.
In many modern court systems, like the one in The United States today, final verdicts are based on the judgements of a group of people. These people ideally are impartial mediators that have no bias one way or the other. In theory, this type of setup should deliver the most accurate results for all involved. Like the court systems, it is up to many individuals to deliver and maintain justice either by the change or enforcement of established laws. What does “justice” even mean?
Published in 1939, The Grapes of Wrath won the annual National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize; I would say it contributed towards John Steinbeck’s Nobel Prize in 1962. There are clear similarities between The Grapes of Wrath and his earlier, and perhaps most famous, novel, Of Mice and Men, both of which carry a social context and include themes of the American Dream, and a struggle against the odds. When John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath was published, it caused an uproar in this nation. The inside cover of the novel states, “It electrified an America still convalescing ideas that many people, at the least , uncomfortable with” this electricity caused the Kern County Board of Supervision to ban the book in public schools and libraries in
Injustices, tragedies, and unfortunate circumstances have plagued humankind for all of existence. Many of these problems have arisen from the society of man, and could not be found in nature. The hatred, selfishness, prejudice, and maliciousness seen in so many injustices man created unnecessarily, as well as all the suffering it causes does not need to exist. If an individual witnesses a crime or injustice occurring, it is their responsibility to defend the weak and fight for whatever is morally right, even at the cost of themselves.
With the evolution of a dream comes the evolution of its methodology. In America, the classic Puritan work ethic was once held as the shining beacon of opportunity; with hard work came the undeniable promise of material riches, a godly social status, and economic security. However, with America’s metamorphosis into an industrial powerhouse and the decline of “old-fashioned” work came the vanishing of this opportunity: the famous dream was no longer accessible or realistic. In John Steinback’s The Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family endures countless trials and tribulations in their search for hard work, only to have the promised “dream” fail them in every way possible throughout their journey. In the 1930s, hard work appears irrelevant to the
In The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck follows the Joad family as they suffer the hardships caused by the Dust Bowl in the 1930’s. The most important lesson people can learn from the novel is the value of a human life. Although the 1930’s was a low point in American society, the ill-treatment of human beings is still relevant today. Just like Jim Casy’s philosophy, it is important to fight for the rights of the people and their dignity. There are several examples of oppression in The Grapes of wrath.
Violence isn't the way to achieve ones goals. Almost everyone has someone of something that stands in the way of their ultimate goal. Many people come to a point where they feel that the only way to achieve that goal is at the expensive of another. This isn't necessarily the case. Rather then inflicting violence on one another we must use the intelligence we were blessed with.
The Grapes of Wrath, one of his most well-known works is exemplary of Steinbeck’s pursuit to bring attention to the lower class and their struggles during the Great Depression, and to hold those who caused the Depression accountable, as seen in his quote “I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this [the Great Depression and its effects]. I’ve done my damnedest to rip a reader’s nerves to rags” (“The Grapes of Wrath”]. Published in 1939, the novel follows a family of tenant farmers who are forced to turn their land over to the banks and journey across the Dust Bowl to the ‘promised land’ of California (“John Ernst Steinbeck”). The Grapes of Wrath became highly debated and criticized, and many accused Steinbeck of dramatizing the conditions portrayed in the novel to prove a point; however, he had actually underplayed the conditions, feeling that “exact descriptions would have gotten in the way of his story.” Though embraced by the working class, critics condemned the novel as a ‘pack of lies’ and ‘Communist propaganda,’ and the book was banned from 1939 to 1941.
