Expectations Of California In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

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Expectations of California in The Grapes of Wrath

The Joad family’s hopeful expectations of California in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath foreshadow grim times ahead. The characters are overzealous in their expectations of California. They think that in California they will be able to pick “a whole big bunch of grapes off a bush” and “squash ‘em on [their] face[s] an’ let them run off [their] chins” (83). Steinbeck calls California the “new rich land…where the fruit grows” (87). The characters’ obsessions with the “never cold” (91) California make the reader question what is actually happening in California. Throughout the first half of The Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck sets up the characters for disappointment by making their hopes for