Foreshadowing In The Grapes Of Wrath

John Steinbeck’s classic novel, The Grapes of Wrath, explains the story of the Joad family while simultaneously dealing with eternal human issues. We open on Tom Joad, fresh out of prison, hitchhiking his way back home after killing a man with a shovel. From there we travel through ideas of religion, capitalism, xenophobia, and determination. As Tom begins walking home from where he was dropped off, he runs across his childhood preacher, alone and barefoot, and discusses ideas of human desire and sin within the church after learning that Casy is no longer a member. Continuing on his way home, Tom finds his family’s barn abandoned and his neighbors gone. The banks have been forcing them off their land in order to make more money, and while

Essentially, that’s what foreshadowing is. The author is subtly hinting at what is going to happen next in the story, but the reader still has to examine the text to understand the foreshadowing. The most explicit events in the story where foreshadowing was used was when the Joads’ dog got hit by a car and when their grandpa died. Dogs are family pets and are usually good-intentioned, curious animals. The Joad family dog, “....A blot of blood and tangled, burst intestines, kicked slowly in the road” (Steinbeck 130). The death of the dog represents the struggles about to attack the Joads. The murder of a good, curious, innocent animal foreshadows that things are about to begin that aren’t fair and aren’t deserved, but still must happen to contribute to the grim determination of the characters. The second element of foreshadowing was when “Grampa” died. It’s a similar situation to the dog, but Grandpa Joad is obviously not as innocent nor carefree as the dog. He knows the risks and realizes the magnitude of the situation, yet he still holds on to hope. Grandpa Joad is already sick, but after an unexpected stroke, “The breathing had stopped. Casy looked down into Grampa’s eyes and they were clear and deep and penetrating, and there was a knowing serene look in them” (Steinbeck 138). His one dream is to go to California and crush bunches of grapes in his mouth, and that dream dies