Grapes Of Wrath Language Analysis

Prompt #6 The Grapes of Wrath, written by John Steinbeck, is a story of the Joad family and their travels west. The setting of Steinbeck 's novel is the Great Depression in Oklahoma. During this time, a long period of drought and high winds affected large parts of the Midwest, including much of Oklahoma, creating what was called the Dust Bowl. Steinbeck uses different elements and narrative styles to endow his novel with a powerful sense of realism and authenticity. He uses intercalary chapters to give his readers insight as to what actually happened during the Great Depression. Steinbeck also used different language. He changed the dialog of the characters to very slang and informal to give the readers a better grasp of how people spoke during the 1930 's. The language John Steinbeck uses in The Grapes of Wrath is very informal. He uses it to help set the tone also. He does this in-order to help the reader understand how the people spoke in more of a slang type fashion. For example, “Well, don’t do nothing you don’t want me to hear about” (Steinbeck, 7). The language of this portrays slang, as it does throughout the whole novel. The reader probably thinks of somebody who isn’t very smart or isn’t very clean. It helps the readers to visualize the characters.

Realism and authenticity is very evident throughout The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck uses things such as real events; setting, symbolism, foreshadowing of future events that actually happened, and many other things help ascertain this sense. With the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, Steinbeck has factual statements all throughout the novel. Intercalary chapters or nonfiction chapters, are gives the novel it’s most powerful sense of realism and authenticity. “The tractors came over the roads and into the fields, great crawlers moving like insects, having the incredible strength of insects” (Steinbeck, 35). Factual statements such as this are the main reason The Grapes of Wrath is so