Grapes Of Wrath Rhetorical Analysis

“There ain't no sin, and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do.” (166 Steinbeck, Wrath) This quote from John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath states that there is no sin and no virtue which is quite ironic considering that one of the novel's themes is using anger as a virtue, used to fight against an oppressive vice.Steinbeck also uses various symbols to help create a more distinctive theme. In many of John Steinbeck's depression era works including The Grapes of Wrath, and Starvation under the Orange Trees, and The Harvest Gypsies, Steinbeck establishes a passionate and angry tone through the use of pathos and personification. Pathos, a rhetorical device aimed at evoking emotions, serves as a powerful tool to help create a passionate and angry tone in

Steinbeck uses anger as a virtue in which people are ready to fight back and uses it as an antidote to the dehumanization these people are experiencing from the government, banks, and farm owners. Many of the characters do not act on their anger until the end of the novel, one of these characters being Uncle John “ ” This act shows the anger he feels about the stillbirth of the child and the fact that it would be illegal to bury the baby, the act is also an allusion to Moses being sent down the river, the act was a message to the government and God himself. In “The Ground is angry” Steinbeck uses personification as a way to describe the ground and the surrounding environment; by using the word angry he allows the reader to imagine how the environment is acting irritable and noncompliant, making it inhabitable and setting the tone. Some of the most important symbols in the book are the characters themselves, one of the characters being Rose of