How Did John Steinbeck Use Interchapters In The Grapes Of Wrath

During the 1930s, the Great Depression severely affected the economy of the United States as well as the majority of its citizens. This catastrophe, along with the Dust Bowl, resulted in people having their land and homes stripped away from them, their families becoming deathly ill, and having a huge lack of basic necessities for survival. In John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath, he strategically structured his chapters in order to correctly portray what was going on during this period in American history. Steinbeck argued that the Great Depression was a widespread struggle, and through the unification of people, it would help ease the adversities brought about by this period, and he advanced these arguments through the use of interchapters.

Steinbeck wanted to make his readers aware of the fact that this depression did not only impact the Joad family throughout this novel, but rather almost everybody living during the 1930s. He was able to convey this message by frequently switching between chapters relating to the Joad family, and interchapters, which switched the focus to a much wider perspective relating to the majority of the American population. Steinbeck clearly advances this argument in interchapter five saying, “And now the owner men grew angry. You'll have to go. But it’s ours, the tenant men cried. We-- No. The bank, the monster owns it. You'll have to go” (46). This instance depicts a point during this period when several families had their land taken away from them by the bank because they could no longer support themselves. By providing information regarding what was going on with the general population at this time, the reader is clearly able to see and understand Steinbeck’s argument. He later relates this instance to the fact the Joads were also a family suffering from this hardship, thus ultimately showing that this struggle was experienced by several families during this time

As time progressed, it only further exacerbated the conditions of life at this time, and it is apparent that Steinbeck thought that in order to approach to solve this huge problem, people had to stop seeing themselves as individuals, but rather part of a group of people. In interchapter fourteen, Steinbeck states, “It was my mother’s blanket-- take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning-- from ‘I’ to ‘we’” (206). These particular sentences really show Steinbeck advancing his argument of trying to urge people to work together. The giving of the blanket at this point was significant because it showed that at this time, people stopped just worrying about their own family and they gave aid to other families suffering the same hard times as them. Likewise, the same thing was happening with the Joads when they united with other families such as the Wilsons and families from the Weedpatch. Furthermore, this shows that Steinbeck's use of the interchapters allows the reader to gain a broader perspective than just the lives of the Joads at this time to really comprehend the circumstances of the situation the majority of people were in at this