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Morality In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

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Morality, principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong, is a characteristic that many people share throughout the world. Every person’s actions are guided by their ethics, but thousands of individuals wonder what influences these certain morals. During the 1930s, citizen’s morals were affected by their religion, as evident in The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Within this time period, the main influence of citizen’s ethics is based on religion. The Dust Bowl, the start of the Great Depression, marked the decline of the economy and the end to thousands of farmers lives. With the economy failing, many farmers viewed the dust bowl and the failing economy as their folly which influenced thousands of individuals to go to …show more content…

Jim Casy was a former preacher who left the church because he felt guilty of the sin he was committing and started to doubt God. Despite this, religion still affected his ethics. Maybe, “I figgered,” maybe it's all men an' all women we love; maybe that's the Holy Sperit—the human sperit—the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever'body's a part of. “Now I sat there thinkin' it, an' all of a suddent—I knew it. I knew it so deep down that it was true, and I still know it” (Steinbeck 24). With these morals, Casy helped everyone he could and helped anyone at any time. There are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works in all (New King James Version, I Cor. 12.6). Despite Casy leaving the church, his morals were still influenced by religion because he still wanted to help everybody as much as …show more content…

When the Joads leave the government camp, they get approached by a mysterious man who offers them a job at a peach farm. When they arrive, men and women are yelling at guards who are guarding the fence to the farm. The Joads enter and settle down into their new job and home, but Tom begins to get curious and ventures beyond the gate to find out what is happening. When he crosses the gate, he encounters Jim Casy. Casy explains to Tom that the people are striking against the farm because the workers were not getting paid what they should have. Then, strikebreakers appear and begin talking to Casy and Tom. The strikebreakers believe that Casy was the strikers leader; so, the strikebreakers decide that they would kill the leader to stop the strike. They hit Casy across the head with a pick handle. This scene illustrates that the native people follow aggressive

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In this chapter, you are introduced to Floyd Knowles, a man the Joads meet while setting up tents for shelter, a Hooverville, as they are on the move along with many other families. Knowles warns them of how the police are treating certain groups with harassment. Casy decides to leave the Joads’ group because he insists that he is a burden to them, but decides to stay an extra day. Later, two men, one is a deputy, show up in a car to the tent settlement to offer fruit-picking jobs, but Knowles refuses which provokes the men. They try to falsely accuse him of breaking into a car lot so they can arrest him.

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The Dust Bowl was a terrible experience during a horrible time. In the 1930s post World War I America had a total collapse of the stock market causing the Great Depression affecting the economy on a global scale, but hitting hardest at home in the United States. However, the economy wasn’t the only thing that was hit hard during this time; seemingly unstoppable dust storms ravaged farming land from the west to east coast hitting hardest in the great plains in the middle section the the US became known as the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl was not entirely a causation of bad luck on nature, it was caused by an increasing demand for crops, advancements in farming technology, while the final nail in the coffin was a lack of rain. During World War

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The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl were devistating time for American citizens followed by another terrible time called the dust bowl. Both were devastating times for america. The great depression caused the dust bowl because farmers lost their money and property which cause many to move to urban america in search of work. The great depression had a huge impact on american citizens from 1929-1939.

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From the beginning, Jim Casy seemed to be a pointless character, an extra, someone with little purpose to the plot of the story. He isn’t mentioned very often and doesn’t have any distinguishable characteristics. However, Casy ends up being an incredibly important character in John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath. Casy used to be a preacher for a church, in fact, it was the same church the main characters attended.

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During the Great Depression a Midwestern phenomenon called the Dust Bowl affected many lives of newly settled Americans throughout the Great Plains region. Otherwise known as the “Dirty Thirties”, a storm of dry weather caused farmers and villagers to abandon their homes in hope to survive the deadly threat of the storm. The Dust Bowl was a big contributing factor to the Great Depression agriculturally, and economically. During the 1930’s America suffered extreme temperatures. A drought forming across all farm lands due to failure of successful crop rotation cause dust to form.

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Since the book came out in 1939, everyone has had a opinion on the ending to John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. It has a very controversial ending, that Steinbeck thought would name the last nail into the coffin, so to speak, on how bad the dust bowl and moving west really was. The ending starts when the Joad family is threatened with a flood, so they make their way to a old barn where they find a boy and his old father. The boy says his father is starving, and that he can’t keep anything solid down. He needs something like soup or milk.

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He learns that the decision is going to be to head west as a family. Initially you'd think Tom is going to disagree with the idea due to his nature, but he does indeed tag along. This shows that young and reckless Joad is in fact, not as he seems. Could,ve easily had something to do with Reverend Casey's words of wisdom, who

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In many modern court systems, like the one in The United States today, final verdicts are based on the judgements of a group of people. These people ideally are impartial mediators that have no bias one way or the other. In theory, this type of setup should deliver the most accurate results for all involved. Like the court systems, it is up to many individuals to deliver and maintain justice either by the change or enforcement of established laws. What does “justice” even mean?

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The concept of morality is commonly believed to be a byproduct of religion with “[n]early half of Americans believ[ing] that morality is impossible without belief in god” (Pyysiäinen 44). Yet, the correlation between the two seems to be less concrete with research showing that “[c]ountries with high rates of religiosity tend to have higher rates of homicide, juvenile mortality (including suicide), sexually transmitted diseases and adolescent pregnancy, and abortion ( 45). Moreover, a study evaluated by Pyysiäinen finds that “religiosity has little to nothing to do with how people evaluate the goodness or badness and acceptability vs. non-acceptability of particular moral judgements” (Pyysiäinen 47). Instead of religion creating morals, Broom

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Violence isn't the way to achieve ones goals. Almost everyone has someone of something that stands in the way of their ultimate goal. Many people come to a point where they feel that the only way to achieve that goal is at the expensive of another. This isn't necessarily the case. Rather then inflicting violence on one another we must use the intelligence we were blessed with.

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McDowell begins the book with an anecdote of his life; a familiar story of the sceptical university Agnostic, ready to fire back a retort at the slightest mention of God, Christianity, and anything (or anyone) within. He recounted the all too common feeling of a meaningless life, the seemingly innate itch of human existence, and how it brought him to various places in his life—until he stumbled upon a particular group of people and was changed forever. This introduction, though short, is crucial to understand, for it sets the stage for the remainder of the book. It tells not only the story of a former non-believer, but the story of everyone—it presents us the life of Jesus Christ, not as a gentle sermon or a feel-good retelling, but as an assertive, rational reply to the accusation: ‘Christianity is a myth, and so is your God.’

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Charism plays an important role in both the communal and individual life of a believer. Here Menzies is in agreement that “the rich variety of gifts granted to every believer for the common good appear to be a natural extension of Paul’s larger pnuematological perspective”(Fee, 192). The significant thing to note though is that for Paul the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives is connected to our participation in the body of Christ. As we walk in the Spirit, He produces fruit in our lives. The fruit of the Spirit in our lives is not just individualistic and for personal benefit but for corporate benefit of the body of

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