John Steinbeck has been a pillar of American literature for decades. His work, especially Grapes of Wrath and The Harvest Gypsies, helped to shed light on some of the issues that plagued California, and the rest of the United States during the Great Depression. His works accentuate the theme of the importance of community, especially when those with the power to help don 't. These novels take place during the Great Depression, a time when there were very few jobs, little stability, widespread poverty, and diminished hopes for the future. This era sets the stage on which these stories take place. During these harsh times, many people turned to the government or banks for help, but they were turned down by the banks because they wanted a profit, or they bankrupted, and the government 's resources were stretched so low they could only help few people.
Bud, Not Buddy Critical Lens Literary Analysis Essay “During the Great Depression, African Americans were faced with problems that were not unlike those experienced by the most disadvantaged groups in society. The Great Depression had a leveling effect, and all groups really experienced hard times: poor whites, poor blacks”- William Julius Wilson. This quote relates to the Great Depression in 1929-1939, when whites and blacks were discriminated. They would usually live in cardboard houses called Hoovervilles, with no jobs or money.
The tone of chapter 11 in John Steinbeck's, “The Grapes of Wrath,” is sympathetic, sad and hopeless. His word choice and syntax show how the sad houses were left to decay in the weather. His use of descriptive words paints a picture in the reader's mind. As each paragraph unfolds, new details come to life and adds to the imagery. While it may seem unimportant, this intercalary chapter shows how the effects of the great depression affected common households.
The speaker discloses that his children have been “gathered like a small cloud [and have become] . . . steam weeping on the window” (ll. 32-35). The speaker uses this final comparison of his children to weeping clouds to convince his grandpa that his life is not irredeemable and his presence is still needed in this world. In conclusion, through Gary Soto’s usage of powerful imagery, precise descriptions, and an absence of rhythm, he evokes a sense of sympathy for the community where he grew up while telling a beautiful story.
The image that Dorothea Lange captured of a fearful and desperate weather-beaten woman, with her three children, has become the ideal representation of the desperation and hardships that many families have gone through during the Great Depression in America. In the article “ The Harvest Gypsies”, John Steinbeck portrays the desperation when he declares “ The father and mother now feel that paralyzed with numbness with which the mind protects itself against too much sorrow and too much pain” (Steinbeck n. pag.).When no food could be grown and no money could be made, entire families packed up everything they had and began the journey to California. Without even looking back at the past, many families left their hometown farms , only to end
From our textbook we are able to learn the base information of the depression and migrant workers. The document provides a deeper insight with first hand views on the mistreatment of workers by wealthy landowners. First hand photographs allow a real view of how the impoverished migrant camps actually looked. The photos, along with Steinbeck's firsthand observations and genuine concern for the human suffering that was taking place allows for students to be further engaged into the topic. Our Texbook, Give Me Liberty, describes how the depression transformed American life.
Joel Sternfeld, an American photographer best known for capturing memorial landscapes (places where something tragic occurred). Many of his photographs capture the emotions and severity of the events that occurred in these places. Sternfeld’s 1993 image Gibson Street is a prime example of an image that captures these things. In this photograph Sternfeld captures the spot where Christopher Harris was shot in 1991, and he connects this event other issues that were happening in America at the time. Through photograph’s compositional arrangement, the apparent vacancy, and the color pallet of the image, tragedies that occur in inner cities and other places of poverty are displayed.
In the book, American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California, James N. Gregory attempts to change readers perspective of stereotypes created by artist during the Great Depression, such as those created by John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath and Dorthea Lange’s photograph of the “Migrant Mother”. In his book, Gregory “takes us back to the dust bowl migration” to reveal that there is more to Oklahoman, Arkansan, Texan, and Missourian immigrants than economic hardship. He focuses on regionalism, and an “Okie” subculture that was created due to the high rate of migration to California. Gregory sets out to prove that they also had a mass effect on Californian culture and social patterns. Using extremely efficient primary
The Joad family is the primary subject of attention in both the book and the film, but the lifestyles of migrant laborers are shown in Lange's images more abstractly. The Grapes of Wrath and Dorothea Lange's photography give strong and thought- provoking insights into the problems and hardships encountered by individuals in the United States impacted by the Great Depression. Both of them portray the harsh realities of the Great Depression, the tough living circumstances, and the spirit of community and camaraderie
The most beautiful individuals are the ones who went through one of the toughest situations but, yet, came out victorious in a fight that could not be only physically won but mentally. During the Great Depression, there were various factors that played a tremendous role in the devastation on the American people. The Dust Bowl, in 1934, coerced darkness across the Great Plains in America as the rains ceased completely in the earlier 1930s (“Dust”). Soil starved from water sought out for revenge and strangled the life out of the settler’s crops, prosperity, and life as they knew it. To make an already terrible situation even worse, the Great Depression developed and began its toll on the citizens of America when the stock market crashed and farmers
Artists depicted the struggles of the era through powerful images of poverty, resilience, and
Dorothea Lange was an amazing photographer, she captured many significant pictures during the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma. Her most famous picture is the “Migrant Mother,” a mother surrounded by her 3 sons, one in her arms and two holding on to her for support. The picture describes how bad times were, the worry on her face showed how many feared that they wouldn’t be able to sustain their family by providing them with food. The Dust Bowl affected many other states, people tried to go to California, the promise land, for jobs. Linda Gordon, a writer and historian, looks up to Mrs. Lange as a role model, a woman who overcame a physical and an emotional obstacle in her life.
John Steinbeck, in the novel, Grapes of Wrath, identifies the hardships and struggle to portray the positive aspects of the human spirit amongst the struggle of the migrant farmers and the devastation of the Dust Bowl. Steinbeck supports his defense by providing the reader with imagery, symbolism and intense biblical allusions. The author’s purpose is to illustrate the migrant farmers in order to fully exploit their positive aspects in the midst of hardships. Steinbeck writes in a passionate tone for an audience that requires further understanding of the situation.
In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the era of the Great Depression in the 1930’s is revealed through a simple story of ranch workers who hope to improve their lives. Migrant workers, George and Lennie, have a friendship that is based on trust and protection. The other workers lack the companionship and bond that these two men have. In the novel, the absence and presence of friendship is the motivation for the characters’ actions.
On November 27th, 2006, Chris Ware’s illustrations of the two thanksgiving gatherings appeared on the cover of the New Yorker. Chris Ware’s two illustrations contradict each other in many ways but also correlate in many ways as well. Ware illustrates how society has grown stronger but also changed in many negative ways. The above illustration has one very distinct figure on the wall that differentiates it from the illustration below it.
