ipl-logo

Social Injustice In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

1121 Words5 Pages

Women today are still in this transition amongst gender roles. Woman today are still fighting to break the bold of the nuclear positions they have been placed in for hundreds of years. Women are fighting for equal positions in the workforce and equal pay for the work that they do. The shift in the roles of the Joad family is very much representative of the shift that is still occurring today.
The all-encompassing concept that is present throughout all that has been discussed is the notion of social injustice. Social injustice can be defined as, “a situation when some unfair practices are being carried in the society. Whatever unjust is happening is usually against the law and it might not be considered a moral practice.” Through this, people often lose or are denied their personal identity. Grandpa, in the story held his …show more content…

The story follows the fictional Joad family as they make the voyage from their farm they have been kicked off of, to the land of California. Despite being fictional characters, they are representative of the thousands of real-world families that made the voyage and faced similar if not identical hardships. Though the events described occurred some 80 years prior to date, many of the social pieces that occurred are still happening in our country today. Man’s inhumanity to man is still prevalent in many ways, such as our views on social justice, police, and more. There are so many connections that can be made across the time frames that have been discussed and yet more still. To end this paper, I quote not a line form the text itself, but the final line from the movie based from the book. This line I feel embodies a message readers of “Grapes of Wrath” should carry with them. “Rich people go and come and die out but we keep going, we are the people that live, will go on forever because we are the

Show More
Related
1639 Words | 7 Pages

During the great depression, the midwest underwent a long drought. Exposed dry earth swept away with the wind and caused huge dust storms that prolonged the dry weather. With the lowered selling prices and the lack of crops the farmers had some major economic trouble. In Black Blizzard and John Steinbeck 's Grapes of Wrath, the literature develops the ideas of the poor distribution of wealth within the populations and the social aspects of people of different economic class. Social differences arise in the wealthy, the employed, and the unemployed throughout this period of hardship.

Read More
750 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More
780 Words | 4 Pages

On the morning of April 19, 1995 at 9:02 AM, a truck-bomb explosion was set off in the front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The blast left 168 people dead including 19 children and hundreds of other people injured. It also leveled approximately one third of the federal building, as well as about another 300 other buildings. The blast was orchestrated by an ex-military and anti-government militant, Timothy McVeigh.

Read More
555 Words | 3 Pages

Immigrants in the 1930s all across America struggled with their journeys to hope and redemption. The main purpose for chapter three, which depicted a turtle struggling to cross a highway, was to outline the struggle that the immigrants faced as they took their journey to a new destination where they would spend the rest of their lives, as well as sticking with those who could help them through this long, enduring excursion. Hopefully, when they reached those endpoints, they would have a new job and a life worth living. The Joad family, a family of farmers and the family depicted in The Grapes of Wrath, repeatedly have to go through events that could potentially throw them off course far enough to have no hope for returning to their former glory.

Read More
720 Words | 3 Pages

Bayard puts distance between himself and his father’s legacy by leaving to go college as a Law Major. Since the day Bayard and Ringo killed Grumby and nailed his body to the old compress, Bayard has struggled with the reality that he took someone’s life. This event makes him realize how much death the war had caused. As well as the war, Colonel Sartoris was the cause of many deaths because of his vengeful nature. As Bayard is readying to leave Professor Wilkins' house he realizes he is the head of the Sartoris family.

Read More
1217 Words | 5 Pages

As an astute philosopher once declared “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” (Aristotle). This idea is called synergy and it means that teamwork leads to great benefits. This teamwork is demonstrated in the movie Dead Poet’s Society when Mr. Keating repeats “Or if you are slightly more daring O Captain, my Captain” (Dead Poets Society). He forces his class to work together and the results are astonishing. Characters in American literature do the same as they endure bad situations, which causes them to seek help from others and ultimately realize that they’re part of the oversoul.

Read More
717 Words | 3 Pages

The Grapes of Wrath details an era of American History where many citizens were unemployed as a result of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl that occurred during the same decade. The combination of these issues led many families–a large portion of those from the southern Midwest–to migrate to California, where they were forced to work for extremely low wages in order to provide for their families. After many years, America made it through the challenging economic and social times of the 30’s and 40’s, but problems surrounding low wages and income never completely vanished. In 2015, many low-income workers went on strike to protest the minimum wage, on which they were trying to survive (Horovitz 1). These workers included those from McDonald’s,

Read More
1248 Words | 5 Pages

Anecdotal Injustice: Steinbeck, Capote, and Foer’s Focus on Victims of Circumstance Morals have long been considered to be the basis and reasoning behind all actions and decisions people make every day. Whether it is simply to decide what to eat for lunch, or where to go next in life, all of these decisions are based on well-defined morals. But in many cases, the morals of others inadvertently ignore others that are wronged and forgotten, and rather than being able to control their own lives, these victims are forced into bad situations due to the acts of others. In John Steinbeck’s

Read More
1880 Words | 8 Pages

Intercalary Chapter Literary Analysis During the Great Depression, the nation as a whole was stripped of financial security and forced into a survivalist way of living. This changed the ways that people interacted with one another and the overall mentality of society. In the Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family is torn from their land and find themselves with nothing, a common story for migrant farmers of that time, derogatorily called “Okies” by Californians. But this is not the only group that is struggling, the entire county was in a state of panic and bruteness, no matter how “well off” they seemed to be.

Read More
550 Words | 3 Pages

Injustices, tragedies, and unfortunate circumstances have plagued humankind for all of existence. Many of these problems have arisen from the society of man, and could not be found in nature. The hatred, selfishness, prejudice, and maliciousness seen in so many injustices man created unnecessarily, as well as all the suffering it causes does not need to exist. If an individual witnesses a crime or injustice occurring, it is their responsibility to defend the weak and fight for whatever is morally right, even at the cost of themselves.

Read More
168 Words | 1 Pages

In The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck follows the Joad family as they suffer the hardships caused by the Dust Bowl in the 1930’s. The most important lesson people can learn from the novel is the value of a human life. Although the 1930’s was a low point in American society, the ill-treatment of human beings is still relevant today. Just like Jim Casy’s philosophy, it is important to fight for the rights of the people and their dignity. There are several examples of oppression in The Grapes of wrath.

Read More
735 Words | 3 Pages

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.

Read More
447 Words | 2 Pages

This social philosophy preserves that human survival is dependent upon the banding together of humans to find strength in group unity and action. Now, if we elaborate a conclusion based in this scene then we can relate this topic to an economic disaster. Because, the elaboration of this theory in the film is seen in the education of the troubled (tom) and disadvantaged (Joad’s family) with the organization of unions and strikes as vehicles of group protest and change. In final consideration, “The Grapes of Wrath” emphasizes the unfair treatments that the migrants receive and how this doesn’t apply to their hardship; it diminishes them as human

Read More
487 Words | 2 Pages

The trip to California was inspired by some flyers that Pa Joad received one day. The Joads heard that California was in need of a larger work force, they then began dreaming of an amazing land where they prospered together as a family. But once the Joads arrived in California they realised it is not as stunning and lucrative as advertised. By the time the Joads had arrived, the job market had deplete due to the rush of migration to California, therefore Pa Joad was unable to find a lucrative job to support his family. The Joad family bounced around poverty camps, known as hoovervilles, and fought to keep food on the table.

Read More
513 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel “Of Mice and Men” John Steinbeck portrays the theme of social injustice throughout the story in the lives of several characters that include Lennie, Curley’s Wife, and the stable buck, Crooks. All of these characters are mistreated in some way, shape or form. The hardships that these characters faced help guide us to see the social injustice that is prevalent in the story. Lennie is a victim of social injustice due to the fact that he is mentally disabled. He is not treated fairly when he was accused of rape.

Read More

More about Social Injustice In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

Related Topics

Open Document