ipl-logo

The Dust Bowl Documentary Analysis

1327 Words6 Pages

1. Facing the plight of the nineteen-thirties Dust Bowl in Oklahoma, the Joad family decides it is time for them seek a better future in the promised land of California. They pack their bags, and load into their car with the intention of riding on the infamous Route 66, and not looking back until they reach their destination. On their journey they experience many issues including family conflicts, discrimination, and even the law. The Joad clan start to question whether or not there will still be opportunity waiting for them in California, once they realize that elements of supply and demand may not be in their favor. 2. The most notable protagonist of the story is Tom Joad, the first character that is introduced in the film, who is filled …show more content…

Under the circumstances brought by the Dust Bowl, the Joads must leave their life in Oklahoma behind in order to survive and pursue an altogether better life. This separation from their property is conclusively a death sentence for Granpa Joad, the founder of the Joad farm, who shortly dies after their departure. As the Joads embark on their journey, they begin to feel the discrimination that is shared throughout a large population of people who were referred to as “okies”. This conflict is resolved in many ways. In retaliation to the unjust conditions for migrant farmers in California, Jim Casy organizes a strike against unfair wages. He also even willingly goes to jail in order to serve as a sacrificial symbol towards his cause. Towards the end of the film, Tom Joad decides that it is in his best interest to leave the family behind and pursue fighting injustices against migrant farmers in any way he can. Another way this conflict is resolved is at the end of the film when Ma Joad says: “We’re the people that live” (Grapes of Wrath). She describes that their ability to persevere through hard times is empowering and makes them a stronger people. This empowerment is what fuels their ability to combat injustice thus sparking a resolution to the

Show More
Related

Chapter Summary Of The Dust Bowl

138 Words | 1 Pages

Chapter 1 establishes the epic context and tone for the entire novel. This brief, but important, opening chapter provides a backdrop for the main events of the narrative, describing the event primarily responsible for spurring the great migration to California during the 1930s. The destructive force of the Dust Bowl is staggeringly described as a backward life cycle, a regression from fertile green to a dead and dusty brown. The deterioration of the land that forces the farmers to huddle and "figger" foreshadows the plight of the Joads: Forced off their land by a bank looking for profit, they will move west seeking a new livelihood.

Read More

How Did The Devil's Highway Kill

1194 Words | 5 Pages

The Devil’s Highway: Designed to Kill When the Wellton 26 began their journey on the Devil’s Highway, they had no way of knowing that half of them would not make it to the other side. They were told they would walk through the desert for a day and then they would be on their way to their own version of the American Dream. But no outcome other than suffering and death should have been expected, since they were being led into one of the deadliest parts of North America, with almost nothing to help them survive. Like many before them, they were doomed to die. The Devil’s Highway is a ruthless death trap.

Read More

Dust Bowl Dbq Essay

539 Words | 3 Pages

Timothy Egan called the Dust Bowl "the worst hard times As the nation was hit with its worst economic disaster, the country was hit with its worst ecological disaster as well. Over 300 dust storms or dusters hit the Southern Great Plains during the 1930s. The hardest hit areas were theOklahoma and Texas panhandles. The land became almost uninhabitable, and over two million people left their homes throughout the course of the dust bowl in search of a new life elsewhere. Many ended up nearly starved to death and homeless.

Read More

Dust Bowl Summary

1077 Words | 5 Pages

Donald Worster is an environmental historian and his book Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s helped to define the environmental history movement as it was the first environmental history book published. He breaks the stereotype of how the Dust Bowl was viewed by writing it from an environmental standpoint instead of writing a social history by focusing solely on the people and their experiences. How it helped to define the environmental history movement is that it opened up this avenue for others to write about environmental issues. He is also an anti-capitalist and this book combines his interest in the environment with the effect that capitalism has on the environment.

Read More

Foreshadowing In The Grapes Of Wrath

859 Words | 4 Pages

John Steinbeck’s classic novel, The Grapes of Wrath, explains the story of the Joad family while simultaneously dealing with eternal human issues. We open on Tom Joad, fresh out of prison, hitchhiking his way back home after killing a man with a shovel. From there we travel through ideas of religion, capitalism, xenophobia, and determination. As Tom begins walking home from where he was dropped off, he runs across his childhood preacher, alone and barefoot, and discusses ideas of human desire and sin within the church after learning that Casy is no longer a member. Continuing on his way home, Tom finds his family’s barn abandoned and his neighbors gone.

Read More

Separation Of Wealth In The Grapes Of Wrath

342 Words | 2 Pages

In The Grapes of Wrath the Joads are forced off of their land because sharecropping was no longer profitable and are left with no work or home. What was happening to the Joads was happening to all the other farmers at the same time. With this mass of families

Read More

The Worst Hard Time Analysis

1157 Words | 5 Pages

The book The Worst Hard Time was written in three parts; “The Promise”, “Betrayal”, and “Blowup”. In the introduction of “The Promise: The Great Plowup” it takes the reader on a quick journey of the Southern Plains towns in the area that was affected by the dust bowl. A few survivors shared their stories about life during the tragedy. In this section the important topics are introduced; ethnic tension, soul-searching, shame, a path to redemption, and settlement problems. This section follows a few settlers who had to live in a place that gives nothing back.

Read More

Grapes Of Wrath Isolation Analysis

856 Words | 4 Pages

Have you ever felt like you didn’t belong because of how you identify yourself? People all over the world have gone through something like this once in their lives. But we shouldn’t see people for just a certain thing or we shouldn’t define them as one thing. In the book, The Grapes of Wrath, it is shown many times that people are being treated differently just because of their class and how they present themselves. The characters Ma, Tom Joad and the other Okies the Joad family encounters are all put into a specific category on where they fall into.

Read More

Ending In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

953 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More

The Dust Bowl Research Paper

784 Words | 4 Pages

Intro The Dust bowl conveyed an enormous agrarian and monetary hit to the Great Plains and destroyed what was left of the United States Economy during the Great Depression. It continued for a decade, 1930 to 1939, and wrecked ranches and lives all over Texas, Oklahoma panhandles, Colorado, parts of New Mexico, Canada, and Kansas. Monstrous dust storms wrecked pretty much everything from harvests, overwhelming ranches, in such a way it crushed the income and careers of thousands of farmers. Cause

Read More

Literary Analysis: The Grapes Of Wrath

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

Essay On The Dust Bowl

1291 Words | 6 Pages

“With the gales came the dust. Sometimes it was so thick that it completely hid the sun. Visibility ranged from nothing to fifty feet, the former when the eyes were filled with dirt which could not be avoided, even with goggles ”( Richardson 59). The Dust Bowl was a huge dust storm in the 1930s that stretched from western Kansas to New Mexico. People that lived in that area could not step outside or they would get dust in their lungs.

Read More

Personal Narrative: A Day During The Great Depression

664 Words | 3 Pages

It’s hard to get through a day during the great depression. Everyday, my family worries about my father's job. Now there's one more thing to add to the pile of worries. The dust bowl. The storms have been going on for about 3 years now.

Read More

Migrant Farm Workers In Salinas Valley During The Great Depression

129 Words | 1 Pages

The setting mainly took place in south of Soledad, California, near the Salinas Valley, during the Great Depression in the 1930’s. Salinas Valley had many substantial farms during the Depression. This was essential because colossal farms employed a massive number of workers, often up to hundreds. Since farm workers with no steady employment, would often head to these communities, it was logical that Salinas Valley was George and Lennie’s destination. Migrant farm workers were perfect examples, to highlight the solitude and loneliness engendered by the Depression. These men had no place to call home, and had only a few belongings to call their own.

Read More

The Grapes Of Wrath American Dream Analysis

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

More about The Dust Bowl Documentary Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document