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Migration In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

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The Great Depression ravaged through the entire country of the United States in the 1930s, tearing apart families and destroying lives. Millions of average Americans had to uproot their entire lives and move to promised lands of prosperity. This mass migration westward damaged souls and reigned in vast amounts of death. The journey that many migrants, commonly called Okies or Arkies, made was treacherous and danger lurked behind every corner. John Steinbeck’s novel “The Grapes of Wrath” chronicles the trek across the country from the viewpoint of the Joad family from Oklahoma. Their journey represents issues and struggles that occured for these migrants. From death, to employment, to disappointment, and little hope, the hardships of these migrations …show more content…

He employs the use of the words such as “Okies”, “gleaming”, “goddamn”, “lithely”, and “dark curl of crisp pork”. These words, together, manifest into a detailed description of scenery, characters, and the common life of the migrants. The words “Okies” and “goddamn” demonstrate Steinbeck’s desire to allow his piece to flow with accuracy as if the characters were real people having a conversation. These words were common and conversational throughout the time of the 1930s and the Dust Bowl, allowing the reader to be transported within the story. Steinbeck’s written conversations in Grapes of Wrath demonstrate unity due to their communal and friendly nature. People throughout this time were able to connect with one another by the way of shared vernacular. “Gleaming”, “lithely”, and “dark curl of crisp pork” are illustrative and expressive. They accurately describe the surrounding scenery and characters with precision . This allows vivid imagery to form and transport the reader into the plot. Solidarity is formed between the reader and the character storyline because it allows the reader to feel at one with the issues. The appeal of pathos is applied in order to draw out emotions and create a bridge between the characters as well as between reader and story. John Steinbeck’s drive to demonstrate unity is able to beautifully flow and adhere to the minds of the readers and his

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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.

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Steinbeck’s uses the intercalary chapters to describe the migrant’s meaningful struggle. “Fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe”(p.205). Steinbeck uses this chapter to describe how the farmers may be dying of starvation, but they are dying for a cause that defines them, and will dye to save those they care for, in order to get what they deserve in the future. Humanity would not improve or grow stronger against evil if they gave up on fighting for their cause. Steinbeck uses this chapter to show the struggle and fight of all the people, and shows how the Joads too, are fighting toward a goal that mankind dying

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The author of The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck, wrote his American realist novel to allow readers to understand the experiences of the migrants from the Dust Bowl era. Not many people

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In the well-written novel, The Grapes of Wrath, author, John Steinbeck, uses detailed descriptions to describe the land of Oklahoma during the 1930’s Dust Bowl migration. The Dust Bowl migration was a period of time when farmers from Oklahoma and other states in the midwest began moving to California due to the many severe dust storms that ruined the land and agriculture. Steinbeck demonstrates the effects of the major dust storms early-on in the novel. “All day the dust sifted down from the sky, and the next day it sifted down. An even blanket covered the earth.

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In The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, the chapters alternate between two perspectives of a story. One chapter focuses on the tenants as a whole, while the other chapter focuses specifically of a family of tenants, the Joads, and their journey to California. Chapter 5 is the former and Steinbeck does an excellent job of omniscient third person point of view to describe the situation. Chapter 5’s main idea is to set the conflict and let the readers make connections between Steinbeck’s alternating chapters with foreshadowing. Steinbeck is effectual in letting readers make connections both to the world and the text itself with the use of exposition, and symbolism.

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The Grapes of Wrath, one of his most well-known works is exemplary of Steinbeck’s pursuit to bring attention to the lower class and their struggles during the Great Depression, and to hold those who caused the Depression accountable, as seen in his quote “I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this [the Great Depression and its effects]. I’ve done my damnedest to rip a reader’s nerves to rags” (“The Grapes of Wrath”]. Published in 1939, the novel follows a family of tenant farmers who are forced to turn their land over to the banks and journey across the Dust Bowl to the ‘promised land’ of California (“John Ernst Steinbeck”). The Grapes of Wrath became highly debated and criticized, and many accused Steinbeck of dramatizing the conditions portrayed in the novel to prove a point; however, he had actually underplayed the conditions, feeling that “exact descriptions would have gotten in the way of his story.” Though embraced by the working class, critics condemned the novel as a ‘pack of lies’ and ‘Communist propaganda,’ and the book was banned from 1939 to 1941.

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