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Women In John Steinbeck's Grapes Of Wrath

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In many classic novels, it is rare to find any interaction between female characters. Even rarer, interaction between women where they aren't discussing or competing over men. John Steinbeck’s novel Grapes of Wrath’s portrayal of a healthy female relationship is well beyond its years for the portrayal of women in literature. The bond between the stoic Ma Joad and her self-centered daughter Rose of Sharon shows solidarity among women, as Rose of Sharon is forced to realize how much fortitude she possesses. Without the guidance of Mama, Rose of Sharon would have never been able to overcome the struggles a pregnant woman faces whilst making the journey from Oklahoma to California in search of a better life. Prior to the Joad clan’s journey west to California, Ma and her daughter Rose were polar …show more content…

Unlike traditional patriarch centered families, Ma is the leader of the Joads and serves a more influential role than her husband, Tom, “and since old Tom and the children could not know hurt or fear unless she acknowledged hurt or fear, she had practiced denying them in herself” (80). Ma pushes aside her own vexations in favor of serving a much bigger picture: her family’s sense of security. Ma is the backbone of the family, and “she seemed to know that if she swayed, the family shook, and if she ever really deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall, the family will to function would be gone” (80). The Joad family depends on Ma’s reserved, sagacious ways in order to keep from falling apart. Her oldest daughter, Rose of Sharon, is initially her antithesis; a vain, superficial representation of all the negative traits the classic beautiful woman possesses.

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Throughout history, authors utilize the written word to either expose grievous faults within society or celebrate the feats of society. John Steinbeck is certainly no exception as he has constructed many pieces which serve to enlighten the audience on the accomplishments and faults of society. The novel, The Grapes of Wrath, written by John Steinbeck attempts to expose faults within society which include prejudice and the overwhelming desire for greed. He does so through his use of allusions, diction, and characterization. John Steinbeck in the novel, The Grapes of Wrath, attempts to expose one of society’s most detrimental flaws--prejudice through the use of repetition and characterization.

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Biblical Parallels Are All That Is Needed Weather has shaped this story into a Christian novel by giving Biblical parallels and giving another way to look into the eyes of the Joad’s and the migrants. Even in Biblical times weather has helped humanity by giving us a new start: Noah’s Ark or by leading us into something new that we will never be able to find: The Israelites wandering in The Desert for Forty Years. In The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, the reader rationalizes that Steinbeck hints that the novel is fundamentally Christian by using Biblical parallels: The Israelites in the Desert, Noah’s Ark, and God watching over them.

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Grapes of Wrath clearly illustrate the class struggle between workers and the upper class. Steinbeck displays the discrimination between the migrant people and landowners. Migrant workers are handled worse than animals, family’s or “Okies” are starving as food is wasted by the wealthy and the landowners maintain control through violence. “What do you want us to do? We can't take less share of the crop – we're half starved now.

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The name “The Mother Road” was given to Route 66 by a famous author named John Steinbeck in his classic novel The Grapes of Wrath. John Steinbeck was an American novelist, short story writer, and a war veteran who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. The book The Grapes of Wrath was a icon representation of America’s economic downfall and the American people during that time. The novel was a story about a dramatic tale of an Oklahoman family who travels a journey along Route 66 to California seeking for a new life during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. The novel dealt with migrant workers that encounter cruelly, discrimination and odd acts of kindness.

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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.

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John Steinbeck explains in Of Mice and Men how people are treated even though they have mental disabilities and how minorities and women were treated. Steinbeck portrays Lennie as a mentally disabled person living in the great depression in california. He and George travel around together and they work together and George looks after Lennie because he gets into a lot of trouble because he is mentally disabled and can 't understand things like a normal person would. People with mental disabilities are usually locked up in cage for the rest of their life or they are simply shot to death. Steinbeck portrays Curley’s wife as a flirtatious person because she doesn’t like Curley and she wants someone to talk to her.

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Conor O’Malley struggled with speaking the truth throughout the whole book. He wanted to shield himself from what he knew was going to happen to his mother. The monster came to Conor and only asked one thing of him, that he tell the monster the truth. “If you speak the truth, you will be able to face whatever comes” (Ness 222). Conor’s mother never told him the truth about her illness, she wanted to keep his hopes high above the sky.

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Whenever a child of God is going through a hard time, they look through the book of Job for comfort and peace. Why is that? We know the Scriptures in whole are for our comfort, but why is Job especially a passage we turn to? Job was a God-fearing man who was given trial after trial, yet never cursed God or turned away from Him. He trusted in Him, and we should be like Job in this fact.

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The 1930s were a time of despair for many and hardship for all, and the struggles were often left in the hands of women to act as a supportive figure for the defeated man. While times were difficult for the typical American man, they were often even more difficult for the typical American woman. The increasingly more critical views of society on independent women, the need to suppress struggle and hardships, and the rise and sudden fall of feminism were all factors plaguing women during the 1930s. Evidence of gender roles can found within John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath in the way he portrays the Joad family; these gender roles can be compared, and in some instances contrasted, with those more accepted during the 1930s.

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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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“She’s gonna make a mess, they’s gonna be a bad mess about her. She’s a jailbait all set on the trigger”. Of Mice and Men show’s George and Lennie’s path to their American dream. They are starting off as laborers in California in the Salina’s Valley and live in a hand-to-mouth lifestyle on a ranch. The novel portrays many male characters than female.

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The Grapes of Wrath received a harsh flow of criticism ever since its publication, and even now there are still disputes surrounding the novel. While actual migrant workers claimed that Steinbeck had an accurate depiction of their lives, there was controversy because of the way the book seemed to be criticizing certain aspects of lives of people in America. Steinbeck‟s novel has suffered a great amount of disapproval and condemnation, mostly from people who believed that through his fictional writing, he was portraying the victims of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl in an inaccurate manner. Along with this reasoning, people did not approve of Steinbeck's work due to the fact that there was too much usage of profanity, the Lord‟s name in

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“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.” - Alice Walker In Chapter 4 of Of Mice and Men race and gender are depicted in different ways symbolizing different character behaviors.

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World of Sexism Due to the Great Depression, women’s rights took a back seat to employment and poverty. It was believed that women shouldn’t work but stay at home, clean, cook, and raise their children. The prejudice against women in the society was great back in the 1930s for they were degraded and underestimated. All the rights they had gained in the 1920s were neglected and the women were once again maltreated. In Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the victim of sexism is Curley’s wife who is so insignifact that even a name was not provided for her.

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Bloom, Harold. John Steinbeck. Philadelphia, Pa: Chelsea House Publishers, 2003. Print.

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