Adversity In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

When people are struck with hardships in life, the way they react reveals their true character. Having a certain mindset can greatly influence how they handle problems, differentiating one person from another. Many can feel discouraged and feel like giving up when they hit a rough patch. In other cases, the will to be in a position better than where they are at the moment gives them the motivation to succeed. Adversity can have a positive effect on the development of an individual's character, providing them with the drive to overcome their current situation.

Throughout John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath, many concepts appear that were noted in How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster. However, the three chapters of Foster’s how-to guide that most apply to Steinbeck’s novel were “It’s All About Sex…,” “Every Trip is a Quest (Except When It’s Not),” and “It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow.” On more than one occasion these concepts are hidden within the book, and two of them actually seem somewhat linked together. After reading between the lines, The Grapes of Wrath has an extremely intricate plot and many ulterior meanings. Foster’s book helps to solve these meanings and make it so that the novel can be completely understood.

Adversity inevitably changes us in aspects of motivation, contentment, and character. It generally leads to disheartenment, and depending on the magnitude; we can either be completely emotionally or physically devastated, or it could be a minor jerk in the path of life. I personally believe its possible for adversity to be provocative in a way because depending on how you take it, it can be encouraging and result in increased determination to try to do better next time. It can be heartbreaking too however, and this is exemplified through Fusi Bergman - the 70 year old dynamic protagonist of ''God is Not a Fish Inspector'' - who is shattered by the adversity of losing the one thing in his life that gives

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss (...) These people have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen” (Elisabeth Kubler-Ross). Compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern make mankind beautiful, but it also makes it defenseless . When one has concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others, he takes sacrifices, risks, and lives with uncertainty. When man is compassionate, he lives a vulnerable life. Love and compassion bring out the beauty in mankind, but they can also bring out its weaknesses. Because of man’s compassion, he

Are people born with a complete quandary when it comes to compassion or is it something that has always been there? Barbara Lazear Ascher, born in 1946, writes, “On Compassion.” Having lived in New York City, Ascher is able to take first hand examples from the city to show the affection people have towards each other. Ascher is able to illustrate that compassion is something that has to be taught because of the adversity at people’s heels by including tone, persuasive appeals, and the mode of comparing and contrast in her essay, “On Compassion.”

It can occur in any form, slightly stressful or devastating painful. It can happen to anyone, rich, poor, big or small. Adversity is inevitable. Most people would consider it very negative with no benefits, but they are not aware of its hidden effect. Roman poet Horace suggests that adversity can cause a person to demonstrate certain talents, which would not have been present if not for their misfortune. People and characters in any literary work experience unfortunate events and put through difficult situations that they need to overcome. Adversity uncovers their concealed gifts that help them through their hardships. Under its effect, it also can alter the process in developing a character and transform them into someone completely different.

“A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal”. This quote by Steve Maraboli may be hard to understand, but the Holocaust texts: Night by Elie Wiesel, “A Three Year Old Saves His Mother” by Peter Gorog and “Jakob's Story” by Jakob Blankitny are great examples of where compassion is necessary to fight the despair in heartbreaking situations. In each work, compassion shows up from unexpected sources, helps motivate people to survive, and creates greater unification.

David Brooks argues, in his essay “What Suffering Does”, that pain often gives people a new outlook and possibly even a new path in life. He explains that suffering can help people see their lives from an outsider’s perspective, discover new depths of their character, and often find new paths: “The grief of having lost a loved one smashes through what they thought was the bottom floor of their personality, revealing an area below,” (Brooks 286). Brooks in this passage describes how suffering can enhance a person’s character. As cliché as it sounds, hardships can, in fact,

When people go through something difficult it can change them. Making them who they are, it can change them for the bad or good. Therefore, hardships can greatly influence a person’s life by making them appreciate all the things that make life enjoyable.

Adversity has a way of bringing up challenges unexpectedly, most people shrink away from it and get consumed, but when they push through it people come out stronger than they were before.

The Dust Bowl was a treacherous storm, which occurred in the 1930's, that affected the midwestern people, for example the farmers, and which taught us new technologies and methods of farming. As John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath: "And then the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out. Carloads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless - restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do - to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut - anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place

Overall, adversity is not always something to be avoided. Once someone is affected by adversity in their life, they must keep going and work through it opposed to allowing it to block them permanently. While enduring a difficult time, people are most vulnerable and receptive, making it imperative to properly handle these misfortunes that shape

In the American epic novel, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, there are pivotal and dynamic changes that occur in the various significant characters of Jim Casy, Ma Joad, and Tom Joad. Steinbeck specifically uses these characters to show their common realizations about all of humanity, in order to demonstrate his underlying meaning about the importance of people coming together, helping each other out, and surviving. Ma Joad illustrates this idea clearly when she speaks to Tom mid-way through the novel: “Why, Tom, we’re the people that live. They ain’t gonna wipe us out. Why we’re the people--we go on.” (350)

Hardships have the power to make a break a person, as Roman poet, Horace, once said, “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant”. Everyone has or will have to face adversity at some point in their lives, it is a universal truth. Although misfortunes usually have a negative connotation, depending on the struggle and how one deals with it, it is likely the person will come out of misfortune better prepared for the world. Contrastly, if a person never experienced any hardships, they would lack a sophisticated understanding of the world and lack the ability to handle difficult situations. Adversity gives people strength they can not obtain with success.

Ascher believes observing the adversity of homelessness is a necessity in learning compassion because “Compassion is not a character trait. . .It must be learned, and it is learned by having adversity at our windows” (Cohen 42). Ascher believes we can learn and grow from others' adverse experiences without being a part of it. Although Ascher would have us believe we can learn compassion simply through observing adversity at our windows (homelessness), Eighner would likely disagree because he has struggled in adversity and learned the importance of true sentiment first hand, not through observation. Eighner writes of the importance of having an intimate connection with adversity in his own homelessness, “Once I was the sort of person who invests material objects with sentimental value. Now I no longer have those things, but I have the sentiments yet. . . .The things I find in dumpsters, the love letters and ragdolls of so many lives, remind me of this lesson” (Cohen 157, 158). Eighner has grown and holds sentiment in those lessons because he had those experiences, not because he has simply observed others. Ascher gives us a lesson in learning from adversity but does so from an outsiders' point of view while Eighner's personal experience contrasts to shows us that much can be learn from experiencing adversity more intimately.