Christian Symbols In The Grapes Of Wrath

Rose of Sharon realizes this man will die without her, in the same way Christ said that

A Christ figure can share attributes with Jesus and be the antagonist of the story. In Thomas C. Foster’s novel How to Read Literature like a Professor, he analyzes what a Christ figure looks like in literature. He argues that a character who shares personality traits and or physical characteristics with Christ is a representation and reflection of Jesus. Similarly, in Barbara Kingsolver’s novel The Poisonwood Bible, her character Nathan Price believes he is synonymous to Christ while in reality, he is far from perfect. She uses irony to exploit the idea of the Christ figure. The use of irony as seen in Kingsolver’s novel, up-ends Foster’s claims as to what makes a Christ figure by creating a character who assumes he is Christ yet does not reflect Christ’s attributes.

Chapter 14 is about how almost everything, in some form, is a Christ figure. The chapter gives a list to relate characters to. The list is 1. crucified, wounds in the hands, feet, side, and head 2. in agony 3. self-sacrificing 4. good with children 5.good with loaves, fishes, water, wine 6. thirty-three years of age when last seen 7. employed as a carpenter 8. known to use humble modes of transportation, feet or donkeys preferred 9. believed to have walked on water 10. often portrayed with arms outstretched 11.

The novel, The Grapes of Wrath, is a story that construes the journey of the Joad family through the brutal migration from Oklahoma 's destroying Dust Bowl to California corrupt promised land. Through the depiction of events and portrayal of characters, the bible takes part in the novel as one whole allusion. The anecdote of the struggle for survival in the fallen state of Oklahoma and in the “promised land” of California, reveals the same ideas shown as we explore in the bible. In The Grapes of Wrath, author John Steinbeck integrates the allegory of biblical references and values to create the image of a family’s journey to California during the Dust Bowl of the early 1900s.

In contemplating the work based on the nativity of Christ, he was stead-fast upon the idea of depicting it from a unique perspective and in his journal he writes: (Marilyn Masler, 2009)

When examining John Steinbeck’s, Grapes of Wrath’” he details the story of the Joads an Oklahoma family on their way to California in the midsts of the Dust Bowl. As he discusses their journey towards the american dream he inserts several intercalary chapters that break up the discussion of the Joads and shifts the focus towards the things that symbolizes them. In the novel there are several intercalary chapters that are used to depict the lies and deceit that occurs to the Joads right under their nose.

As I was reading this book I notice he really goes into detail about the people in his life by using Quotes that they say that describe who they are.

Two-thirds of Jewish people living in Europe at the time of World War 2 were killed by Nazis. The book Night is about the author’s,Elie Wiesel (a young jew), experiences that he went through during his time in different concentration camps from 1944- 1945 before he was liberated. In the novel “Night” by Elie Wiesel, the main character , Elie, was effected by the events in the book because of his mental changes, him losing his faith, and his changing relationship with his father throughout the book. One of the main things that Elie went through mental changes through the entry of the book. In the beginning of the book Elie is very eager to find himself “a master who could guide me in my studies of Kabbalah” (page 4), but he was turned down because he was too young.

The Year of Living Biblically, he spent a year following the Bible literally. I was a little nervous about this one because I was afraid he was doing this to try to show how silly the Bible is and poke fun of Christians. That was fortunately not the case. The thing about A.J. that I like is that he just seems to like learning, so he enjoyed the experience of learning more about the Bible and religion in general rather than trying to promote a cause. It was also interesting that one of the reasons he wanted to pursue this topic was because of his son. He didn 't want to raise his son to be without religion, without a moral compass. I find it odd that he doesn 't want his son to be an agnostic even though he 's one. A.J. is also a secular Jew, so that added to the interesting aspects of the book to see him digging into his family history and also made his lack of conversion make a little more sense to me.

Upon doing research for this paper I also found out many other similarities that I had not realized when I read the book. For example, when asked by another prisoner if he wants to help him escape, "John Coffey's response is surprising and perfect. He wants to die, wants to return, to leave this earth, because the pain of other people is too strong to bear ("like shards of glass in my head"), hence the constant mourning for others, not for himself or for his own fate. This is a clear connection to Christ in that modern desires to die almost always only stem from an intense personal pain, not a pain felt for others. He does show a hint of a human side in his nervousness and as he sings "heaven..I'm in heaven.." before the switch is thrown. This correlates well when Christ himself calls out to his father while on the cross ("heaven") and also when he prayed beforehand in the garden."

Moreover, The Grapes of Wrath examines a crucial issue which is the inhumanity of man. Authorities and capitalists are presented in the novel as they seek only getting money; it is their prime necessity. On the other hand, poor people like the Joads are used and cheated out

In John Ford’s Grapes of Wrath, the audience is introduced to an American allegory of the suffering people endured during a rough period in history brought on by the greed of the banking industry and the dust bowl Migration. A man named Tom Joad returns to his homeland after being incarcerated for the last four years for manslaughter. As a surprise, when Tom arrives home, he finds out that his family is no longer on their land that they have been on for many years. Tom then finds out that his family is planning on leaving their once beloved home state to move to the promise land, California. The movie accurately captures the representation of the good guys versus the bad guys and shows the cruel conditions that actually existed during this time in history.

raises the issues of Jesus simply as a man who was good or that it

On the other hand, we had Groody’s reading where he discusses how the social discord

work. These themes and many more will be explored throughout this paper in an attempt