Four Powerful Women in Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck Essay

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.

“Ma Joad, the inner driving force of the Joad family, has always been considered Steinbeck’s foray into the ideals of feminism, of female control, a statement far beyond the standards of the time” (Sharpe 1). The members of the Joad family are very close knit because of Ma Joad’s role she has on all of them. Many family members of the Joad family have a great deal of influence on Ma, and Ma on them.

Throughout the book, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, the physical transition of the Joad family from a small close-knit group of people living a quiet life on a farm in Oklahoma, corresponds with the internal transition of the concept of family. As the Joads leave their farm and journey westward, they no longer live just within their own isolated unit. Becoming involved with other families as they migrate, changes their focus and by the end of the book, the family members each reach out in their own way to embrace all of mankind as a family.

Similar to a cactus’ bloom in the heat of the desert, through adversity humanity prospers and processes. Society, as a whole, has experienced, at least once, hardships in their lifetime, and through these trying situations people acquire compassion. Being familiar with challenges, people more readily accepts the distress of others and offer required assistance during times of difficulty. Although adversity is seen as the creator of contempt and hatred because of its negative effects on mentality, adversity fosters compassion through the creation of empathy, morality, and association in a person with others in a calamity.

Many families were broken apart during the civil war, where the father had to leave his spouse and children behind; forcing them to take care of themselves in his absence. In the novel Little Women, Marmee is the ideal representative of a motherly role model in a transcendentalist family during the eighteen hundreds. She continually guided her daughters to find joy in the most menial tasks. She stood strong in the presence of her daughters, although she had to raise them alone in the absence of their father, who has left to volunteer as a Chaplin during the Civil War. Her girls made it clear how they aspired to be as good hearted as she was. A mother’s hard work is seen through her children’s actions.

Different circumstances shape people into who they will become. This is relevant in both books, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle. Both the Joad and Walls families faced adversities but made it through them stronger. The two families move from place to place and greatly struggled financially. The value of family and lessons that can be learned from them is prevalent in both novels. The attributes that enabled both the Joad and Walls families to endure in the face of adversities are perseverance, faith, and their devotion to each other.

A clear concept in John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath was the way families were run. At the beginning of the twentieth century, men led the family. They made the decisions and they made the money for the family while the women worked behind the scenes and kept everything going. What the men did not realize, or did not want to recognize, was that the women were the ones who were really in control. Though they did not take credit for it, they were the ones who bought and cooked the food the men ate, bore and reared the children the men helped create, and did everything they could to make a better life for themselves and their families. This changed once the Dust Bowl struck. Soon after, women took charge of the family affairs and slid

“At the heart of every immigrant’s experience is a dream- a vision of hope that is embodied in his or her destination” (Gladstein 685). In the novel, The Grapes of Wrath the migrants imagined the absolute aspects of living care free to the west. However, everything changed once they traveled to the west, realizing the simple concept turned into hazardous problems. John Steinback emphasized the American dream of economic stability and truculent situations towards the Joads family's point of view. Throughout the immigration, the Joads family goes through constant and unpredictable changes in employment, and their eventual failure to find success in California. The novel has been called by critics "a celebration of the human spirit", in several ways it is true due to the aspects of human nature. Despite the hazardous actions people can do, it is important to realize everything around us.

In the 20th century, the average home life in rural Oklahoma was full of hard workers in the pursuit of the picture-perfect home surrounded by plentiful land. As the sun rises over the land in the morning with a red hue, it signals the commencement of the day ahead. The farmer has already been awake since before the sun broke the horizon, preparing his little equipment and his animals for his land’s work. The farmer’s wife is in the kitchen, cooking her husband a warm breakfast as a sign of her gratitude. Their children wake, running into the kitchen, bellies growling. After gobbling up the breakfast, they run outside to play and do chores of their own. The rest of the farmer’s wife’s day is spent cleaning, cooking, and looking after the

Do the needs of an individual family or group supersede the needs of the many? In The Grapes of Wrath written by the John Steinbeck, the readers see the strength that is needed to be a mother when outside forces rip a family apart. Ma Joad is the living representation of strength given her unique role in the family. Ma took an almost patriarchal role in the family and demonstrated that she was unique among other characters due to her strength, love, and family power.

The Grapes of Wrath is set in the horrible stage of our American history, the Depression. Economic, social, and historical surroundings separate the common man of America into basically the rich and poor. A basic theme is that man turns against one another in a selfish pride to only protect themselves. For example, the landowners create a system in which migrants are treated like animals and pushed along from one roadside camp to the next. They are denied decent wages and forced to turn against their fellow scramblers to simply survive.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck uses numerous literary techniques to advocate for change in the social and political attitudes of the Dust Bowl era. Simile, personification, and imagery are among the many devices that add to the novel’s ability to influence the audience’s views. Moreover, through his use of detail, Steinbeck is able to develop a strong bond between the reader and the Joad clan. This bond that is created evokes empathy from the audience towards the Joads as they face numerous challenges along their journey. The chapters go between the Joad’s story and a broad perspective of the Dust Bowl’s effect on the lives of Mid-western farmers in which Steinbeck illustrates dust storms devastating the land, banks evicting tenant

   When Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath, our country was just starting to recover from The Great Depression.  The novel he wrote, though fiction, was not an uncommon tale in many lives.  When this book was first published, the majority of those reading it understood where it was coming from-they had lived it.  But now very few people understand the horrors of what went on in that time.  The style in which Steinbeck chose to write The Grapes of Wrath helps get across the book's message.

In the 20th century, the average home life in rural Oklahoma was full of hard workers in the pursuit of the picture-perfect home surrounded by plentiful land. The sun rose over the land, signaling the commencement of the day ahead. The farmer had already been awake since before the sun broke the horizon, preparing his little equipment and his animals for his land’s work. The farmer’s wife was in the kitchen, cooking her husband a warm breakfast as a sign of her gratitude. Their children woke and soon were running into the kitchen, bellies growling. After gobbling up the breakfast, they ran outside to play and do chores of their own. The rest of the farmer’s wife’s day was spent cleaning, cooking, and looking after the kids until the sun went down and it was time for bed. Set in this time, The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, holds contrasting female characters. Some characters show the defiance of the gender roles at the time, while others adhere to them. In some instances, a female character can surpass the expectations set upon her by the patriarchal society in which they live she lives, setting her free to use a voice she never was allowed.

The Dust Bowl, a series of severe dust storms in the 1930’s, left the southern plains of the United States as a wasteland. The storms occurred due to the lack of use of dryland farming techniques to prevent wind erosion. Powerful winds would pick up loose soil and carry the sediment around the countryside. Called “black blizzard” or “black rollers”, these storms had the potential to black out the sky completely. Due to the inability to grow and sell crops, banks evicted families and foreclosed their properties, leaving them homeless and without an income. 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