Grapes of Wrath Analytical 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.

“…seems to be the glue that holds this family together” (Hams 1). Through the journey to California, there are many struggles faced along the way but she retained her composure and remained calm just to appear strong for the family. “She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that could not be taken” (100). The position Ma is in is not effortless. She puts in a great deal of effort to remain the rock of the family, even though she has lost her many possessions. Without her, there wouldn’t be a Joad family.

Mah was blamed for her mother’s death and she is hated throughout her family with the exception of YeYe, Nai Nai, and Aunt Baba. The rest of Mah’s family believes that Mah is a bane due to the fact that her mother died shortly after giving birth to her. When her father marries Niang, Mah’s nefarious stepmother, Mah and her siblings have been pushed aside and are relegated to a lower class by Niang. During this time, the whole family moves to Shanghai to evade the Japanese during World War II. Mah’s only dream is to be noticed by her befuddled father, who is caught up with all of Niang’s lies.

“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.

The Grapes of Wrath introduces new characters in chapter four. The characters can easily be related to every day lives, including our own. The character that can be connected most with myself is the turtle. Constantly, I feel I am never noticed and I am just kicked around by people every day. Some people notice me, but only get out of my way instead of offering their help. Some people target me as a way to prove they are larger than me. They swerve towards me to injure me or scare me. Steinbeck's ultimate goal is to make the reader sympathize with the turtle. The turtle is a helpless creature who is abandoned on the road, and the most care he gets from any passing drive is just an attempt to not hit the turtle. Tom Joad comes along

One would say that on a literal level The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is about the Joad family's journey to California during The Dust Bowl. However, it is also about the unity of a family and the concept of birth and death, both literal and abstract. Along with this, the idea of a family unit is explored through these births and deaths.

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.

     John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath, a remarkable novel that greatly embodied the entire uprisal of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl in the 1930’s. The usage of imagery and symbolism help to support his many different themes running through the course of the novel. His use of language assisted in personifying the many trials and tribulations which the Joad family, and the rest of the United States, was feeling at the time. This was a time of great confusion and chaos because no one really knew what the other was going through, they were all just trying to hold their own. To display the many sides of the depression Steinbeck developed the use of intercallorie chapters, and he

To start with, Ma Joad was gentle, caring and patient. This all changed during the families travels. Her caring attribute lead to her turning into a brave women picking fights with many people to protect those she cared

Steinbeck portrays that women get stronger while moving, but men start a process of weakness. This is because the land is where the men get their strength, Ma Joad gets this from the union of the family. Ma has the skills that Pa, Uncle John, and Grampa does not, she is able to adapt to the new alien environment and persist. Steinbeck utilizes this juxtaposition of Pa, Uncle John, and Grampa against Ma, in order to prove the equality of both sexes. Both male and females are needed to overcome obstacles and maintain balance in life.

As she grew up she she then realized what she was surrounded by and how it was affecting her in a negative way. Making the choice of depending on herself. Mauri lost her mother when she was young. Lived a long amount of time with her father who was abusive, a drug use and raped her at the age of eight. By the time she was twelve she yet did not have the privacy every young girl

In his historical fiction, Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck characterizes the Joad family as one of the many migrating farming families subjected to prejudice and seclusion on their journey to California. Similarly, in T.C. Boyle’s Tortilla Curtain, Cándido and América are victims of animosity and discrimination after fleeing their homes in Mexico to seek a better life in Los Angeles. In their stories, both Boyle and Steinbeck exhibit how migration can often bring new people into a different society, which can create fear and social stigma with that community. In their novels, the authors use the description of animals in nature to symbolize migrants, whom like animals, have difficulty assimilating into unknown territories, and could be treated as inferior. John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath and T.C. Boyle’s Tortilla Curtain both illustrate barriers between mankind and nature as a vehicle to expose how humans also create barriers between each other

Speaking of Ma, I found her to be a flat character or even static. We never saw her go through changes throughout the story. The assumption I got from Ma at the beginning of the story was that she was very much a strict parent. Throughout the story, I felt like she never had changed emotion. She seemed to have the stereotypical emotion that a mother would have to the actions that occur with her children.

Sometimes the solution to a problem creates more problems. Robert DeMott wrote that The Grapes of Wrath is a novel that humanizes the treatment of the oppressed by those in power. The story revolves around the Joad family that has been kicked out of their land by the rich landowners and forced to look for work elsewhere after the Dust Bowl ruined the crops. A theme that comes up at many points in the novel is unity more specifically the unity created by a community. The premise that the novel humanizes the treatment of the migrant workers is true given how the bank is portrayed, the source of the problem, and the strength displayed by the migrant workers.

The Grapes of Wrath is a novel which describes the journey of a family who had to migrate to the West because of the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. It follows the Joad family as they move across the United States, and the novel describes the many trials and tribulations that the Joads faced during the journey as well as after they arrive in California. However, John Steinbeck also incorporates a deeper meaning into the novel by using it to comment on the problems in society as well as how they are caused. He writes The Grapes of Wrath to comment on how greed and selfishness are a poison to society, both during the Great Depression as well as during modern times.