Recovery In The Grapes Of Wrath And The Glass Castle

In the Grapes of Wrath, it is evident that humans have the ability to handle any obstacle they come across if they stand together as one. The author emphasizes this throughout the text the capability of man to create change and progress and adapt to changing circumstances which restores faith in the human ability to survive against all odds. The distressed Oklahoma farmers will persevere in circumstances that seem hopeless. Through social commentary and imagery, the power of mankind to make a change is demonstrated.

Through the roughest times in life, we come across crises that reveal the true character in those around us. Those who are strong are divided from the weak and the followers divide from the leaders. In the novel, The Grapes of Wrath, author John Steinbeck presents the character Ma Joad who serves an important role as the rock that keeps the family together. The Joad family, apart from many families in Oklahoma, is forced to leave their homes in search of work and better opportunities; California not only leaves them in poverty but despair. But through it all Ma Joad is the leader of the family that exhibits selflessness in order to protect and secure her family.

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.

The Glass Castle is about a very poor family that constantly moves from place to place just to seemingly stay alive. The book addresses the many social issues that we deal with every day. One of the most important social issues disputed on a daily basis are the kind of parents we want to be and what we want to teach our children for their future. In this memoir we are able to see how Rex and Rosemary Walls teach their children the values of everyday life. The parents try to teach their children that whatever life throws at you, you can handle it with resilience. The parents accomplished the goals for their children by telling them that they loved them and to never give up. The Walls children gained exceptional values that may not have been learned had these children grown up with different parents. Both parents in the Glass Castle ultimately help Jeannette and the rest of her family become the people they are today, and would not have been able to accomplish this without the parents.

“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, written by John Steinbeck, has many valuable life lessons to take away and use in your own life. There are many key points in life that anyone may face and can learn from. John Steinbeck intelligently assimilates these into his writing. One of the most important lessons to learn is that determination can get you through many of lifes controversies. In the novel, the Joad family demonstrates determination in many scenarios. This shows itself various times over the course of the book; therefore, it is to be considered a theme. Although the Joad family comes across a large number of problems, they manage to find a way to solve them through the use of determination. Due to the Joad family’s strong belief in kindness and compassion throughout the novel, Steinbeck illustrates the theme of determination in The Grapes of Wrath very well as we see the family faces and conquers their issues on their travel to California.

Hardships are terrible, but they are a normal part of everybody’s life. No matter the hardship, anybody can recover. In her memoir, The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls tells a true story of her unconventional childhood. She journeys the readers through her nomadic and dysfunctional family lifestyle. Her parents—the artistic, inattentive Rose Mary and the intelligent, alcoholic Rex—neglect their children and fail to provide for them adequately. Walls learns how to care for herself at an early age. Growing up in such a dysfunctional family, it would be no surprise if Walls would have turned out just as wrecked as her parents, but Walls was able to rise above and accomplish a successful life. It is through the sharing of her own personal success, that Wall’s demonstrates you don’t have to be a product of your circumstances you can shape your own future.

The Glass Castle and The Grapes of Wrath portrayes families who both acquire a common trait of perseverance. Both the Joad and Walls families struggle financially. They share the challenge of caring for a family, while on the road. They sometimes had to do odd jobs to make ends meet, but they face life with determination and perseverance. When Granma Joad, from The Grapes of Wrath, dies in Ma’s arms, Ma does t make them stop the car. Ma drives for hours with Granma dead in her arms because she knew she could not delay the family. “I tol’ Granma we couldn’ help her. The family had ta get acrost. I tol’ her when she was a-dyin’. We couldn’ stop in the desert” (Steinbeck 228). Ma, determined to reach the border with the family; even a death in the family could not restrain her. The Walls family shows similar attributes of determination throughout the book. When Jeannette Walls’ father

The Grapes of Wrath was focused around the Joads, a family going through the Great Depression hardships during the

Characters mutate more and more as the novel progresses, which makes the character dynamic. The change that a character undergoes works to impact the overall theme of the novel. Over the course of John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath, one of the characters, ma Joad has drastically developed. She changes into a more nourishing and optimistic character.

The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of two types of ‘families’ in that the Joads are a factual one and the body of migrant workers as the other. The Joads are actual blood

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

Steinbeck uses a third person omniscient point of view throughout The Grapes of Wrath to describe the conditions multiple characters face; while Tom Joad is considered the protagonist of the novel, Ma Joad proves to be the overall central character. As the novel progresses, Ma displays the qualities of a dynamic character, developing skills such as leadership, drive, and strength; furthermore, she became the reason that the Joad family stayed together throughout their voyage. Ma’s intuition served her well, prior to, during, and after traveling to California. Her loving bond with Tom Joad provides an overall accentuation of Ma’s significant role in the novel.

The 1930s were a time of hardship for many across the United States. Not only was the Great Depression making it difficult for families to eat every day, but the Dust Bowl swept through the plains states making it nearly impossible to farm the land in which they relied. John Steinbeck saw how the Dust Bowl affected farmers, primarily the tenant farmers, and journeyed to California after droves of families. These families were dispossessed from the farms they had worked for years, if not generations (Mills 388). Steinbeck was guided by Tom Collins, the real-life model for the Weedpatch camp’s manager Jim Rawley, through one of the federal migrant worker camps. He was able to see for himself,

John Ford’s dramatic film The Grapes of Wrath was released on March 15, 1940. This film was based on John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel. This film follows the Joad family on their long trip to California. It watches as they lose their home and are left with no choice but to pack their necessities and set off. Though they had no idea where they were going, they had no choice but to keep on, hoping that somewhere along the line someone would have mercy on them and they would find some form of work. Though the list of influential characters presented within the film is a rather short one, each character plays at least a small part in the eventual outcome of the text, so having to select just one as the most critical proves to be shockingly difficult. However, upon further scrutiny it begins to become clear that one character holds a steady level of importance throughout the duration of the text. Ma Joad is the only character presented with a large amount of importance that remains consistent from the very beginning to the final moments of the film.