Summary Of Characters In The Grapes Of Wrath By John Steinbeck

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.

To show that man is surrounded by good and evil no matter where they are, Steinbeck describes the setting in a contrasting way to represent the good side and the bad side of nature. He

“And over the grass at the roadside a land turtle crawled, turning aside for nothing, dragging his high-domed shell over the grass. His hard legs and yellow-nailed feet threshed slowly through the grass, not really walking, but boosting and dragging his shell along…For a moment he stopped, his head held high…At last he started to climbed the embankment…As the embankment grew steeper and steeper, the more frantic were the efforts of the land turtle…The head upraised and peered over the wall to the broad smooth plain of cement…The car swung to the right…The turtle had jerked into its shell, but now it hurried on, for the highway was burning hot. And now a light truck approached…His front wheel struck the edge of the shell, flipped the turtle…and rolled it off the highway….little by little the shell pulled over and flopped upright….And the turtle crawled on down the embankment.” (Steinbeck, 15-16) This is compared to the flight of the migrant workers down Highway 66. “Highway 66 is the main migrant road. 66-the long concrete path across the country, weaving gently up and down on the map, from Mississippi to Bakersfield…66 is the path of people in flight,. ..66 is the mother road, the road of flight…All day they rolled slowly along the road, and at night they stopped near water. In the day ancient leaky radiators sent up columns of steam, lose connecting rods hammered and

The next section of chapter 21 offers an explanation of the hostility that the migrants meet upon arrival in California. Steinbeck describes:

Yertle the Turtle, written by Ted Geisel in 1958, illustrates one of Seuss’s hidden messages: relationships with other people. About a population of turtles, this unique allegory describes the relationship between a fascist king turtle and his turtle subjects. As king of a small pond, Yertle wishes to have a throne built out of turtles which is high enough for him to see and rule over all the land. Dr. Seuss writes, “with this stone for a throne, I look down on my pond/But I cannot look down on the places beyond” (Seuss). Mack, a little turtle at the bottom of the pole, complains, “I know, up on top you are seeing

John Steinbeck uses symbolism to signify ideas and qualities by giving them a meaning. For instance, Candy’s dog. Candy’s dog represent the fate awaiting anyone who has outlived his or her purpose. Candy’s dog is old and weak so he is no longer needed in the world. Although, Carlson promises to kill the dog painlessly, his insistence that the old dog must die supports a cruel natural law that the strong will dispose of the weak. “That dog of Candy's is so God damn old he can't hardly walk. Stinks like hell, too. Ever' time he comes into the bunk house I can smell him for two, three days. Why'n't you get Candy to shoot his old dog and give him one of the pups to raise up? I can smell that dog a mile away. Got no teeth, damn near blind, can't eat. Candy feeds him milk. He can't chew nothing else." Candy knows this lesson, for he fears that he himself is coming to an end when he will no longer be useful at the ranch.

“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 addition, Steinbeck utilizes symbolism to help reveal his message to the audience. In this chapter, the putrefying crops that resulted from the system’s agricultural mismanagement represent the landowner’s greed, and how it is responsible for not only the

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)

Characters in The Grapes of Wrath are often contrasted to emphasize certain qualities in their relationships, the most notable being a lack of empathy versus a caring and generous nature. Steinbeck’s use of juxtaposition is key to understanding the significance of the contrast involving the landowners and the migrants and why they cannot share sympathies and opinions. These two groups are both rivals and continuously reinforce differences in their lifestyles, and such is the case for the landowners and migrants, which are two drastically different classes that will not cooperate. The migrants are searching for job opportunities and safe places, but are often cheated by the landowners, who are corrupted by their drive for cheap labor and, ultimately, riches,

The unconventionally written intercalary chapters of Steinbeck's novel, “The Grapes of Wrath”, are designed to show the readers a view of economic depression and social aspects of America during this time period. Steinbeck tells the reader about the situation through a macroscopic point of view, when he writes the intercalary chapters. It is through these intercalary chapters that Steinbeck tells us about the struggle of many migrant farmers who are pushed out of their homes and start to live their lives on the road, while trying to find places for them to work. Between each of these intercalary chapters are narrative chapters where Steinbeck gives the readers a microscopic view of the situation, by giving us an example of one of the migrant

A few years later, Steinbeck returned to California to write “Grapes of Wrath” and to further research the flawed California labor. “He was not, however, merely researching materials for his next book, but passionately involved in the suffering and injustice” (Lisca 16). His fervor for the migrant cause almost lead him to abandon his recent writing and revise “Of Mice and Men” and sell it so he could donate to money to the migrant workers.

A great example of imagery is in the line, “brake rods, exhausts, piled like snakes” (63). This quote is depicting what one can find in used car lots that were full of not only car parts, but snake-like salesmen as well. The scorching heat of the sun is mentioned again when Steinbeck explains that “the sun whipped the earth”, and this is also an example of personification (163). Moreover, by explaining in great detail most actions and conversations the Joads had throughout their travels, Steinbeck makes the reader feels as though they are a part of the family. Private enterprise is criticized as a man tells the Joad men, “... “ever’thing in California is owned... An’ them people that owns it is gonna hang on to it if they got to kill ever’body in the worl’ to do it” (206). This conversation had served to raise awareness of how the large farming companies were taking advantage of people by running small farmers out of business, paying low wages because men would work just to feed their starving children, and keeping the poor poor. Steinbeck was advocating for change with his writing. Another attack had been on the government in this quote, “Sheriff gets seventy-five cents a day for each prisoner, an’ he feeds ‘em for a quarter” (271). By including this, the novel is demonstrating how its take on the corruption of the government and its law enforcers - that this practice of paying to put struggling people in jail

Early in the 1930's Steinbeck wrote, "The trees and the muscled mountains are the world-but not the world apart from man-the world and man-the one inseparable unit man and his environment. Why

In Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath, he describes the struggle of the small farmer and farmworker. The principal characters define quiet dignity and courage in their struggle to survive and in the caring for their loved ones. Through this novel, Steinbeck displays his respect for all the poor and oppressed of our world.