Tom Joad In John Steinbeck's Grapes Of Wrath

California and the flood at the end of the novel, and teachings throughout the novel.

Throughout the novel, the only other being that Rose of Sharon shows any concern towards besides herself is her unborn child. When the truck startles her, she worries about the baby. When the pious lunatic, Mrs. Sandry, warns her about what the effects of sinning could do to her baby, she worries again. And when Connie leaves, she is forced to face the harsh reality of the immense responsibility of a baby, which causes her to fret even more. So when the baby is delivered stillborn in Chapter 30, even the least empathetic reader feels slight pity for her. But despite the tragic loss for Rose of Sharon, the baby’s death is necessary for it to serve as a symbolic element that embody the struggle of those like the Joads. After the baby is delivered, Uncle John gets the responsibility of getting rid of the corpse. This task proves to be difficult as the rain prevents the ground of being capable of any type of digging or burying, so Uncle John floats the baby down the river. This act alludes to the floating of baby Moses down the river, despite that Moses was alive when this occurred. Moses grows and later goes on to speak of the struggling of his people, just as Uncle John tells the dead infant as he floats it down the river “Go down an’ tell ‘em. Go down in the street an’ rot an’ tell ‘em that way. Maybe they’ll know then” (Steinbeck 448). Both figures represent the hardships that their people face; Moses’ people being the Israelites and the dead baby’s being all those poor and struggling to get by during the Depression. By relating these two figures with their similar stories and purposes, and using Rose of Sharon’s child’s death to bring awareness to the struggle of the Joads and those similar to them, Steinbeck proves that hope can come from

In John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Tom Joad is the protagonist. After serving four years in jail for murder, he is finally out on parole. When Tom is first introduced, he is portrayed as a negative character. Tom is stubborn and likes things to go his way. In the beginning of the novel Tom lives his life day by day, the future does concern him. Throughout the novel Tom develops from a man only interested in his own independent personal needs and desires to someone who is devoted to his family, and is willing to sacrifice his own personal comfort for their benefit. By the end of the novel Tom Joad transformed from a negative character into a positive character who cares about the future of his nation and the families that are

At the beginning of the novel, Tom Joad has been paroled from prison after serving time for killing a neighbor in a drunken bar fight. Tom is stabbed, and because of this, he feels he was merely defending himself from being killed. He feels no guilt over killing his neighbor and would do it again under the same conditions, to preserve his life. Tom's morals and beliefs justified the killing. These morals were taught to Tom by his family, and he believes very strongly in those beliefs. "I'd do what I done—again," said Joad. "I killed a guy in a fight. We was drunk at a dance. He got a knife in me, an' I killed him with a shovel that was layin' there. Knocked his head plumb to squash." Casy's eyebrows resumed their normal level. "You ain't ashamed of nothin' then?" "No," said Joad, "I ain't. I got seven years, account of he had a knife in me. Got out in four—parole." (Steinbeck 18)

The Grapes of Wrath is a book that takes place during the late 1930s. The 1930’s were known as the Dirty Thirties. One of the essential characters in the book The Grapes of Wrath was a man who went to prison for four years. He comes back to his homeland to find that all farms around him were deserted. They remained deserted as a result of the Great Depression.

Spring comes; school lets out for the cotton season. Rumor says that T.J. is spending more time with Melvin and R. W. and that they are just using him. One night in early summer, some nearby farmers come by and tell Papa not to buy anything for them on his next trip to Vickburg. Granger amongst other plantation owners are threatening to decrease pay and even kick the tenants off their land then put the men on a chain gang if they do not begin shopping at the Wallace store. All but seven families stop ordering goods from Vicksburg. Mama feels this is not enough to hurt the Wallaces but Papa will not give up. On the next trip to Vicksburg they are ambushed. While Papa is repairing a sabotaged wagon wheel, a truck pulls up and fires--a bullet grazes his head. Then the horse rears up and pulls the wagon wheel over Papa's leg. L. T. makes short work of the men however, who turn out to be the Wallaces, breaking Dewberry Wallace's back.

outside a work camp in the midst of a strike. There Jim Casy tells Tom that the

The essential aspects of The Grapes of Wrath are family and the fight to survive while still holding on to what dignity they have left. The film starts off with the son (Tom Joad) hoping to make his way back home to his family. He gets a ride from a truck driver and continues on to stumble upon the old family preacher (Casey). (1)During the conversation between Tom and Casey, Casey tells Tom, “I’m not a preacher anymore”, and throughout the film we will hear him say this repeatedly. We can start to see the change in his dignity as a human more when the story progresses on. The two men head towards Tom’s family home and it is not what Tom was expecting. As the two men look around the house to see if anyone was there they find Muley, a farmer and a friend of the family. Muley tells the men what has been happening and that Tom’s family had been forced off their land like everyone else. (2) As we listen to Muley talk about how the bank and big businesses were forcing people off their land we are introduced to conflict which is trying to survive while keeping some

From the beginning of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Tom Joad and his family had to endure the uncertainty of change. After they lose everything to the widening Depression, their home, their money, and almost all their possessions, they must make the 1,500 mile journey to the “land of opportunity” in California. In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck changed the way I thought about transience and how people react to change.

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 book, Grapes of Wrath, follows the life of the Joad family, who live in Oklahoma during the Depression. The story begins with the return of Tom Joad from prison, where he has spent the last few years. He killed a boy in a bar fight and is now on parole. He is taken by surprise when he returns to Oklahoma only to find that his house is in ruins and his family is not there. He doesn’t know that, while he was gone, the banks forced his family and thousands of others off their land. Tom is accompanied by a former priest, Casey, who searches with Tom for his family. Tom and Casey find the Joad family at Tom’s uncle’s house. The family is preparing to move west to California in hopes that they

   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 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.

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 Steinbeck wrote the The Grapes of Wrath in 1939 to rouse its readers against those who were responsible for keeping the American people in poverty. The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of the Joad family, migrant farmers from Oklahoma traveling to California in search of an illusion of prosperity. The novel's strong stance stirred up much controversy, as it was often called Communist propaganda, and banned from schools due to its vulgar language. However, Steinbeck's novel is considered to be his greatest work. It won the Pulitzer Prize, and later became an Academy Award winning movie in 1940. The novel and the movie are both considered to be wonderful