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. As can be seen in The Grapes of Wrath, the Joads are a very tight-knit family. Yet on their trip to California, they experience many losses and additions to their family. In general
Role of the Family Explored in Slapstick and Grapes of Wrath On Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the need for belongingness and love ranks only below the need for survival, making it one of our most basic needs (Weiten 267). Many people fill this need for affection by participating in a family unit. However, as the 20th century continues, the emphasis on family in America is decreasing. Divorce rates, single-parent households, and children born out of wedlock are all increasing. Furthermore
grew up in Jamaica at a time when Rastas were still regarded as useless, lazy, half-insane, ganja-smoking illiterates who were of no value to society. Teachers, students, office workers, and anyone of social importance could not grow locks, and families would go into mourning when their sons would start sprouting them. I heard the term “black heart man” used again and again as a means of expressing fear or ridicule of the Rastafarian. And this was in the early 1970s—after Bob Marley's emergence