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Gender Roles In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

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Throughout John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath, The Joads family shows traditional gender roles deteriorating as they travel to California during the Dust Bowl. Steinbeck explores the emblematic thoughts of gender at the time, by restating and challenging them. During the Great Depression, it was prevalent that the male figure was the head of the family, in charge of working, making major decisions, and overall supporting the family. However, women were perceived to be domesticated in their house, doing household chores, like cooking and cleaning, and bearing and taking care of the children. Nevertheless, in The Grapes of Wrath, the author John Steinbeck defies these roles that were stereotyped, by illustrating the development of the …show more content…
Her strong family bonds makes her challenge Pa’s leadership, even though Pa believes “his wife should obey him anyway, she is not supposed to decide alone what is good or not either for herself or for her family.” (Fonseca 2). Pa’s traditional values in women is strongly shown through this quote, and is much like how people thought in the 1930s. Surprisingly, Ma defies these gender roles that are placed on her, not accepting defeat. Ma knows she has the capability to become a leader which pushes her to win this argument. This event is what made Ma, the new leader of the …show more content…
In the beginning, Ma was a submissive wife who listened and followed the traditional roles of woman. However, by the end of The Grapes of Wrath, Ma’s character evolves into a woman with a strong leadership figure. The Joads family begins to understand that they need a leader they can depend on, and Ma becomes that person by the conclusion of the novel. In closure, Steinbeck conveys the ability of the reversal of gender roles through the main female character, Ma, who establishes herself as a robustious woman proficient of leadership in a traditional family in the

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