...The Grapes of Wrath directed by John Ford is a 1940 film based on the Pulitzer winning novel by John Steinbeck. It tells the story of the Joads who during the Great Depression in the 1930s were run off their farm in Oklahoma. The film details their journey to California in search of work and a new beginning for their family. This paper will relate the main character Tom Joad to the philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and his theory of the state of nature and government as an artificial creation, and Jim Casy to Jean Jacques Rousseau’s theory of government and society as inhibitors of our natural freedoms. The Grapes of Wrath Tom Joad, played by Henry Fonda in the 1940 drama film Grapes of Wrath, is the main character who opens the movie returning to his home in Oklahoma after serving four years in prison for manslaughter. On the way he runs into Jim Casy, the former preacher who warns Tom that most sharecroppers have been evicted due to the effects of the depression. Once finding his family’s farm deserted, he finds them at his uncle’s farm preparing to also leave the next day for California in hopes of finding work and a brighter future. As they begin their treacherous journey across Route 66, the Joads and Casy endure many hardships. Grandpa, who didn’t want to leave his land, dies and is buried alongside the road. Then they run into a man who informs them that there is no work in California, but with not feeling they had any other options, they carry on with hope that they...
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...In The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, the narrator explains how a social issue affected the Joad family. The realistic novel mimics life and offers social commentary too. It presents many windows on real life in Midwest America in the 1930s. Throughout the 1930s, America was trapped in the worst economic era ever—The Great Depression. The Joad family is struggling to find salvation during this tough time period. Because of this, they must travel from Oklahoma to California in order to start a new life. The Great Depression affected everyone in the United States, some people worse than others. Steinbeck uses several different strategies to interpret the social issue during this time period. By using the literary techniques of setting, tone/mood, and dialogue/language, Steinbeck composes a creative commentary on the Great Depression and how it affected the lives of Americans. One way Steinbeck produces creative commentary is through the use of different settings. The setting is where the story takes place, and in this story, the setting shifts several times as the family travels across the country to California. The story opens with an illustrious description of the setting. Through the description, “A day went by and the wind increased, steady, unbroken by the gusts. The dust from the roads fluffed up and spread out and fell on the weeds beside the fields, and fell into the fields a little way…” (Steinbeck 2), it reveals a horrible event. It sends the Joads and other tenant...
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...The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck's most famous work, chronicles the exodus of the Joad family, led by the matriarch Ma Joad, from the Dust Bowl to the supposed Eden of California. Steinbeck alternates the Joads's story with intercalary chapters illustrating the conditions faced by the migrant group during their forced flight. Noted for his descriptions of the search for the American dream and sympathy for the plight of the working class, Steinbeck's works typically describe ordinary men and women who come close to achieving greatness only when faced with a trial that requires them to join with others for the greater good. Steinbeck's brand of literature, mixed with social commentary, was influenced by his teleological view of people as parts of a larger whole who must work in concert to improve the lot of humanity. As the novel unfolds, the short, descriptive chapters emerge like a series of thesis statements on the conditions of life in the Dust Bowl. The chapters recounting the story of the Joad clan can be seen as illustrations of or evidence for the claims made in the shorter chapters. In Chapter 5, Steinbeck sets forth an argument strongly supportive of tenant farmers. The landowners and the banks, unable to make high profits from tenant farming, evict the farmers from the land. Some of the property owners are cruel, some are kind, but they all deliver the same news: the farmers must leave. The farmers protest, complaining that they have nowhere to go. The owners suggest...
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...curtailed by the mean circumstances they faced. Often losing, they fought against drought, starvation, and foreclosure. In these harsh times faith in God and religion wasn’t enough. In the days when succeeding by one’s own abilities was the American Dream, relying on God to solve one’s problems was not going to cut it. The hope that humanity could move forward as a whole sustained the country more than faith in solely God. John Steinbeck, recognizing the need for a faith founded in people rather than God, created the character of Jim Casy to represent a modernized Jesus Christ who would teach of the power of unity rather than the power of religion. His utilization of the Christ figure becomes more evident as the novel progresses. In Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck uses Jim Casy as the Christ figure to provide those of the Great Depression with a more pertinent faith reliant on the goodness of humanity rather than exclusively on God. Initially, John Steinbeck’s description of Jim Casy portrays a man who has fallen from the accepted faith-similar to that of Jesus Christ’s fall from Judaism -and has become enlightened by a radical new idea. When Casy is first introduced he is unsure about his own religious identity because he believes that “the sperit [isn’t] in [him] no more” (20). In order to understand this feeling of spiritual emptiness, Casy goes, “into the wilderness like [Jesus Christ]” (81). His lust for flesh fills him with guilt that troubles him. He considers that “maybe...
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...The Grapes of Wrath a well-known classic by John Steinbeck was published in 1939, and before it was published, migrant workers were living in very harsh conditions in several parts of the United States. The Grapes of Wrath is about an Oklahoma Dust Bowl family, the Joads, who suffer various hardships while migrating to California. The Dust Bowl was a period of time in the 1930s where harsh droughts led to severe dust storms which ruined million acres of prairie land in America. This story tells us the plight of all those migrants during the Great Depression through the perspective of the Joad family. In The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck uses intercalary chapters to provide background for the various themes of the novel, as well as to set the tone. Steinbeck’s previous book had bought him much success and Steinbeck did not want his success to weaken his commitment to the intellectual goals of his writing. So later, he embarked upon a trip from Oklahoma to California with a group of migrant workers. He worked and lived alongside them in a work camp in California. His experience was the inspiration for this novel. The story begins just after Tom Joad is released on parole from McAlester prison for homicide. On his journey to his home in Oklahoma, he meets former preacher Jim Casy whom he remembers from his childhood and the two travel together. He finds out his family has been evacuated from their land and are leaving for California. Tom and Casy join them. Going west on Route 66...
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...The Grapes of Wrath Summary John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath tells the specific story of the Joad family in order to illustrate the hardship and oppression suffered by migrant laborers during the Great Depression. Tom Joad, a man not yet thirty, approaches a diner dressed in spotless, somewhat formal clothing. He hitches a ride with a truck driver at the diner, who presses Tom for information until Tom finally reveals that he was just released from McAlester prison, where he served four years for murdering a man during a fight. On his travels home, Tom meets his former preacher, Jim Casy, a talkative man gripped by doubts over religious teachings and the presence of sin. He gave up the ministry after realizing that he found little wrong with the sexual liaisons he had with women in his congregation. Casy espouses the view that what is holy in human nature comes not from a distant god, but from the people themselves. When Tom and Casy reach the Joad's house, it has been deserted. Muley Graves, a local elderly man who may not be sane, tells them that the Joads have been evicted, and now stay with Uncle John. Muley's own family has left to find work in California, but Muley decided to stay himself. That night, since they are trespassing on the property now owned by the bank, the three are forced to hide from the police who might arrest them. Tom Joad finds the rest of his family staying with Uncle John, a morose man prone to...
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...The Grapes of Wrath is most memorable as the story of the Joad family’s trek across Depression-era America. The long narrative chapters that trace their journey provide a personal context for understanding the more abstract social, historical, and symbolic musings of the shorter alternating chapters. Despite their sometimes preachy tone, these alternating chapters play an important role in the structure of the novel. Most notably, they extend the saga of migrant farmers beyond a single family, reminding the reader that the hardships faced by the Joads were widespread, afflicting tens of thousands of families in the Dust Bowl. Furthermore, these chapters anticipate the circumstances that the Joads will encounter: when the Joads come to the Hooverville in Chapter 20, for instance, the reader has already read a detailed description of these camps in the preceding chapter and thus foresees their difficulties. Alternating between the Joads’ tale and more contextual musings outside the narrative also allows Steinbeck to employ a greater range of writing styles. It is true that Steinbeck successfully conveys a great deal of the Joads’ journey through spare, declarative prose and through the rustic dialect of the family members. However, the short chapters allow him to exceed the constraints of these prose forms, to root his story in a more universal tradition. At times, Steinbeck evokes the repetition and moral bluntness of biblical tales; at other moments, he assumes the clear,...
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...The Grapes of Wrath was an iconic American novel published in 1939 sending a ripple effect throughout the US. Set in the Great Depression it follows the Joads, farmers, as they must leave their home in Oklahoma as farmers are forced out due to lack of work. The novel follows them as they decided to go to California to have a better future. It follows their experiences i.e. difficulty of getting work, crooked people taking advantage of them and their family dynamic. Many in the community praised Steinbeck for bringing real life issues to light even going so far as to award him the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. Consequently, many condemned Steinbeck thinking he was the enemy and his work sought to show America as evil....
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...Sarah Doan Period 8 September 21, 2015 3 Eng AP Grapes of Wrath In the book, Grapes of Wrath, many events portray Jim Casy as a figure of Jesus Christ. From being a preacher in his hometown, aiding those in need, and sacrificing himself for others throughout the story, Casy became Steinbeck’s symbolic figure of Christ. Casy’s death is significant because not only does it greatly affect Tom Joad, it also represented hope for the migrants. Tom, who was Casy's disciple, vows to spread his message as he works toward greater social justice. And, like Christ, his teachings are delivered to the rest of the world as the result of his death. During the course of the story, Jim Casy is presented as a natural leader who is always there to protect his people. Casy feels that it is his responsibility to share his knowledge with those around him, which was one of the main reasons why he became a preacher. During the strike, he sacrificed his life fighting for the community and was killed by a police officer. Casy's death was similar to the death of Christ. Christ willingly gave up his life in order to save mankind, whereas Casy also gives up his life for Tom Joad, who attacked an officer who tried to break up a group of angry farmers. The last words that Casy has spoken "You don' know what you're a-doin'" (Steinbeck 426) resembles the last words of Jesus as he is hanged from the cross, “Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do" (Bible, Jn. 23:34). For that reason, this shows...
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...In John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, every gory detail of the 1930’s California dust bowl is explored in the greatest of detail, and every fiber of the hardships those involved faced are brought into the spotlight. Among a gripping story with visceral characters, The Grapes of Wrath manages to raise profound questions that challenge the standards of morality set by society. What is right and wrong, and how do we as people know which is which? Through careful social commentary, and keen examination of standards through stupefying metaphors, Steinbeck spins a literary web of striking exposition that goes the extra mile to force an analytical perspective onto the reader. It is with these aspects of literature that Steinbeck is able to effectively...
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...The Grapes of Wrath Essay The Joad’s family trek from Sallisaw, Oklahoma to California was one full of suffering and devastation ,yet was full of hope. Upon arrival to California, the suffering and devastation did not cease or lessen ,it grew, as hope became nothing but a mere inkling in minds of the Joads. John Steinbeck ,the author of The Grapes of Wrath ,wrote of many topics that revolved around the “American dream” and the obstacles in between. Human survival became a first and violence became an everyday issue. People had it bad where they lived and they fled their country looking for a second chance in California because that’s what the “American dream” is; a second chance. All those who took refuge in California went through a process and several changes. Steinbeck used the Joads to give his novel a personal feel ,almost an up close view, and then he had those chapters that were repetitive and more widespread. Some of those chapters really help capture a lot of the inhumanity ,indignity ,fellowship, and selfishness in his novel. Within the first chapters of the book we learn about the struggle to get to California. One of the most symbolic chapters in the beginning of the book would be chapter three, where one reads about a turtle struggling and dragging itself along a highway. He reaches a highway embankment with his head held high ,but once he starts climbing up the embankment his efforts become much more frantic. He strains and slips , then has to crawl over a four...
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...The Grapes of Wrath, authored by John Steinbeck, is a novel that depicts the struggles of an average midwestern family, The Joads, as they escape the horrors of the Dust Bowl in search of a new life in the state of California. The novel keeps The novel is revered as an American classic and has many positive reviews, but for me, the novel proved to be decent. The novel begins with introducing Tom Joad as he was attempting to hitch-hike back to his family’s farm. The novel continues with the Joad family, as they are forced to leave their land. The Joads face hardships of losing family members and a family friend, having minimal funds, and their only mode of transportation failing. The novel comes to an end as Tom must flee his family and the...
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...Throughout the semester we read three different books: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Let The Water Hold Me Down by Michael Spurgeon, and Poor People by William Vollmann, all have a common theme, poverty. The books take on different aspects of poverty and use real life experiences that make you aware of what happens in their lives and how they deal with difficult situations. The Grapes of Wrath and Let The Water Hold Me Down have common story lines like family, grief, death, poverty, oppression, and they show how in different time periods the poor had to live and survive. The Grapes of Wrath novel follows the Joad family on their journey to California in search for work and comfortable living. The Joad’s get forced out of their land and are sent packing by the banks that is buying up everyones land for the plantation and growth of cotton. The family sets out on their trip to the “land of milk and honey” with Tom, who has been paroled, Ma, Pa, Al, Granma, Grampa, Uncle John, Rose of Sharon and husband Connie, Ruthie and Winfield, and preacher John Casy, and Noah....
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...The Grapes of Wrath is primarily a story about the Joads, an all-American farming family, and their journey westward, but through the use of inter chapters, the novel also depicts the hardships faced by the general population during the Great Depression. These chapters are added to give more detail and history about the economic and familial circumstances simple people must go through. The use of inter-chapters in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath adds to the novel stylistically, thematically, and symbolically by allowing readers to experience the struggles of average American families and relating those situations back to the Joads. Steinbeck’s use of inter-chapters add to the novel stylistically by using them as a foreshadowing technique. In chapter 7, it says “Squirt in a couple quarts of sawdust. Put some in the gears, too. We got to move that lemon for thirty-five dollars” (). Steinbeck is telling the readers about corrupt car salesmen who tamper with cars to take advantage of desperate families for profit. This chapter is foreshadowing the events in chapter 16 when the Wilson family’s car breaks down and the Joads stay back to help them. Another example is chapter 9 foreshadowing the...
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...Intro to Literature Final Exam The Grapes of Wrath may be set in the 1930’s, but many of the elements are no different than those of today. The characters portrayed in the novel must endure failure, prejudice, death, struggle, abandonment, and injustice, not unlike the elements we all face to a certain extent in our own lives. But not only the negative elements are shown, but also the positive ones like family love and togetherness as well as wanting to help other people as much as you can. This last example is best shown by the main character Tom Joad leaving the family near the end of the story. He doesn’t want to go, but knows that he has to. He only hopes that he can make a difference in someone else’s life: that they might not have to go through the same things he and his family had to endure. This concept is also shown through Jim Casy, the former preacher who takes the blame for an assault upon himself, thereby sparing the recently paroled Tom from going back to prison. Today, none of us may have to endure the conditions that the Joad family had to endure, and we can all be thankful for that, but in ways much unlike the story, we face very different crisis’s in our own lives. We live in a world today with such advanced technology compared to the time of the Joad’s and costs of living that would have staggered people from the 1930’s. When they were happy to be getting one dollar a day for picking crops, we pay that much and sometimes much more for a cup...
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