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Grapes of Wrath essay

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Grapes of Wrath essay
Grapes of Wrath
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John Steinbeck was an American author of twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books, and numerous short stories. Steinbeck is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men. Born in Salinas, California in 1902, Steinbeck spent most of his life in Monterey County, the setting of much of his fiction such as the novel Cannery Row, a novel depicting the canning Co in Monterey at the time . He attended Stanford University between 1920-1926. Steinbeck did not graduate from Stanford, but instead chose to support himself through manual labor while writing. Being part of the labor force during this time greatly influence many of his novels. Steinbeck's first novel, Cup of Gold, was published in 1929, and was followed by The Pastures of Heaven and, in 1933, To a God Unknown. Steinbeck married Carol Henning in 1930 and lived with her in Pacific Grove, California. He spent much of his time in Monterey. Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1962, and died in New York City in 1968.
The Grapes of Wrath, is written by Steinbeck and published in 1939. Steinbeck does an excellent job in this novel by capturing a significant event in history, the Dust Bowl, which displaced millions of Americans. The agricultural industry changes and bank foreclosures forced tenant farmers of the land they've live on for generations as depicted in the novel with the Joad Family. As the novel opens, Tom has returned home after serving a jail sentence. The Dust Bowl has decimated the region; foreclosures have forced the farmers off the land. Tom and the a retired preacher Jim Casy decide to accompany Tom's family to the promise land of California where work is plentiful and wages are high. Things however are not the way they've been told. The constant inflow of displace tenant farmers has dramatically increased the demand for work while also

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