John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

In 1939, John Steinbeck published a novel that spoke to the American society. The Grapes of Wrath depicts a story of the Joad family traveling to California during the Dust Bowl. With death, economic struggle, and laboring hard times, the family makes their trek from Oklahoma to California being a representation of many families during that time period. In this project, I will explain the biographical and historical events that were influential for the novel, analysis from the critics during the time it was published, and an original analysis.
1. Influential Events The Grapes of Wrath had two major historical setbacks that set the scene for this novel. With the onset of the Great Depression, rural families were in distraught when the ecological
Readers have identified with Steinbeck because he wrote about the lower class families and depicted precise stories. “...Steinbeck suggest that their story is not unique, but rather is representative of the universal struggle of men and women to seek dignity in their lives, and to find a kind of paradise, either on earth or within themselves” (Beacham and Niemeyer 1467). He uses the journey Joad family to relate to Americans through the novel’s flaws and show the 1930’s view of new technology in agriculture. “In spite of its critics perceive -or perhaps because of them (general readers tend to embrace the nook’s mystic soul and are less troubled by its imperfect body)...” (DeMott ix). This was used in an introduction to the novel and clearly shows how readers reacted to the novel. The Grapes of Wrath was called Steinbeck’s best writing because of his use of simple and direct language and the casual syntax (Kellman 2417). “...He captured this crucial era in American history by showing the way the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl of the midwestern United States affected one family”
Original Analysis The Grapes of Wrath continues to exhibit meaning to the new generation of today. Humans are still forced to struggle through hard times. Steinbeck conveys meaning and demonstrates these hardships throughout the novel by using structure of the chapters, diction and vernacular, and syntax. Lastly, I will contrast Steinbeck’s views of 1930 agriculture in the United States to the new technology of 2016 agriculture. Steinbeck is known for using interchapters between the actual events of the characters. This structure is used to convey meaning for the next chapters. For example, chapter three portrays a story of a turtle slowly making its way across a road. As a middle aged woman approaches the turtle, she swerves to miss injuring it. As a male truck driver approaches the turtle, he saw the turtle and tries to hit it. The turtle is damaged, but keeps going on its journey across the road towards its destination. Steinbeck uses this turtle as a representation of the Joad family on their trek to California. This is shown in the later chapters by “Joads and Wilsons crawled westward as a unit...” (Steinbeck 222). He purposely used the word crawled to show the parallelism between the families and the