Preview

Optimism In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
382 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Optimism In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath
Optimism in The Grapes of Wrath

At the end of the novel The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, it seems as though the Joads have nothing left to live for, however Steinbeck shows signs of optimism through symbols and biblical allusions. The Joads have gone through tremendous hardships throughout their entire trip to California to find work. They have lost several family members, have gone without work and lived on extremely low rations for months. At the height of their struggles, the Joads are without food, shelter, and their strongest member Tom Joad. The daughter, Rose of Sharon also delivers a stillborn baby. Steinbeck does however end the story with symbols of hope. The rain, which is constantly pouring down, is a symbol of renewal.
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Analysis: The Grapes Of Wrath
    • 108 Words
    • 1 Page

    Analysis: The Grapes Of Wrath

    The Grapes of Wrath remains one of the greatest angry books. Its dominating idea is that of imminent, overwhelming anger. Steinbeck, as a responsible writer, was concerned with exposing a problem in all its complexity instead of arguing a single solution. In writing his novel, he decided to depict for the readers the insult and deprivation suffered by people like the Joads. To present the story of simple human beings while providing at the same time the social documentation. Steibeck's anger of the whole situation turns into a book to show an example of the fate of Joads and their problems while moving with the mass to…

    • 108 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Grapes of Wrath Rhetorical Strategies
    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Grapes of Wrath Rhetorical Strategies

    The Nobel Prize winner for literature, John Steinbeck, in his novel, The Grapes of Wrath, illustrates the hardships of the migrant farmers as they moved from their homes. Steinbeck’s purpose is to establish how much the Joads and other migrant farmer families struggled during their journey and to . Through the use of personification, allusions and symbols, Steinbeck successfully gets his message across to his readers.…

    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Character Analysis: The Grapes Of Wrath
    • 518 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Character Analysis: The Grapes Of Wrath

    In chapter thirty of The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck highlights the most destitute moment of the Joad family during their exodus to California and the transformation of many characters. Steinbeck opens the chapter by describing the flood is taking over the boxcar. Pa urges other men to build an embankment because Rose of Sharon begins to experience labor. While the men work on building the embankment, the cotton tree is uprooted, cascades into the embankment and destroys it. Steinbeck continues to show the Joads’ struggle to overcome the hardships as Pa goes back into the box car, and Mrs. Wainwright informs him that Rose Sharon has delivered a stillborn child. The Joads send Uncle John to bury the child. Because the water level keeps increasing,…

    • 518 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Dust Bowl In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath
    • 96 Words
    • 1 Page

    The Dust Bowl In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

    The crash of the stock market hit in 1929 leading America in a downward spiral; Wall Street loses countless investors, unemployment rates skyrocket, and the devastating American Dust Bowl strikes the Great Plains. Making ends meet seems virtually impossible for the majority of individuals in the United States, especially for those affected by both the economic crisis and the Dust bowl. In John Steinbeck's realistic novel, The Grapes of Wrath, intercalary chapters are implemented throughout the work to adumbrate the difficult lifestyle farmers have to endure due to the Great Depression and the American Dust Bowl.…

    • 96 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Symbols In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath
    • 119 Words
    • 1 Page

    Symbols In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

    John Steinbeck tells a fantastic story in his novel, The Grapes of Wrath. The characters are well developed and the plot is fantastic, but what if there was more to the story than just the plot? Part of what makes The Grapes of Wrath a fantastic novel is, in fact, something that has nothing to do with the Joad family at all! What makes this novel great is symbolism, of course! Steinbeck uses symbols generously throughout his novel, however, they are not as hard to find as some readers might anticipate. The Grapes of Wrath features multiple intercalary chapters that are sprinkled with blatant symbolism. Symbols such as the turtle, the banks, and the road all help reinforce…

    • 119 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Anger In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath
    • 112 Words
    • 1 Page

    Anger In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

    John Steinbeck is an American novelist and is considered also a socialist. He was born in February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. He dropped out college and tried to work as a manual laborer but failed. Later he began to be a successful writer. His novel The Grapes of Wrath is a prize-winning novel that portrays the plight of rural laborers during the Great Depression. In this novel, both Steinbeck’s wrath and optimism are woven. His sympathy towards the migrant workers and sense of outrage are well-portrayed in the novel. This research paper will handle in detail how the novel’s state of anger is prevailed as well as the novel’s different…

    • 112 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Grapes Of Wrath Rhetorical Analysis John Steinbeck
    • 600 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Grapes Of Wrath Rhetorical Analysis John Steinbeck

    Evelyn De Arcos Mr. Webb English 11AP, AM 9/18/14 Novelist and American writer John Steinbeck, in the The Grapes of Wrath recounts the dustbowl of the late 1930’s in Oklahoma. The disastrous drought of the 1930’s forced farmers to migrate westward to California in search of the individual American dream. Steinbeck’s purpose is to convey the idea that, during this time whites were treated as if they were not white. He adopts a mournful and sympathetic tone demonstrating the way the “Okies” were rejected through an economic system. However in chapter fifteen, Steinbeck explores the nature of humanity, illustrating a sense of hope and freedom.…

    • 600 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Dust Bowl In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath
    • 686 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Dust Bowl In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

    The Dust Bowl of the 1930’s, forced many families to move to different parts of the country, devastated the livelihoods of farmers; the relief was The New Deal. "Dust Bowl" was a term born in the hard times from the people who lived in the drought-stricken region during the great depression. The "Dust Bowl Days" also known as the "Dirty Thirties" took their toll on the people of this region of the country with the many extremes of weather: blizzards, tornadoes, floods, droughts, and dirt storms. This disaster occurred in the area of The Great Plains, which covered parts of Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. It occurred during the years of 1933 to 1939. The uprooting, poverty, and human suffering caused during this period is notably shown in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. So the question is how did it happen? What was the relief?…

    • 686 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Dust Bowl In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath
    • 1117 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Dust Bowl In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

    John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath: "And then the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out. Carloads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless – restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do – to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut – anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place to live. Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land." This, just a small excerpt from Steinbeck's novel, depicts the hardships and struggles that farmers faced during…

    • 1117 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Rhetorical Analysis of the Grapes of Wrath
    • 1767 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Rhetorical Analysis of the Grapes of Wrath

    The dust bowl was a tragic time in America for so many families and John Steinbeck does a great job at getting up-close and personal with one family to show these tragedies. In the novel, “The Grapes of Wrath”, John Steinbeck employed a variety of rhetorical devices, such as asyndeton, personification and simile, in order to persuade his readers to enact positive change from the turmoil of the Great Depression. Throughout the novel, Steinbeck tells the fictional narrative of Tom Joad and his family, while exploring social issues and the hardships of families who had to endure the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. Steinbeck’s purpose was to challenge readers to look at the harsh realities around them for “the purpose of improvement”. The rhetorical strategies used in the “Grapes of Wrath” elicit a deeper understanding from its readers for the hardships these migrants faced and helped them to fight for a better way. (John Steinbeck, "Banquet Speech," Nobel Foundation, http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1962/steinbeck-speech.html, Accessed 30 August 2013.)…

    • 1767 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Unity In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath
    • 675 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Unity In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

    “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ...” Ephesians 4:1-6…

    • 675 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Unfinished Child Of God In John Steinbeck's Grapes Of Wrath
    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Unfinished Child Of God In John Steinbeck's Grapes Of Wrath

    ohn Steinbeck book Grapes of Wrath tells us of characters that lived in the Great Depression. Steinbeck writes about “unfinished child of god”. They are characters that have grown in life, but have not fully grown their human nature and do not have the full potential as a child of god. Three characters of Steinbeck that are unfinished children of god are Tom Joad, Jim Casy, and Pa Joad.…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Sin and Virtue in John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath
    • 536 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Sin and Virtue in John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath

    Through out John Steinbeck’s controversial novel, The Grapes of Wrath, the protagonist are faced with a daunting idea; that there is no ‘good’ and ‘bad’ forces in the world. Grapes of Wrath was published in an era filled with discrimination, hate, and fear directed at the fleeing “Okies”; in the early 1930’s the midwestern states where decimated by a foreseen but still devastating Dust Bowl. The reader joins the main characters, the Joad family, as they travel across the country hoping for work in a foreign state; California. Through out their trip they seem to come to believe that “there ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue” just people doing what people do. Yet the more they seem to believe this, the more the reader begins to see that there is in-fact a drastic flaw in their ideology. People do do horrible and good things, but those are what prove that Sin and Virtue do exist.…

    • 536 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Role Of Hope In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men
    • 1064 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Role Of Hope In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

    Imagine you are a man during the 1930’s, you have no family and you need…

    • 1064 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Role Of Government In John Steinbeck's Grapes Of Wrath
    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Role Of Government In John Steinbeck's Grapes Of Wrath

    We all have a duty to our government. In return we expect that the government play an important role in our civilization. While going through a tough time, they have an obligation to come with a plan to solve the problem. They have a duty to protect us from our enemies. They have an obligation to keep peace among ourself and other nations. Most important, the government has an obligation to help those in need throughout the whole nation. In the book “Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck, shows a true definition of how a community should look and act in chapter 17. He focuses not only in individual but how the whole nation suffers injustice due to economic crisis. In contrary, Henry David Thoreau wrote a piece, “Civil Disobedience”, where he clearly states that the…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics