The Structure Of The Grapes Of Wrath

Every book has a skeleton. The skeleton is the structure, it is what helps mold it into a full-fledged book, and not words thrown together. In The Grapes of Wrath, the structure is different than other books. The narrator does not only observe just the Joads, they also observe a broad number of people and sometimes the thoughts of a random, unnamed individual. This structure is referred to as interchapters, and this structure allows Steinbeck to provide background information, evoke a relation between the reader and the book, and evoke emotion in the reader. “Well, Okie use' ta mean you was from Oklahoma. Now it means you're a dirty son-of-a-bitch. Okie means you're scum. Don't mean nothing itself, it's the way they say it.” (Steinbeck 139). A man tells the Joads this after they ask for information about California. The Joads become anxious for a
moment, but return to their journey. This is around the end of the journey to California. "Well, you and me got sense. Them goddamn Okies got no sense and no feeling. They ain't human. A human being wouldn't live like they do. A human being couldn't stand it to be so dirty and miserable. They ain't a hell of a lot better than gorillas." (Steinbeck 150). Tom observes someone say this sentence, and the reader understands that Okies are more than not welcome in California, but are despised with a burning passion. “And the laboring people hated Okies because a hungry man must work, and if he must work, if he has to work, the wage payer automatically gives him less for his work; and then no one can get more.” (Steinbeck 158.) You then discover a reason for the hatred. Fear paralyzes the Californians; most are already poor because of the Great Depression. Without the interchapters, the source of hatred would be unclear. Without the interchapters, the Californians are heartless scum instead of humans who are afraid.
The Dust Bowl was only one of the several factors that contributed to the Great Depression. The Dust Bowl forced many farmers in the Southern Midwest out of their homes, while banks were plain out of money and the unemployment rose above 20 percent. This led to even worse hardships for the workers. They had very little money and migrant camps were in poor conditions, as shown many times in the book. Although the story in The Grapes of Wrath is fiction, many aspects of it are not. Steinbeck uses the method of interchapters to show you how human, how real this whole thing was. You relate to nameless people whose life you may only preview for a moment.

Although the Joads face many hardships, the interchapters sometimes evoke more emotion.
2 major themes to evoke emotion are hunger, and fear, which were rampant among America throughout the Great Depression. “In the barns, the people sat huddled together; and (...) their faces were gray with terror. The children cried with hunger, and there was no food. Then the sickness came, pneumonia, and measles that went to the eyes and to the mastoids.” (Steinbeck 298) .We sympathize, and possibly empathize with these people. They were people with lovely lives, reduced to almost nothing. Steinbeck’s choice of words in the interchapters are different than in chapters focusing on the Joads. They are more intense, and sting with a truthful venom. “How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him—he has known a fear beyond every other.” (Steinbeck 161). Again, Steinbeck uses fear and hunger, something we are all familiar with. The interchapters serve to connect the reader closer with the emotions and lives of the Okies during this
time.

The Grapes of Wrath’s structure was carefully planned out, according to Steinbeck. The story is not just of the Joads, but of the Okies, and the Californians, and the women and men and the children.