The Grapes of Wrath starts out with the green and luscious fields of plants and crops. Then, almost suddenly, there was no more rain. The plants wilted and the crops browned. This was only the beginning of the Dust Bowl. The reader then meets a man named Joad. At first, he seems very mysterious and the reader is thirsting for more information about him. We finally learn that Joad is on a journey home from prison. On his journey home, he runs into an old friend, Reverend Jim Casy, sitting against a tree trunk. While they reminisce and talk about the things they have discovered in the last few years, we start to learn more and more about the main character Joad. Casy decided to travel to meet Joad’s family since he had wanted to see Joad’s father. When they arrive at the house, everything is gone. The people, their belongings, everything is gone. While sitting and wondering what has happened, they come upon one fellow who knows the family and he tells the two that the family has been living with Joad’s uncle. Joad and Casy then travel to Joad’s uncles home to greet his family. When they got there, the family was just getting ready to pack up and migrate to California. He gets reacquainted with his family and after awhile they get ready for the trip to California to find work. The book then goes on to show the hardships of migrating to find work, and how these people who migrated were treated. The people were no longer farmers. They were now “migrant workers”. Their most famous nickname, however, is “Okies”.
John Steinback uses a great deal of detail and imagery. In fact, in every other chapter, Steinbeck takes some time to forget dialogue for a moment, and describe what is going on. Sometimes he tells the reader exactly what he means, and other times he wants the reader to infer what he means by it. For instance, the book starts out describing things in great detail. Steinbeck describes things as small as the brown lines on corn leaves that widen with time because of how dry it is.
The point of view changes many times during the book. For the majority of the book, the narrator is speaking as an outsider talking about Joad and his family and their hardships. Then in between the chapters speaking about Joad, there are little chapter that describe what is going on outside of Joads life in great detail.
Steinbeck also uses symbolism in this book. For example, in chapter three, he describes a turtle in great detail. This turtle has its mind set on getting to where it wants to be, but is having a hard time. The turtle has to travel across the road, through traffic, and is nearly killed. This turtle is like Joad in a sense. Joad knows where he wants to be, but he is having a very hard time getting there. There are so many obstacles in his way.
In all, this book was very well written. The author had plenty of knowledge about history, of course, to be able to write this book. Not only did he take history into consideration when writing this, but he also used grammar and English very well. The dialogue was also very well written. He was able to put the accents and the way people spoke into words, and that is a skill that not very many people have. Steinbeck’s knowledge and skill made The Grapes of Wrath a must read.
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