The Grapes of Wrath is a novel based on tenant farmers, the Dust Bowl, and the Great Depression. The Great Depression was a time of major economic crisis in the United States that lasted for a decade (1929-1939). The Dust Bowl was a severe drought from 1934-1937 that plagued several mid and southwestern states.
In the novel, John Steinbeck follows the fictional journey of the Joads, a family of sharecroppers from Sallisaw, Oklahoma, forced to migrate west during the Dust Bowl. The Joads join thousands of other migrants on the trek to the Salinas Valley of California, a place they idealize as rich with opportunity.
Some viewed it as communist propaganda, and many farmers and agricultural groups were irate that it fomented anger about their labor practices—the book was “a pack of lies,” the Associated Farmers of California declared.
The end of The Grapes of Wrath is among the most memorable concluding chapters in American literature. Tom continues the legacy of Jim Casy as he promises to live his life devoted to a soul greater than his own.
In a 1939 letter, John Steinbeck wrote that his goal for The Grapes of Wrath was “to rip a reader's nerves to rags.” Through the novel, Steinbeck wanted readers to experience the life of the Dust Bowl migrants with whom he had spent time.
Tom decides to leave his family with the hopes that it was better for him and his family to leave than to stay. The final scene with Tom sees him saying goodbye to his mother and the family and vowing that he will be a champion for the poor and oppressed.
But John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath also speaks urgently to today's concerns: the cratered trail of dreams for Mexican immigrants seeking a promised land in the Western U.S.; the perfidy of banks in foreclosing on poor people's homes; and the insurgent urge of the book's protagonist, Tom Joad, to speak truth to ...
What does Tom Joad represent in The Grapes of Wrath? Tom Joad's hardiness is a testament to workers who strive in their struggle to survive. He represents the working man.
Rose of Sharon's Breastfeeding
The reader is able to see the maturation of Rose of Sharon in the final scene where she breastfeeds the starving old man.
The Stillborn Baby
Rosasharn's baby was not buried; instead, John takes the baby in its apple box and puts it in the flooding river. His hope is that the baby will make it to the town and its people.
Paradox is used to describe the wealth and poverty that co-exist in California, the heavy cost of freedom, the destruction of food while people are starving, and Pa's increase in body odor since he started bathing more regularly.
Since its publication in 1939, the novel has been banned in Kern County, California; St Louis, Illinois; Buffalo, New York; Kansas City, Missouri; Kanawha, IA; and Anniston, Alabama.
Capitalism and Dehumanization
Among the most prominent themes in The Grapes of Wrath is the dehumanizing nature of capitalism. Throughout the novel, many characters are forced to act against others for their own economic interests.
Connie leaves in Chapter 19. We never see from him again. Connie was the husband of Rose of Sharon. Rose was pregnant with Connie's child and delivers it stillborn towards the end of the novel.
The The Grapes of Wrath isn't a historical novel, but it does accurately depict the landscape of the Dust Bowl in the intercalary chapters, chapters that break away from the main narrative arc. These chapters provide some context for the Joad chapters.
Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath concludes in a grotesque yet powerful scene in which Rose of Sharon, having just lost her own child, breastfeeds a dying stranger in a rain-soaked barn surrounded by flooded cotton fields. This scene has garnered a great deal of criticism and analysis, both negative and posi- tive.
Controversy: The Grapes of Wrath Breastfeeding Scene
The breastfeeding scene in The Grapes of Wrath was controversial, as breastfeeding an adult man in that way can be seen as overtly sexualized. However, the bulk of controversy stemmed from the act being a symbolic criticism of the government and capitalism.
Answer and Explanation: The last line of Steinbeck's 1939 novel about tenant farmers searching for work during the Great Depression reads, ''She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously.
As he drinks, a mysterious smile appears on her lips. Rosasharn's gesture in the closing lines of the novel can be considered a completion of the life cycle, an act that reaffirms the themes of re-birth and survival.
The tragic death of the Joad family dog on the highway symbolizes the dangers lurking in unknown situations.
The novel is deeply concerned with fertility, what the earth and people can produce, which makes the grapes of wrath an apt metaphor for an anger that's fed and cultivated by hardship and hurt.
Soon after arriving at the gas station, the Joads' dog is struck by a car. The dog's gruesome death stands as a symbol of the difficulties that await the family—difficulties that begin as soon as the family camps for the night. Before the family has been gone a full day, Grampa suffers a stroke and dies.
The Grapes of Wrath is one of the more impactful novels of the twentieth century. Though it tells a story of a particular time and place, it has the power to transcend those limitations because the displacement of a desperate people is a story often repeated in human history.
Tom is good-natured and thoughtful and makes do with what life hands him. Even though he killed a man and has been separated from his family for four years, he does not waste his time with regrets. He lives fully for the present moment, which enables him to be a great source of vitality for the Joad family.
Rose of Sharon's stillborn baby is a literal representation of the inhumane conditions that the migrant laborers must endure. The failed pregnancy symbolizes the impossibility of cultivating life in the toxic environment of hostility, prejudice, and extortion that the Okies face day in and day out in California.