But not everyone was initially on board. In fact, in many communities The Grapes of Wrath was banned and burned, both for its occasional obscene language and its general themes.
John Steinbeck's novel was banned by Kern County in 1939, a prohibition that would stay in place for a year and a half. Various residents called John Steinbeck's 'Wrath' a 'libel and lie' as well as 'obscene in the extreme.
“The Associated Farmers of California dismissed the novel as a 'pack of lies' and 'communist propaganda. ' The book was briefly banned in the Soviet Union by Joseph Stalin, because the ruling Communist Party was troubled by the thought that it showed that even the most destitute Americans could afford a car.
Since the book came out in 1939, everyone has had a opinion on the ending to John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. It has a very controversial ending, that Steinbeck thought would name the last nail into the coffin, so to speak, on how bad the dust bowl and moving west really was.
The Great Gatsby was challenged and banned for a few reasons: sex, violence, adultery, and language. The affair between Daisy and Gatsby along with Nick's language regarding Jordan Baker make up most of the sex and adultery reasoning behind the challenging and banning of the book.
Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
Due to themes of death and the fact that the main characters are talking animals, a parent group in Kansas sought to ban the book from their students' school libraries.
The Catcher in the Rye has been challenged several times for its “excessive vulgar language, sexual scenes, and things concerning moral issues” (Sova).
The Grapes of Wrath can be read as a proletarian novel, advocating social change by showing the unfair working conditions the migrants face when they reach California. The men who own the land there hold the power, and attempt to control supply and demand so that they can get away with paying poor wages.
The moral of The Grapes of Wrath is that, in the end, people need to band together to help each other out. Only by working together can individuals hope to survive systems and events that will hurt them.
Major conflict The disastrous drought of the 1930s forces farmers to migrate westward to California, pitting migrants against locals and property owners against the destitute.
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. It has been challenged in more places than that both nationally and internationally.
Some of these principles are: the strength of a unified working class, collective ownership of resources, and working for a common good. You won't find the terms Socialism, Marxism, or Communism anywhere in The Grapes of Wrath. However, these economic and political philosophies pervade the book.
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.
Capturing the human experience of migrant farmworkers also made The Grapes of Wrath controversial. The political frenzy went so far that First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, upon reading the book, called for congressional hearings that resulted in reform to labor laws governing migrant camps.
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is not merely a great American novel. It is also a significant event in our national history. Capturing the plight of millions of Americans whose lives had been crushed by the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, Steinbeck awakened the nation's comprehension and compassion.
The Grapes of Wrath draws its title from both the song ''The Battle Hymn of the Republic'' and the Book of Revelations in the Bible. It is an allusion to an image that shows events reaching a point of great change. The grapes in both sources are being crushed by God's wrath.
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.
The Grapes of Wrath includes several instances of Biblical imagery, including Jim Casy as an allusion to Jesus Christ, Rose of Sharon's baby as an allusion to Moses, California as a 'promised land' like Canaan, and the Joads' truck as a more modern version of Noah's Ark.
For large farmers and banks, the introduction of the tractor is a boon - they are able to work the land far more efficiently, and make much more money from it. For the people who are replaced by technology, however, it represents the end of a way of life, and often an expulsion from their homes.
The novel was inspired by Steinbeck's journalism work, particularly for The San Francisco News, which commissioned him to cover migrant labor camps in California's Salinas Valley.
The Joad family cat is left behind when the Joads are driven off the farm. It symbolizes how even the tame become wild and untrusting under dire circumstances. The tragic death of the Joad family dog on the highway symbolizes the dangers lurking in unknown situations.
Its banning history is interesting regarding the role of the states. JD Salinger's Catcher in the rye: banned 1956 to 1957, although it had been circulating in Australia since publication in 1951. Talk about after the horse bolting! As with most bannings, it resulted in discussion in the media.
The Color Purple by Allice Walker has been banned in schools across the United States sine 1984, just two years after the book was published. The book was banned for its sexual content and situations of abuse and domestic violence.
The book was misunderstood and was seen as being critical of all forms of socialism, rather than specifically Stalinist communism. The American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) funded a cartoon version in 1955. Because of its illegality, many in Soviet-controlled territory first read it in pirated, 'samizdat' form.