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John Steinbeck's The
Grapes of Wrath, Tom Joad and his family are forced from their farm in the
Depression-era Oklahoma Dust Bowl and set out for California along with
thousands of others in search of jobs, land, and hope for a brighter future.
Considered John Steinbeck's masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath is a story
of human unity and love as well as the need for cooperative rather than
individualistic ideals during hard times.
Written by: John Steinbeck
Type of Work: novel
Genres: historical fiction
First
Published: 1939
Setting: the Great Depression; Oklahoma
Main
Characters: Tom Joad; Ma
Joad; Jim Casy; Rose of Sharon Joad; Pa Joad
Major Thematic
Topics: love; strength in
unity; re-birth; survival
Motifs: disrupted power structures
Major Symbols:
turtle crossing the road;
vacant houses; Ma Joad; the truck
The three most
important aspects of The Grapes of Wrath:
- The Grapes of Wrath takes place during America's
Great Depression, which lasted from the Stock Market Crash of October 1929
until World War II began 12 years later. During this time, a long period
of drought and high winds affected large parts of the American Midwest,
including much of the state of Oklahoma, creating what was called the Dust
Bowl. Many of the people in the lower Midwest moved elsewhere, hoping to
find fertile land on which to make a living.
- Tom Joad is the protagonist, or main character, of The Grapes of
Wrath. Tom is the book's hero as well despite the fact that Tom
attacks a policeman at one point in the novel and beats a man at another
point, becoming a cave-dwelling fugitive as a result. Tom's actions,
although illegal according to the letter of the law, are morally just.
- The most famous image in The Grapes of Wrath is the novel's
final one, in which Rose of Sharon Joad, whose baby was recently
stillborn, breast-feeds a sickly, starving man on the floor of an old
barn. In this image, Steinbeck powerfully dramatizes the desperate plight
of Depression-era migrant workers, whom the author felt had been abandoned
by society.
Vid pennan: Gunilla