The Grapes of Wrath

1. The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck

2. INTRODUCTION • Critics have called John Steinbeck’s masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath propaganda, sentimental, and obscene—but half a century later, we are still moved by the story of the Joads and the thousands like them who lost their land in the midst of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl of the mid-Thirties. Think about this happening today?????????????

3. In an age of concern over the plight of America’s farmlands, earth’s fragile environment, and the growing problem of pollution, The Grapes of Wrath is still relevant. In an age when Third World peoples are the “new Okies,” when people step over the sleeping homeless in our major cities, and the gap between rich and poor widens, The Grapes of Wrath is still relevant. The movement from “I” to “we” (this novel’s major theme) challenges every new generation of readers.

4. VALUES • An appreciation for our common humanity • The need to work together to achieve a common goal • The need for compassion and justice for the oppressed • The importance of avoiding stereotypes and labels • The need to share what we have with others, especially the poor

5. VALUES • The importance of commitment to our beliefs • A respect for our religious heritage and that of others • The realization that change is part of the human condition • The importance of caring about the earth and our environment • An understanding of the role of technology in society

6. CONTROVERSIAL NOVEL • When first published, religious leaders denounced it as obscene. • Oklahomans resented the portrayal of their citizens and their state. • Californians insisted they were not as cruel as the picture Steinbeck painted of them. • Many people called Steinbeck a Communist.

7. SUPPORTERS • Believed his novel told the truth and were concerned enough to demand government action • As a novel of social protest, The Grapes of Wrath was a great success. As a movie, it is a classic. In today’s catalog of literature, it ranks as a timeless work of art.

8. STRUCTURE • The novel is somewhat unusual in structure. The general story of the dust storms, the road west, shady business practices, and the migrant camps is told in chapters which alternate with the more specific story of one particular migrant family, the Joads. You will receive a factual history along with a fictionalized example of how the historic events affected one family.

9. THE JOADS • The Joads represent all migrants—and in fact all poor, uneducated people—in 1930s America.

10. KEY FACTS full title · The Grapes of Wrath author  · John Steinbeck type of work  · Novel genre  · Epic; realistic fiction; social commentary; PROTEST NOVEL language  · English time and place written  · Late May–late October 1938, Los Gatos, CA

11. NARRATOR • narrator  · An anonymous, all-knowing, historically aware consciousness that is deeply sympathetic, not only to the migrants but to workers, the poor, and the dispossessed generally.

12. POINT OF VIEW • The narrative shifts dramatically between different points of view. In some chapters the narrator describes events broadly, summarizing the experiences of a large number of people and providing historical analysis. Frequently, in the same chapters, the narrator assumes the voice of a typical individual, such as a displaced farmer or a crooked used-car salesman, expressing that person's individual concerns. When the narrator assumes the voice of an anonymous individual, the words sometimes sound like what an actual person might say, but sometimes they form a highly poetic representation of the anonymous individual's thoughts and soul. The chapters focusing on the Joad family are narrated primarily from an objective point of view, representing conversations and interactions without focusing on any particular character. Here, the characters' actions are presented as an observer might witness them, without directly representing the characters' thoughts and motivations. At certain points, however, the narrator shifts and presents the Joads from an omniscient point of view, explaining their psychologies, characters, and motivations in intimate detail.

13. KEY FACTS • tone  · Mournful, awed, enraged, sympathetic • tense  · Mainly past • setting (time)  · Late 1930s • setting (place)  · Oklahoma, California, and points along the way • protagonist  · Tom Joad

14. 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. Moreover, Tom Joad's story dramatizes a conflict between the impulse to respond to hardship and disaster by focusing on one's own needs and the impulse to risk one's safety by working for a common good.

15. RISING ACTION • Tom is released from prison, determined to mind his own business; Tom encounters the devastation of the Dust Bowl; Casy presents Tom with his philosophy of the holiness of human beings in general; Tom is drawn into the workers' movement.

16. THEMES AND MOTIFS • THEMES • Man's inhumanity to man; • the saving power of family and fellowship; • the dignity of wrath; the multiplying effects of altruism and selfishness • MOTIF • · Improvised leadership structures

17. MAIN THEMES AND IDEAS • RELIGION • TRANSCENDENTALISM • AGRARIANISM (AGRICULTURE) • COMMUNISM • ISOLATION AND LONELINESS • FAMILY AND THE EDUCATION OF THE HEART

18. Title • The novel’s title is taken from Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” (second stanza) with its militant spirit that urges an oppressed group to strive for victory over its oppressors.

19. TITLE Battle Hymn of the Republic Julia Ward Howe Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:                       His truth is marching on.I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:                       His day is marching on.

20. TITLE – SYMBOLIC LEVEL • MIGRANTS CLUSTER TOGETHER LIKE GRAPES, IN THEIR SHARED MISERY AND ANGER (WRATH). THEY SURVIVE PERSECUTION, HARDSHIPS, AND EXPLOITATION ONLY BECAUSE OF THEIR INVINCIBLE COURAGE.

21. TITLE – RELIGIOUS LEVEL • REVELATION – THE EVIL PEOPLE WHO FOLLOW AFTER BABYLON (WICKEDNESS) WILL “DRINK OF THE WINE OF THE WRATH OF GOD” AND WILL BE TORMENTED. IN THE NOVEL, THIS HAPPENS TO THE WEALTHY LANDOWNERS IN CALIFORNIA, WHOSE EXPLOITATION OF THE MIGRANTS LEADS TO WORKERS’ PROTEST AND STRIKES.

22. TITLE – RELIGIOUS LEVEL • GRAPES ARE A SYMBOL OF FRUITFULNESS, BOUNTY, AND PROMISE FOR THE FUTURE. GRAMPA SAYS, “GRAPES. THERE’S ONE THING I AIN’T NEVER HAD ENOUGH OF.”

23. SYMBOLS • The Grapes of Wrath • Christian symbolism

24. SYMBOLS • Rose of Sharon's pregnancy; • the death of the Joads' dog • The Tractors

25. A TIME OF CHANGE: MOTIFS IN THE NOVEL • Think about the role of technology in your life today???? • Think about technology in manufacturing, medicine, and information accessibility???????? • Steinbeck wrote this novel before the computer revolution, but he was never an anti-machine agrarian purist. • He saw machines as offering possibilities for a better life for all people.

26. MACHINE AGE COMES TO OK • “The family met at the most important place, near the truck.” chapter 10 • The novel began with a poetic tribute to the land and its people. • Chapter 2 – the red, living earth is replaced by a roaring, huge red truck. • Every chapter but 4 contains references to cars, trucks, or tractors (all negative except for the above passage).

27. MACHINE AGE COMES TO OK • Machines are replacing the land and the farm as America becomes a nation on the move. • What does it mean to be human in a world that is becoming increasingly mechanized? • Chapter 11 (the 1st paragraph) says the new MACHINE MAN has no “wonder” in his work, loses understanding of relationship between people and land, is contemptuous of the land and of himself.-*

28. CHANGES • “Times are changing, mister, don’t you know?” chapter 5 • “Seems to me we don’t never come to nothin’. Always on the way.” chap. 13 • “Thus they changed their social life—changed as in the whole universe only man can change.” • “The Western land, nervous under the beginning change. The Western States nervous as horses before a thunder storm. The great owners, nervous, sensing a change, knowing nothing of the nature of the change.” chapter 14

29. CONT. • “They’re gonna come a thing that’s gonna change the whole country.” chapter 16 • “For here ‘I lost my land’ is changed: a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate—’We lost our land’. . .This is the beginning—from ‘I’ to ‘we.’” chapter 14

30. FROM “I” TO “WE” • From the first pages of this novel, the reader senses a change has come over the land. The red earth is turned to gray dust. The tenant farmers are pushed off their land and onto Highway 66 by debts and greedy owners. We see characters change, such as the service station owner of chapter 13, who begins as a whining worrier and ends up showing compassion when the Joads’ dog is run over, offering to “bury ‘im out in the corn field.”30

31. CHANGE IN THE “FAMBLY” • One of the biggest changes is in the “fambly.” • They have to leave their farm and Oklahoma. • They have added Casey and Wilsons to the “extended family.” • Grampa dies. • Their pet dog is hit by a CAR.

32. CHANGES IN ATTITUDES (JOADS) • Ma seems to be opening her concept of family by allowing Casy and the Wilsons in. • Tom seems to be reflecting on Casy’s message of universal compassion for fellow human beings.

33. THEME – FROM “I” TO “WE” • Our only way to survive as a human race is to shift from total independence to inter-dependence. John Steinbeck

34. RELIGION • Traditional, orthodox religion is seen in a negative light since it encourages individuals to remain isolated and self-centered. Uncle John is preoccupied with guilt over his role in the death of his wife; a migrant woman sees everything in terms of sin and punishment. Casey abandons orthodox religion in hopes of finding a deeper awareness of life and the universe. The understanding that he finally achieves is not “anti-religion,” but rather a way of translating religion into responsible, humane action.

35. Christian Symbolism • The Joads – oppressed, homeless group (Israelites) in search of the Promised Land • Jim Casy – withdrawn from the church as Christ withdrew from the old religion • Casy went into the wilderness like Jesus to figure out something and form a new set of beliefs based on love and unity among humans • Casy has the same initials as Christ, feels the same zest for teaching, gives himself as a sacrifice when Tom is about to be arrested, and is killed in the middle of a river as in the biblical crossing over Jordan. • Christ’s last words before dying were: “Father forgive them; they know not what they do.” Casy’s last words were: “You fellas don’t know what you’re doin.”

36. Biblical Imagery • The novel’s three sections (drought, journey, and California) correspond to the Israelites’ oppression in Egypt, the exodus, and the sojourn in the land of Canaan. • Instead of peace and prosperity, the Joads are met with hunger and violence in California. They never get the “promised land.”

37. Rose of Sharon • Rose of Sharon’s name comes from “I (Christ) am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley.” “This thy stature is like to a palm tree and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.” (Canticles 2:1 and 7:7) • Christians believe that Christ gives himself, body and blood, in the form of bread and wine. • Rose of Sharon truly gives of herself to bring life to the dying man, who would die without the nourishment. Christ says, “I am the Bread of Life.” (John 6:35)

38. Irony • Uncle John puts Rose of Sharon’s stillborn child in an old apple crate and floats it downstream and says, “Go down and tell’em.” • Moses is the baby in the basket in the Bible, and the irony is that he saved his people but the infant cannot tell them because he is dead. Think about the connection between the actions that have caused the infant’s death and selfishness.

39. Theme • One of Steinbeck’s major themes (Of Mice and Men also) is humankind’s search for the Promise Land, a Garden of Eden, “flowing with milk and honey.” • Concerning Tom and the snake, the devil took the form of a serpent in the Garden of Eden in Genesis. The snake here is an omen that California will not be a Paradise for them.

40. TRANSCENDENTALISM • When Casy says that “maybe all men got one big soul ever’body’s a part of,” he argues that human kind as a whole is more important than any one individual. Casy goes so far as to argue that perhaps there is no sin, that everything people do is “holy.” Transcendentalists believe that a collective unity of souls transcends or goes beyond the individual soul. Casy comes to believe that people discover life’s true meaning only when they see their connection to other people and learn to love them. Casy’s belief is expressed in the growing sense of unity among the migrants and other dispossed people.

41. AGARIANISM • The novel reaffirms Thomas Jefferson’s belief that “those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God.” Steinbeck emphasizes the importance of a unified, sharing attitude between humans and the earth. Tractors, land corporations, and bankers reflect the alienation and corruption that result when landownership and farming become a business. Migrants believed that the land belongs to those who work it; landowners allowed their lands to lie dormant while other were hungry.

42. COMMUNISM • Throughout the novel, migrants are wrongly accused of being “Reds,” or Communists. There is no direct evidence in the novel that a larger political influence lies behind the migrants’ attempts to organize and protect themselves. Their ideal is NOT communism, but a communalism or a vague form of Christian socialism where people work together for the benefit of all.

43. ISOLATION & LONELINESS • Having been isolated in prison, Tom continues through most of the novel as a “loner.” • Casy feels that his life as a preacher has isolated him from the real meaning of life. • Muley Graves is “just wanderin’ around like a. . .graveyard ghost.” • Uncle John is described as “the loneliest. . .man in the world.” • Steinbeck uses the backdrop of the larger isolation of the migrants as a whole.

44. PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER • Animals and machines are an important part of the novel both at a literal and a symbolic level. They unify the novel, help us understand characters, and point out major themes in the work. • Animals and characters: The people are reduced to animal level by the banks and owners; the people are close to nature, one with the land they farmed.

45. PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER • In the novel, it is not MACHINES that are evil, but the system that allows only the wealthy to own the tractors. • The truck continues to break down and is eventually stopped, as it the Joads. • Life would have been easier if farmers had access to tractors. The problem was that they had no money and could not compete with farmers who did own machines.

46. The Controversial Ending • Rose of Sharon, who so often in the early chapters is a whining, selfish, immature girl, grows into a woman like her mother, who cares for others first, no matter the cost. • Steinbeck’s purpose was to have the readers see that even when the Joads had nothing, life and suffering had taught them to share what little they had: in this case, Rose of Sharon’s breast milk.