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Grapes of Wrath. By John Steinbeck. John Steinbeck One of The Great American Writers of the 20 th Century. A Look at the Author. Born February 27 th in 1902 in Salinas, California, John was the third of four children, and the only son. During his childhood, Steinbeck
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Grapes of Wrath By John Steinbeck
John SteinbeckOne of The Great American Writers of the 20th Century
A Look at the Author • Born February 27th in 1902 in Salinas, California, John was the third of four children, and the only son. • During his childhood, Steinbeck learned to appreciate his surroundings, and loved the Salinas countryside and the nearby Pacific Ocean; it would be this appreciation that would later come out in his writing. • Steinbeck worked during his summers as a hired hand in nearby ranches.
The Beauty of Salinas • Rich, fertile soil
At the age of 14 he decided to be a writer and spent a lot of time writing in his room. • In high school, Steinbeck did well in English and edited the school yearbook. • From 1919-1925 Steinbeck attended Stanford University to please his parents, but only chose courses that interested him, classical and British Literature, writing courses, and an odd science course. • However, Steinbeck did not receive a degree because he would drop in and out of school, sometimes to work with migrant workers and bindlestiffs on California ranches.
What’s a Bindlestiff? A hobo, especially one who carries a bedroll.
During the late 1920s and 1930s, he concentrated on writing and wrote several novels set in California. • Steinbeck gained great success by readers and critics.
In 1929, he published his first novel, Cup of Gold • In 1930, Steinbeck married Carol Henning, and they moved into his family’s home. His father helped support the struggling couple, but unfortunately, they divorced in 1942. • In 1935, he won his first literary prize, Commonwealth Club of California Gold Medal for Best Novel by a Californian for his novel, Tortilla Flat. • In 1936, Of Mice and Men was published, and was so widely accepted that Steinbeck began a book tour that led him to Europe.
In 1939, The Grapes of Wrath was published and became an instant best-seller; in 1940 it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world. • This novel, just like Of Mice and Men, stemmed from his experience working among migrant workers. • Steinbeck’s experiences in the fields researching migrant workers led him to have more compassion for these workers, and stirred up his concern for social justice.
In 1943 he married Gwendolyn Conger who would father him two sons before their divorce in 1948. • In 1943 Steinbeck worked as a war corre- spondent for the New York newspaper, Herald Tribune.
While living in Monterey, California, Steinbeck said that he felt unwelcome as no one would rent him an office for writing, and he was harassed when trying to get fuel and wood from a local wartime rations board. • Steinbeck wrote that his old friends did not want to be around him, partly because of his works, and partly because he was so successful: “This isn't my country anymore. And it won't be until I am dead. It makes me very sad.” He left Monterey the next year and moved to New York.
In 1948 he moved back to Monterey. A year later he met Elaine Scott, who in 1950 became his third wife. • Although he continued to write and publish, he never felt at ease in his life, and once wrote to an aspiring writer from Salinas: “Don't think for a moment that you will ever be forgiven for being what they call ‘different.’ You won’t! I still have not been forgiven. Only when I am delivered in a pine box will I be considered ‘safe.’ After I had written the Grapes of Wrath the librarians at the Salinas Public Library, who had known my folks remarked that is was lucky my parents were dead so that they did not have to suffer this shame.”
One of Steinbeck’s two sons fought in the Vietnam War, while Steinbeck himself was in Asia covering the war for Newsday, a Long Island newspaper. • Steinbeck lost a number of friends during the anti-war movement due to his open support of the war and America’s involvement.
Steinbeck’s last two books were nonfiction. • Travels with Charley in Search of America was an account of his trip from Maine to California with his poodle, Charley. • His final book, America and the Americans, was about his belief that in time, America would once again feel united.
John Steinbeck died on December 20, 1968, at his apartment in New York City. • His wife took him home to Salinas to be buried near the land that he spent his life writing about.
Steinbeck’s Social Philosphiesseen in Grapes of Wrath • Emersonian concept of the Oversoul • All person’s souls are really just part of one big soul • The idea that what we do is for the greater good of the group (not the individual) • Jeffersonian agrarianism • Identification of humankind with soil is necessary for continuation of life cycle
Why Migrant Workers? • Before technology created farm machinery, humans had to do a lot of the farm work by hand. • Between the 1880s and the 1930s, thousands of men would travel the countryside in search of work. • Such work included the harvesting of wheat and barley.
Migrant Workers • These workers would earn $2.50 or $3.00 a day, plus food and shelter. • During the 1930s, the unemployment rate was high in the U.S., and with so many men searching for work, agencies were set up to send farm workers to where they were needed. • In the novel, George and Lennie (the two main characters) were given work cards from Murray and Ready’s, which was one of the farm work agencies.
Chasing the American Dream • “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” ( Emma Lazarus) Written on the base of the Statue of Liberty
The American Dream • You can be successful if you work hard and live morally. • America is the land of opportunity. • Freedom to work hard and be happy is enshrined in the Constitution. • The Dream assumes equality of opportunity, no discrimination, freedom to follow goals and freedom from victimization.
The American Dream • From the 17th Century onwards, immigrants have dreamed of a better life in America. • Many people immigrated to America in search of a new life for themselves or their families. • Many others immigrated to escape persecution or poverty in their homeland.
Immigrants dreamed of making their fortunes in America. • For many this dream of riches became a nightmare. • there were horrors of slavery, • there were horrors of the American Civil War, • there was a growing number of slums that were just as bad as those in Europe, • there was also great corruption in the American political system which led to many shattered hopes.
The idea of an American Dream for many was broken when in 1929, the Wall Street crashed, marking the beginning of the Great Depression. • This era affected the whole world during the 1930s, but even in the midst of hardship, some people’s dreams survived. • Thousands of people made their way west towards California to escape from their farmlands in the Midwest that were failing due to drought.
Is the American dream possible in the historical context of the novel?
Meet the Characters • Tom Joad • The novel’s protagonist, and Ma and Pa Joad’s favorite son. 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. • A wise guide and fierce protector, Tom exhibits a moral certainty throughout the novel that imbues him with strength and resolve: he earns the awed respect of his family members as well as the workers he later organizes into unions.
Ma Joad • The mother of the Joad family. Ma is introduced as a woman who knowingly and gladly fulfills her role as “the citadel of the family.” • She is the healer of the family’s ills and the arbiter of its arguments, and her ability to perform these tasks grows as the novel progresses.
Pa Joad • Ma Joad’s husband and Tom’s father. Pa Joad is an Oklahoma tenant farmer who has been evicted from his farm. • A plainspoken, good-hearted man, Pa directs the effort to take the family to California. • Once there, unable to find work and increasingly desperate, Pa finds himself looking to Ma Joad for strength and leadership, though he sometimes feels ashamed of his weaker position.
Jim Casy • A former preacher who gave up his ministry out of a belief that all human experience is holy. • Often the moral voice of the novel, Casy articulates many of its most important themes, among them the sanctity of the people and the essential unity of all mankind. • A staunch friend of Tom Joad, Casy goes to prison in Tom’s stead for a fight that erupts between laborers and the California police. • He emerges a determined organizer of the migrant workers.
Rose of Sharon • The oldest of Ma and Pa Joad’s daughters, and Connie’s wife. • An impractical, petulant, and romantic young woman, Rose of Sharon begins the journey to California pregnant with her first child. • She and Connie have grand notions of making a life for themselves in a city. The harsh realities of migrant life soon disabuse Rose of Sharon of these ideas, however. • Her husband abandons her, and her child is born dead. By the end of the novel, she matures considerably, and possesses, the reader learns with surprise, something of her mother’s indomitable spirit and grace.
Grandpa Joad • Tom Joad’s grandfather. • The founder of the Joad farm, Grampa is now old and infirm. Once possessed of a cruel and violent temper, Grampa’s wickedness is now limited almost exclusively to his tongue. • He delights in tormenting his wife and shocking others with sinful talk. Although his character serves largely to produce comical effect, he exhibits a very real and poignant connection to the land. • The family is forced to drug him in order to get him to leave the homestead.
Other Characters • Ivy and Sairy Wilson - A couple traveling to California whom the Joads meet on Highway 66, just before Grampa’s death. The Wilsons lend the Joads their tent so that Grampa can have a comfortable place to die. The Joads return the couple’s kindness by fixing their broken-down car. Hoping to make the trip easier, the two families combine forces, traveling together until Sairy Wilson’s health forces her and Ivy to stop. • Connie - Rose of Sharon’s husband, Connie is an unrealistic dreamer who abandons the Joads after they reach California. This act of selfishness and immaturity surprises no one but his naïve wife.
Other Characters • Noah Joad - Tom’s older brother. Noah has been slightly deformed since his birth: Pa Joad had to perform the delivery and, panicking, tried to pull him out forcibly. Slow and quiet, Noah leaves his family behind at a stream near the California border, telling Tom that he feels his parents do not love him as much as they love the other children. • Uncle John - Tom’s uncle, who, years ago, refused to fetch a doctor for his pregnant wife when she complained of stomach pains. He has never forgiven himself for her death, and he often dwells heavily on the negligence he considers a sin. • Ruthie Joad - The second and younger Joad daughter. Ruthie has a fiery relationship to her brother Winfield: the two are intensely dependent upon one another and fiercely competitive. When she brags to another child that her brother has killed two men, she inadvertently puts Tom’s life in danger, forcing him to flee.
Other Characters • Winfield Joad - At the age of ten, Winfield is the youngest of the Joad children. Ma worries for his well-being, fearing that without a proper home he will grow up to be wild and rootless. • Floyd Knowles - The migrant worker who first inspires Tom and Casy to work for labor organization. Floyd’s outspokenness sparks a scuffle with the police in which Casy is arrested. • Muley Graves - One of the Joads’ Oklahoma neighbors. When the bank evicts his family, Muley refuses to leave his land. Instead, he lets his wife and children move to California without him and stays behind to live outdoors. When he comes upon Tom at the abandoned Joad farm, he directs the young man to his Uncle John’s. • Agnes Wainwright - The daughter of the couple who shares the Joads’ boxcar toward the end of the novel. Agnes becomes engaged to Al, who leaves his family in order to stay with her.
Grapes of Wrath– Title’s Origin • Carol Steinbeck • reference to lyrics from "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", by 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.
Title’s origin • These lyrics refer, in turn, to the biblical passage Revelation 14:19-20, an apocalyptic appeal to divine justice and deliverance from oppression in the final judgment.“And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress,even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.” • Image invoked serves as crucial symbol in the development of both plot and the novel's greater thematic concerns: