¶ … Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck [...] some of the ways in which Roosevelt's speech in "American Primer" responded to the needs of the people in 1933 and throughout the rest of the thirties. Steinbeck's powerful novel, "The Grapes of Wrath," is a deep look into the poverty of the Dust Bowl, and the migrations to California by workers desperate for jobs. The country was in dire trouble. The people recognized it, and the administration recognized it. The people needed to know that the government understood and cared about their plight, and Roosevelt's speech told them he cared, and that he would do everything in his power to rectify the situation. The Grapes of Wrath" is the touching and dark story of the Joad family, who travels to California from Oklahoma after their crops fail and they lose their farm. The chapters of the novel are generally divided into chapters that discuss the Joad family and their problems, and a more general discussion of the Great Depression and its affect on the nation. One historian called it the "worst economic slump ever in U.S. history, and one which spread to virtually all of the industrialized world" (Gusmorino, 1996). An article at the Roosevelt Institute states, "over $75 billion in equity capital had been lost on Wall Street, the gross national product had plunged from a high of $104 billion to a mere $74 billion, and U.S. exports had fallen by 62 per cent. Over thirteen million people, nearly 25% of the workforce, were now unemployed" (Editors, 2000). Early in his Inaugural Address, newly elected President Franklin Delano Roosevelt told the nation, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" (Roosevelt, 1995, p. 864). Clearly, the...
The book is dark and depressing, but so were the times. Roosevelt recognized this, and knew that he not only had to get the country back on its feet quickly, but he had to reassure the people that jobs and prosperity would come again. Many people, just like the Joads, were at the end of their rope, and they had nowhere else to turn.
For two years prior to the publication of the Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck spent his time with a group of migrant workers making their way towards California. Travelling and working with the laborers, Steinbeck found the heartfelt material in which to base his book." (Cordyack, 1) This shows in his gritty but sympathetic portrayal of the American working class. This is an idea which illuminates perhaps the most important of
Grapes of Wrath The Epic in the Grapes of Wrath This paper discusses how the idea of the epic can be found in The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. The novel itself is an enormous work of approximately 500 pages. And in the words of Howard Levant, it is "an attempted prose epic, a summation of national experience of genre" (Levant 91). Because Steinbeck is depicting more than just a "slice
But the value and meaning of life and love described by Casy is manifested by the outsiders, the Okies, the rejects, the wanderers, the strangers, and the oppressed. They are the socially marginal characters of a self-satisfying culture. They are the ones Steinbeck admires in his novel for they are the ones who "wander through the wilderness of hardships, seeking their own Promised Land" (Shockley 87). They await the
Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck's novel, "The Grapes of Wrath," described the economic divide that existed in America during the Great Depression of the 1930's and the tragedies that occurred as a result. A native Californian, Steinbeck used his home state as the backdrop for a story of a family of migrant farm workers; derisively called "Okies" for their area of origin: Oklahoma. Devastated by a natural disaster commonly referred to
Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck's novel, "The Grapes of Wrath," described the economic divide that existed in America during the Great Depression of the 1930's and the tragic result that occurred as a result. A native Californian, Steinbeck used his home state as the backdrop for a story of a family of migrant farm workers, derisively called "Okies" for their area of origin, Oklahoma. The troubles the family faced, although originally
Grapes of Wrath Social Welfare The Great Depression affected everyone throughout the United States, but there is no denying the fact that those in the general Midwest were almost destroyed as a result. The complete social and economic consequences to a few years of drought, financial distress, and the growing applications of technology -- which led towards a social change in job placements -- all affected the farmer's plight. Based on John
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