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 parallels between the national experience during the Great Depression and the experience that the film portrays through the Joads upon their arrival to California. Namely, the capitalist system which has brought much pride and affluence to America's industrialists, and which somewhat questionably proclaims the opportunity for all to rise through an effective manipulation of the system, is the clear and declared enemy of the Grapes of Wrath. The inhumanity which is demonstrated by the banks and the bulldozers which reinforced them, or the absence of compassion exhibited in attending police officers and corporate farm-masters are symptomatic of a larger system which, through its encouragement of competitive profitability, inherently demands that such be achieved to the consequence of some other party's loss of opportunity. Thus, capitalism would be conveyed in this film as a force inherently demanded and stimulating inequality as well as essentially and intentionally hindering the ability of the desperate and hopeful to achieve even the pride of human equality. The tribulations awaiting the Joads in California are illustrative of the failure of America's economic system to protect its meek from the destructive greed of its strong.
And it is perhaps for that very reason that the work was received with some degree of controversy. Naturally, its socialist implications did not necessary sit well with conservative American leaders at that time, earning Steinbeck a label by some as nothing less than un-American. Naturally, this only helps us now to be assured of the economic hypocrisy conspiring to the destruction of America's economy. Indeed, we can see today that "Steinbeck did not distort the conditions that refugees from family farms faced when they reached California in the depression years. Despite the outcry of those...
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
American Literature and the Great Depression When one considers how the Great Depression affected American Literature, John Steinbeck tends to stick out, if only because his fiction generally discusses the same themes and anxieties that has come to define the Great Depression in the public consciousness. Indeed, Steinbeck's Grapes Of Wrath, a realist novel which follows the Joad family as they travel west after they losing their farm to the Dust
Grapes of Wrath Human society, by and large, was historically organized on patriarchal lines till the feminist movement picked up real momentum in the twentieth century. In America, for instance, women were given the right to vote only in the 1920s, post the suffrage movement (Johnston, p. 142). Further, it was not until the post World War II period that women really began to expand on their traditional roles as
Grapes of Wrath When John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath was published on March 14, 1939, it created a national sensation by focusing on the devastating effects of the Great Depression. Beyond the setting, though, which is important in and of itself, The Grapes of Wrath is compelling in its focus on society, human nature, and the hierarchical vision of "class," in a supposedly classless society. The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, various references to the structures on which capitalism works are scattered, and usually not lovingly, throughout the story. Written about the Great Depression a good few years into it by a skillful writer with a fine grasp of human suffering, the depictions and descriptions of capitalism's organisms -- industries, farm organizations, and even retailing -- make the point that capitalism run amok is
Performance Theme The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck's epic and often brutal novel about the plight of rural farmland America in the time of the Great Depression provided an excellent example to investigate the relationship between the separate artistic mediums of novel and film. The purpose of this essay is to highlight how the relationship between a book and film may actually produce a mutually beneficial legacy upon each other. I
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now