Grapes of rath
The Epic in the Grapes of rath

This paper discusses how the idea of the epic can be found in The Grapes of rath 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 of life" but rather an entire range of life at a given time in America, the book may justly be called "epic" in terms of art and scope. Indeed, The Grapes of rath contains epic ideas and themes (the struggle to be good and/or to survive evil times), epic similes (examples of the struggle that go on at length), epic characters (larger than life types who seem bigger than ordinary men), and an epic journey (the travel from Oklahoma to…...

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Works Cited

Carlson, Eric. "Rebuttal: Symbolism in The Grapes of Wrath." College English, vol.

19, no. 4 (Jan., 1958), pp. 172-175. Web.

Demott, Robert, ed. Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath, 1938-1941.

NY: Penguin, 1990. Web.

Grapes of Wrath
There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do," Jim Casy tells Tom in Chapter Four of The Grapes of Wrath. This quote from Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel illustrates the author's ability to celebrate humanity and embrace human faults with compassion. A former preacher who learns through experience that judging human beings according to strict moral doctrine is no way to cultivate compassion, Casy poignantly embodies Steinbeck's vision of "Man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit." Through Casy's character as well as through protagonist Tom Joad, Steinbeck exposes human faults while simultaneously celebrating the loftiest ideals of the human heart and spirit.

Jim Casy struggled with the conflict between natural sexual desires and the priestly calling until he realized that "It's all part of the same thing." This theme of balance runs through The Grapes of Wrath. Tom Joad is no innocent…...

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 coming of the Lord, as Howe implies, and as Steinbeck reiterates in their mutual echo of Apocalypse.
In conclusion, the philosophy of the Grapes of rath is Casy's, which is itself extrapolated from the philosophies of the naturalists and humanists. It is unable to account for God, but it does acknowledge man's need to give and receive love. Steinbeck appears to suggest that the Okies, like all oppressed people, will be delivered from the evils of the oppression only by banding…...

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Works Cited

Baym, Nina, Ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 5th Ed., Vol. 2. New

York, NY W.W. Norton & Company, 1998.

Howe, Julia Ward. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Gutenberg.org. Web. 4

September 2012.

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 Steinback's novel, the film The Grapes of Wrath (1940) focuses on this particular plight by showing the journey of one family affected by the changes of American society. Like many of the other farming families of the Midwest, the Joads struggled to survive the changes occurring around them.

Director John Ford focuses the movie on Tom Joad (Henry Fonda), a newly released prisoner traveling back to his family's farm, only to realize that everyone had disappeared. When he gets the story…...

..Pa'd crap a litter of lizards if we buy beers." That's pretty gross, but in the context of the times, it doesn't seem so severe. On page 178, a man blows his nose into his hand and wipes the discharge on his pants. A man says he hates his boss and "...Some day, by God - some day I'm gonna have a pipe wrench in my pocket...An' I'm gonna, I'm gonna jus' take his head right down off his neck with that wrench, a little piece at a time...right down off'n his neck." Grim language to be sure, but given the desperation of the times and the angst of the people who are out of work and on the move like homeless people, it isn't too surprising or shocking.
On page 255, blatant violence is discussed almost in passing; "Better not fool with him. He killed a fella." "Did? hat for?"…...

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Works Cited

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin Books, 1939.

Grapes of rath
John Steinbeck's 1939 novel The Grapes of rath, starkly and vividly describes the mass westward immigration of tens of thousands of displaced American Midwestern migrant workers, and the symbolically representative Joad family in particular. Steinbeck's editor Pascal Covici states: "John Ernst Steinbeck was born February 27, 1902, in Salinas California" (p. xxxvii). After graduating from Salinas High School, he attended Stanford University, but did not obtain a degree there. Determined by then to become a writer, Steinbeck moved to New York City, where he worked in construction to support himself while he honed his craft, and then as a reporter for the American. In 1926, he returned to California, where he worked at various odd jobs to support his writing. His first book, Cup of Gold, was published in 1929, and his second, The Pastures of Heaven, in 1932. Steinbeck's better-known works Tortilla Flat and In Dubious…...

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Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. "Introduction." John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath: Bloom's

Notes. Bromall, PA: Chelsea House, 1996. 5.

Carpenter, Frederic I. "Critical Views on The Grapes of Wrath: The Group vs.

the Individual." In John Steinbeck: Comprehensive Research and Study

Grapes of rath
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 orld ar II period that women really began to expand on their traditional roles as daughter, wife, mother, and homemaker (Johnston, p. 244). Interestingly, it was the Great Depression that played a key role in the latter day transformation of the American woman from homemaker to an individual who asserted the right to make her own choices and play a larger role in the affairs of society (Johnston, p. 145). In fact, the catalyst role played by the Great Depression in the transformation of the American woman is clearly evident in the manner in which…...

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Works Cited

Allen, M.R. "The Feminine Principle as Feminist Principle." The Ampersand.

March 2001. Accessed Sept. 13, 2004:  http://www.mprsnd.org/essays/mra012.htm 

Brown, M.M. "The Grapes of Wrath and the Literary Canon of American

Universities in the Nineties." The Critical Response to John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Heavilin, B.A. (ed.) Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000. p. 285-298

Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck [...] some of the ways in which oosevelt'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 oosevelt'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…...

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References

Editors. (2000). FDR Biography - The New Deal Years. Retrieved from the Roosevelt Institute Web site: Aug. 2004.http://www.feri.org/archives/fdrbio/newdeal.cfm13

Gusmorino 3rd, Paul Alexander. (1996). Main Causes of the Great Depression. Retrieved from the Gusmorino World Web site:   Aug. 2004.http://www.escape.com/~paulg53/politics/great_depression.shtml13 

Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1995). "First Inaugural Address: 1933." American Primer. Daniel J. Boorstin, ed. New York: Meridian. 862-870.

Singleton, Jeff. (2000). The American Dole: Unemployment Relief and the Welfare State in the Great Depression. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Grapes of Wrath
When John Steinbeck's he 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, he Grapes of Wrath is compelling in its focus on society, human nature, and the hierarchical vision of "class," in a supposedly classless society. he Grapes of Wrath focuses on the 1930s, where a combination of weather (Dust Bowl) and economic downturn (the 1929 Stock Market Crash and reverberations) caused millions of Americans to lose work, become displaced, and flee middle America towards the "promised land" of California. he central characters, the Joad family, are Steinbeck's camera into the lives of the poor and downtrodden, their hopes, dreams, aspirations, and failures -- and through the Joad experience, the reader is able to juxtapose the very nature of mankind…...

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The "Myth of California" -- American history is rife with examples of a new land, a new start -- in fact, it is what caused the settlement of the country -- the American Frontier. Even such contemporary visions of a California Dream appear in American popular culture; clearly the "myth" of a better world out West remains part of America's heritage.

Continual movement west, partially because of the way California was portrayed in the media during the early 20th century, was a new frontier for much of America. The "myth," of course was that there were numerous jobs, wonderful weather, and a new chance for success. While Steinbeck estimates that a quarter of a million Okies moved to California, it was closer to 16,000, but the problems that occurred were generally reflective of the time (Gregory 1991, 78-82).

For the Joad

Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, and the film "The Grapes of Wrath," directed by John Huston. Specifically, it will compare and contrast the differences between the movie and the book and speculate as to why the directors/screenwriters would have altered the original work in the way that they did, and explore the concept of family in the film.
The Grapes of Wrath" is an American classic, both in film and in literature. emarkably, the film follows the book quite closely; the biggest difference in the film is Huston's ending, which is far more upbeat and positive than Steinbeck's, which ends with osasharn's baby dying, a flooding rain, and finally osasharn nursing a starving man in the boxcar where they have taken shelter from the storm. In addition, the final speech in the film actually appeared in Chapter 20 of the novel, and Ma did not say it to Pa,…...

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References

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 1976.

John Steinbeck's Grapes of rath -- the Movie and the Novel
There are quite dramatic differences between the ending of the film version of "The Grapes of rath" and the final chapter in the book (chapter 30) -- John Steinbeck's brilliant, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. In fact the last chapter of the novel is so totally dissimilar from the John Ford-directed film one wonders why Hollywood would cut out such engrossing drama as Steinbeck has presented through the printed word. But Hollywood loves happy endings, after all. This paper points out some of those differences and contrasts between novel and film.

In the book (Chapter 30)

The rain is hammering down relentlessly, causing the creek to rise dangerously high. In the boxcar Rose of Sharon is getting ready to deliver her baby (a child that turns out to be stillborn). So outside a potential natural calamity is threatening to occur and in the boxcar…...

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Works Cited

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin Books. 1976.

"The Grapes of Wrath." Twentieth Century Fox. Key Video (CBS/FOX). 129 minutes.

John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms take place during tumultuous social and political climates. The Grapes of Wrath features the Great Depression and therefore has the added dimension of economic depression and poverty. Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms is set during wartime Europe, on the Italian front during the Second World War. Along these similar but distinct backdrops, the protagonists demonstrate their respective strengths and weaknesses. Tom Joad of The Grapes of Wrath and Frederic Henry of A Farewell to Arms are both products, if not total victims, of their circumstances. They are both tragic heroes, but not in the classical sense because hubris is not their fundamental weakness. Instead, these male protagonists suffer from a sort of impotence that prevents them from reaching their full potential.
Both Tom and Henry are tragic in part because they never know what makes them happy…...

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References:  http://classiclit.about.com/od/grapesofwrathsteinbeck/a/aa_grapesquotes.htm

John Steinbeck's The Grapes of rath, various references to the structures on which capitalism works are scattered, and usually not lovingly, throughout the story. ritten 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 soul-deadening at best. At its worst, it kills people, and inhumanely at that. There can be little doubt, in the era of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, that Steinbeck would have been a champion of efforts to take the edge off capitalism with more regulation, and perhaps even institute a few -- or more -- socialist reforms.
It is in this setting that the Joad family was forced to leave Oklahoma's Dust Bowl to find work in California. Along the way,…...

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Works Cited

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin Books, 1939.

Performance Theme
The Grapes of rath, 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 will demonstrate how this magnificent film's success, coupled with the book's success, has given both American film and literature a collective boost.

John Steinbeck's is considered by many to be the greatest American author of the 20th century. His known intent of whether or not his story would be adapted for performance is not quite clear, but we should assume that under these circumstances, Steinbeck knew of a possibility that this story could be transcribed into a film, play or other…...

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Works Cited

House, Jeff. "The Grapes of Wrath Resored: Creating Web Sites to Assess Student Learning." English Journal Nov 2007, 79-83.

This source was used to demonstrate the applicability of Steinbeck's novel in today's film mediums.

Ebert, Roger. RogerEbert.com. The Grapes of Wrath movie review. March 31, 2002.

This source provided a critical examination of Ford's film and giving it a recent context.

For two years prior to the publication of the Grapes of rath, 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 rath. The inhumanity which is demonstrated by the banks and the bulldozers which reinforced…...

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Works Cited

Cordyack, B. (2005). John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath. 20th Century American

Bestsellers; UIUC Graduate School of Library and Information Services.

Text can be retrieved here:

http://www3.isrl.uiuc.edu/~unsworth/courses/bestsellers/search.cgi?title=the+Grapes+of+Wrath

Metaphors: Captivating and Memorable Title Creation
Metaphors, figurative devices that compare two unlike things without using "like" or "as," hold immense power in crafting captivating and unforgettable titles. They transcend literal meaning, evoking emotions, creating vivid imagery, and leaving a lasting impression on the reader's mind.
1. Establishing Intrigue and Enchantment:
Metaphors evoke curiosity by hinting at deeper meanings. Titles like "The Great Gatsby" (F. Scott Fitzgerald) or "Gone with the Wind" (Margaret Mitchell) intrigue readers with their metaphorical undertones of unattainable dreams and the transience of time, respectively.
2. Creating Emotional Resonance:
Metaphors tap into human emotions. "The Catcher in the Rye" (J.D. Salinger)....

Common Man as Tragic Hero: Challenging Traditional Notions of Heroism

Traditionally, heroes in literature have been depicted as extraordinary individuals, embodying exceptional qualities of strength, courage, and virtue. However, in contemporary literature, there has been a shift towards portraying the common man as a tragic hero, challenging the traditional notions of heroism. By giving voice to the struggles, vulnerabilities, and resilience of ordinary people, these titles subvert the established heroism archetype, offering a complex and nuanced exploration of human nature.

1. Subverting the Idealized Hero:

Titles such as "Death of a Salesman" (Arthur Miller) and "The Catcher in the Rye" (J.D. Salinger) present....