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When first released in 1939, The Grapes of Wrath, written by novelist John Steinbeck, created quite a stir among Americans still coping with the depression. It tells the story of the Joad family from the time of their eviction on their farm in Oklahoma, to their first winter in California. The novel is basically divided into three sections: their time in Oklahoma, their journey to a "better" life in California, and their time while in California. It also contains "inter-chapters" that don't focus mostly on the Joad's, and rather the situation at hand for all "Okies" on their way to California.
The opening chapter describes the lives of farm owners dealing with the drought in Oklahoma along with a dust storm. "Men stood by their fences and looked at the ruined corn, drying fast now, only a little green showing through the film of dust. The men were silent and they did not move often (3). " In the following chapter, Tom Joad is hitchhiking in a truck, after just being released from McAlester, a state prison, for killing a man while in a drunken brawl. In chapter three, some symbolism is noticed in a turtle that has great difficulty crossing the highway, foreshadowing the journey in the next chapter. After meeting Jim Casy in chapter four, they finally reach the Joad farm that has been deserted and damaged. Next, they learn from Muley Graves, a neighbor, that Tom's family was evicted, so both Tom and Casy travel onwards to family relative, Uncle John's home, in hopes of catching up with Tom's family before their big move to California. Finally, Tom is reunited with his family for the first time in four years.
The first person Tom sees is his Pa, who insists on surprising Ma with his arrival. Jim Casy hesitantly says grace during breakfast at the request of Tom's 'Granma'. After the meal with his 'Granpa', Noah (his brother) and his parents, Tom learns that his brother Al is out chasing girls, while his little sister, Rosasharn, is pregnant and ready to settle down with Connie, a neighboring boy). " Granpa also states, "Just let me get out to California where I can pick me an orange when I want it. Or grapes. There's a thing I ain't never had enough of. Gonna get me a whole bunch of grapes off a bush, or whatever, an' I'm gonna squash 'em on my face an' let 'em run offen my chin (90). " The "grapes" of the novel are mostly associated to Grandpa, and at this point represent the dream of a greater life.
Tom asks his Pa when they plan on starting out West, and his response is one of much anticipation. "If Al gets back from his squirting' about', I fingered he could load the truck an' take all of it in, an maybe we could start out tomorrow or day after (90). " The night before departing, Jim Casy asks if he can travel with the Joad's, so a family meeting is then held, where they decide to let him come along. Following the meeting, the whole family helps slaughter the pigs, and then salt-pack the pork so they can take it along with them. The next day at daybreak, the "emotional", but not physical death of Grampa occurs, as he refuses to leave the day of departure. Ma then slips some sleeping syrup into Granpa's drink, and the Joad family begins their journey to California. The second section of the novel is about their journey to California. Highway 66 is the main road to California and is filled with migrants, or in other words, "a path of people in flight (128). " This description is seemingly in connection with the biblical story about the oppression of the Israelites by the Egyptians.
At sundown on the first day of travel, the Joad's turn off the road to camp for the night, when they meet Ivy and Sarah Wilson, a couple from Kansas that is stranded with a broken-down car. Granpa becomes even sicker and dies while in the Wilson's sheltered tent after suffering a stroke. During his death however, Granma eyes and insists that Jim Casy say a prayer, even though she knows it will make no difference. It is here that Casy somewhat symbolizes Christ, as Tom is considered his disciple. Since forty dollars is needed to report the death to the law and bury it, the Joad's reluctantly decide to bury him illegally, even though they know Granpa would have hated it. He is buried in a quilt burrowed from Said (Sarah), who also offers a blank page out of her and Ivy's bible, so Tom can write a note explaining the circumstances of his Grandfather's death incase the body is ever dug up in the future.
After fixing the Wilson's car, Tom and Al suggest that the two families travel together; and so they press forward the next day. Inter-chapter fourteen displays the gradual recognition of the gathering migrants, which show that there is strength uniting together. It is this uniting that is making the owners nervous. Meanwhile, the Wilsons and Joad's are "in flight" crossing New Mexico. When their car breaks down and Tom suggests splitting up temporarily to get things fixed, Ma becomes irrational, afraid that her greatest fear is coming true. So, she insists they all stick together.
This shows how Ma is becoming the reckoning force of the group, while the men simply obey. By chapter seventeen, communities have started to form as families camp together, and it becomes clear that each person has certain rights, such as a right to food, privacy, and nosiness. All of these foreshadow the future. After Ivy decides that the last stretch of the journey will kill Sarah, they separate from the Joad family.
Ma soon becomes a symbol of humanism, when she keeps quiet about Granma's death so the family can cross the desert without a huge letdown. As Ma grows stronger, her family continues to fall apart more and more, which makes Casy respond to her as "a women so great with love, she scares me (253). " While at a new settlement of tents, they meet Floyd Knowles, a young man who talks of the harsh, harassment tactics the police in the area use. Then Casy tells Tom he no longer wants to be a burden, but Tom asks him to stay one more night as he is having uneasy feelings. That's when Floyd strikes a cop after being accused of breaking into a used car lot. Tom trips the deputy, and then Casy knocks him unconscious. Since Tom can not afford to get into anymore trouble, Jim Casy takes the blame and turns himself into the police, while Tom goes into hiding (another reason Casy is a Christ-like figure).
The family soon retreats to another government camp, Weedpatch. While there, the family comes together with other humans that govern themselves, without an endless cycle of fear and domination. Yet, the migrant people search for food and work, a necessity for survival during the hard times. The various aspects of folk culture are seen here as well, such as dancing and singing.
After spending a month in the Weedpatch camp, the Joad men have not been able to find a job. Ma decides that they need to leave the camp to find work. Tom then comes across Jim Casy in a different roadside camp, who shares what he has learned in jail about the effectiveness of group action by observing his fellow inmates working together. As Casy is explaining about the strike that he is planning to lead against Hooper's Ranch (for promising five cents a box for cotton picked, but paying only two and a half cents), a group of men strike him in the head and kill him. So, Tom grabs the handle and beats the killer, and then takes off to hide in the orchard. The next day, Tom hides in the truck, while the Joad's leave the ranch.
When the family sees a sign that says, "Cotton Pickers Needed, " they decide to go to work picking cotton and get to stay in one of the boxcars with the Wainwright family. In the meantime, Tom hides down by the stream while his face heals from the brawl and Ma brings him food at night. After Tom's little sister, Ruthie informs neighborhood children that her brother has killed a man before, it is agreed Tom must go far away. He is beginning to grasp the late preacher's idea that people must stick together. So he tells Ma before they part that he wants to continue the work Casy started and tells her that if Casy's theory is true, he will be present in every human action around her; "Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there (463). " The following morning, both families leave for the cotton fields, as they know that this will be the end of work for the season. The fields are picked by 11: 00 a.
m. , and as they return home it begins to rain. In hopes of saving the boxcars, the men of all the dwellings work together to create an embankment, but the water is able to poor through after a cotton tree rips a whole in their wall. When the men come home, they find Rosasharn's baby was born blue and dead. When all of the boxcar inhabitants take Ma's advice to find higher land, everyone rushes into an old barn, only to find a boy who tells Ma that his father is starving. Rosasharn then nods her head, and agrees to allow the man to drink the milk from her breasts. Her gesture unifies the Joad family as they initiate their membership in the vast human family.
John Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes Of Wrath, explains the dramatization of the forced migration of the "Okies" very clearly and showed great insight into post- Depression life.
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Research essay sample on Journey To California Grapes Of Wrath
