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John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath tells the specific story of the Joads family in order to show the hardship and oppression suffered by migrant laborers during the Great Depression. It is an excellent example of how the corporate and banking elites chastised farmers by shortsighted policies meant to maximize profit even while forcing farmers into destitution and even starvation. The novel begins with the description of the conditions in Dust Bowl Oklahoma that ruined the crops and instigated massive foreclosures on farmland. No specific characters emerge initially, I think when Steinbeck made this book he describes events in a larger social context with those more specific to the Joads family. Tom Joads, a man not yet thirty, approaches a diner dressed in spotless, somewhat formal clothing.
He hitches a ride with a truck driver at the diner, who presses Tom for information until Tom finally reveals that he was just released from McAlester prison, where he served four years for murdering a man during a fight. Steinbeck follows this with an interlude describing a turtle crossing the road, which he uses as a metaphor for the struggles of the working class. On his travels home, Tom meets his former preacher, Jim Case, a talkative man gripped by doubts over religious teachings and the presence of sin. He gave up the ministry after realizing that he found little wrong with the sexual re liaisons he had with women in his congregation. Case espouses the view that what is holy in human nature comes not from a distant god, but from the people themselves. Steinbeck contrasts Tom's return with the arrival of bank representatives to evict the tenant farmers and the tractors to farm the land.
He raises the possibility of a working class insurrection, but cannot find an effective target for collective action... Tom Joads finds the rest of his family staying with Uncle John, a morose man prone to depression after the death of his wife several years before. His mother is a strong, sturdy woman who is the moral center of family life. His brother, Noah, may have been brain damaged during childbirth, while his sister, Rose of Sharon (called Rosasharn by the family) is recently married and pregnant. Her husband, Connie Rivers, has dreams of studying radios.
Tom's younger brother, Al, is only sixteen and has the concerns befitting that age. This is followed by a more general description of the sale of items by impoverished families who intend to leave Oklahoma for California, as the Joad's expect to do. The Joad's plan to go to California based on flyers they found advertising work in the fields there. These flyers, as Steinbeck will soon reveal, are fraudulent advertisements meant to draw more workers than necessary and drive down wages.
Jim Case asks to accompany the Joad's to California so that he can work with people in the fields rather than preach at them. Before the family leaves, Grampa Joads refuses to go, but the family gives him medicine that knocks him unconscious and takes him with them. The subsequent chapters describes the vacant houses that remain after the Oklahoma farmers leave for work elsewhere, as well as the conditions on Route 66, the highway that stretches from Oklahoma to Bakersfield, California. Almost immediately into the journey, the Joads family loses two members. The first victim is the family dog, which is run over during their first stop. The second is Grampa Joads, who dies of a stroke.
The Wilson family helps the Joad's when Grampa dies, and the two families decide to make the journey to California together. Steinbeck follows this with a larger statement about the growing of a collective consciousness among the working class, who shift their perceptions from "I" to "we. " The Wilson's car soon breaks down, and Tom and Case consider separating from the rest of the family temporarily to fix the car, but Ma Joads refuses to let the family break apart even temporarily. Tom and Al do find the necessary part to fix the car at a junkyard, where the one-eyed man who watches over the junkyard complains about his boss and threatens to murder him. Before the Joad's set out on their journey again, they find a man returning from California who tells them that there is no work there, and the promises of work in the flyers are a fraud.
The Joad's and Wilsons reach California, where they are immediately subjected to intimidation by police officers who derisively call them and other migrant laborers "Okies. " At the first camp where they stay, Granma becomes quite ill, but receives some comfort from proselytizing Jehovites who merely annoy Ma Joads. The police force them out of the camp, but the Wilsons choose the possibility of arrest instead, since Said Wilson is too sick to continue. The next time that the police stop the Joad's on their travels, Ma Joads forces them to let them pass without inspection. She does this to hide from the police the fact that Granma has died. Steinbeck follows this with a description of the history of California, which he frames as one marked by oppression and slavery. However, he predicts an imminent revolution, for the people there have been deprived to such a great degree that they must take what they need in order to survive.
At the next camp where the Joad's stay on their search for work, they learn about Weedpatch, a government camp where the residents do not face harassment by police officers and have access to amenities including baths and toilets. When more police officers attempt to start a fight with Tom and several other migrant workers, Tom trips him and Case knocks him unconscious. To prevent Tom from taking the blame, for he would be sent back to jail for violating his parole, Case accepts responsibility for the crime and is taken away to jail. The rest of the family begins to break apart as well. Uncle John leaves to get drunk, Noah decides to leave society altogether and live alone in the woodlands, and Connie abandons his pregnant wife. Before they must move on, Tom does retrieve Uncle John, who is still consumed with guilt over his wife's death.
They head north toward the government camp. At the government camp, the Joad's are shocked to find how well the other residents treat them and how efficiently this society in which the camp leaders are elected by the residents functions. Tom even finds work the next day, but the contractor, Mr. Thomas, warns him that there will be trouble at the dance at Weedpatch that weekend. Since the police can only enter the camp if there is trouble, they intend to plant intruders there who will instigate violence. The Joad's settle into a comfortable existence at the government camp, and during the dance that Saturday, Tom and several other residents defuse the situation, preventing the police from taking control of the camp.
Nevertheless, after a month in Weedpatch none of the Joad's have found steady work and realize that they must continue on their journey. They arrive at Hooper Ranch, where the entire family picks peaches. The wages they receive are higher than normal, for they are breaking a strike. Tom finds out that the leader of the labor force that is organizing the strike is Jim Case.
After his time in prison, Case realized that he must fight for collective action by the working class against the wealthy ruling class. Tom, also Case and others strike leaders getting into a fight with strike breakers, and one of them murders Case with a pick handle. Tom struggles with the man and wrests away the weapon. He, in turn, kills the man who murdered Case, and barely escapes capture by the police.
Although Tom wishes to leave the family to spare them from taking responsibility for him, the Joad's nevertheless decide to leave Hooper Ranch for a location where Tom can be safe. They reach cotton fields up north, where Tom hides in the woods while the family stays in a boxcar. Although the family attempts to keep Tom's identity and location a secret, young Ruthie Winfield reveals it during a fight with another child. When Ma tells Tom about this, he decides to leave the family and go off alone, determined to fight for the cause for which Case died, and vows to return to his family one day. The raining season arrived almost immediately after Tom left the family, causing massive flooding. The Joad's are caught in a dangerous situation: they cannot escape the flooding because Rose suddenly goes into labor.
While other families evacuate the camp near the rapidly rising creek, the Joad's remain and attempt to stop the flooding waters. Without the aid of others, the Joad's are unsuccessful, and they must seek refuge on the top of their car. Rose of Sharon delivers a stillborn child that Uncle John sends in a box down the creek. The family eventually reaches higher ground and finds a barn for shelter. Inside the barn is a starving man and his young son.
Steinbeck ends the novel with Rose of Sharon, barely recovered from the delivery of her child, breastfeeding the dying man back to health. Thats why I believe his thesis was man vs. the hostile environment which was easily illustrated threw this book. Also how the symbolic turtle was them (immigrants), I thought that was a good metaphor representing each other. The turtle represents a hope that the trip to the west is survivable by the farmer migrants (Joads family). The turtle further represents the migrants struggles against nature / man by overcoming every obstacle he encounters: the red ant in his path, the truck driver who tries to run over him, being captured in Tom Joads's jacket: And now a light truck approached, and as it came near, the driver saw the turtle and swerved to hit it.
The driver of the truck works for a large company, who try to stop the migrants from going west, when the driver attempts to hit the turtle it is another example of the big powerful guy trying to flatten or kill the little guy. Everything the turtle encounters it tries its best to stop the turtle from making its westerly journey. Steadily the turtle advances on, ironically to the southwest, the direction of the migration of people. The turtle is described as being lasting, ancient, old and wise: horny head, yellowed toenails, indestructible high dome of a shell, and humorous old eyes. (Chp. 1) The driver of the truck, red ant and Tom Joads's jacket are all symbolic of nature and man the try to stop the turtle from continuing his journey westward to the promise land. The turtle helps to develop the theme by showing its struggle against life/ comparing it with the Joads struggle against man. The conclusion easily is related to his thesis, because how it was man verses the environment.
Showed near the end of the book when they where n the farm house trying to survive from the flooding, which eventually did so. Also in this book it is mostly about class, not nearly racism, gender, but some age conflicts. Class because it is the rich (upper class) who run the immigrants (lower class) and what kind of jobs they could do and what kind of life they could live.
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Research essay sample on Rose Of Sharon Decides To Leave
