The Grapes of Wrath by John
Steinbeck
(Honors Summer Reading)
Review and Quote Analysis
Assignment
The Dust Bowl
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Grapes Handout.pdf
• When Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath, the United States was
suffering through a severe economic depression. Everywhere people lost
their savings, homes, and means of earning a living. Especially hard hit
were the farming areas of the Midwest. Poor farming practices had
depleted the soil, and it became less capable of supporting the individual
families who farmed their small sections of it.
• Also, the markets and prices for the crops declined. Agriculture markedly
changed in the area as a result. Small farms were consolidated into larger,
and more profitable units. Tractors, other machines, and day laborers
replaced mules and family labor. Independent farm life, which had
developed the area and dominated it during the 1800s, dwindled.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND CONT.
• In the mid-1930s there were severe droughts and erosion of the dry soil by
strong winds. This created a “Dust Bowl” in the states of Oklahoma, Texas,
Kansas, and Colorado. The small farmers, now tenants and sharecroppers,
were uprooted from the homes and farms which had belonged to their
families for many years.
• By the tens of thousands these victims of depression, drought, and dust
headed west to seek a better life in the fertile fields of California. They
found themselves as much victims there.
• Work was scarce, wages were low, and they were resented, resisted, and
repressed by the residents. Their attempts to better their lives were
branded as Communism, a system much disliked and feared by many
Americans of the time
LITERARY SIGNIFIGANCE
– Literary Movement= Realism with a bit of
Transcendentalism
– “Few pieces of literature so accurately capture and
portray the desperation of a generation… The
Grapes of Wrath is one of those novels that
defines a country, a people and an era. The story
is so deeply ingrained in our identity as a nation
that we have an educational imperative to pass it
along to each generation”-enotes.com
– It’s just fantastic writing!!!
John Steinbeck
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• “Born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California,
John Steinbeck dropped out of college and worked as
a manual laborer before achieving success as a
writer. His 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath, about
the migration of a family from the Oklahoma Dust
Bowl to California, won a Pulitzer Prize and a
National Book Award. Steinbeck served as a war
correspondent during World War II, and was
awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. He
died in New York City in 1968” –www.biography.com.
THE GRAPES OF WRATH:
About the Title
• Taken from the hymn “The Battle Hymn of the
Republic.” (Allusion)
– “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of
the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes
of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible
swift sword:
His truth is marching on.”
THE GRAPES OF WRATH:
About the Title Continued
• The hymn summons God to bring justice to
those who have wrecked havoc over the land
and over its people. In other words, the
hateful ways of the people are so great that
only God can bring about vengeance. In the
context of this novel, "the grapes of wrath"
may be interpreted as the greed, self-interest,
and selfish ways of the landowners and of the
banks – all of which lead to the suffering of
thousands of migrant workers.
POINT OF VIEW & INTERCHAPTERS
• The novel is narrated in the third-person voice
(“he”/“she”/“it”). What is particularly significant
about this technique is that the point of view varies
in tone and method, depending on the author’s
purpose.
• The novel’s distinctive feature is its sixteen inserted,
or intercalary, chapters provide documentary
information for the reader. These chapters give social
and historical background of the mid-1930s
Depression era, especially as it affects migrants like
the Joads.
THEMES
•
•
•
•
HOPE
CLASS CONFLICT
INDIVIDUAL vs. SOCIETY
COMMITMENT
ALLEGORY: What’s with the turtle?
• The turtle can be seen as a metaphor for both
the Joads and the migrants in general: the
turtle is tough, tenacious, and unstoppable.
SYMBOLISM
• Family stands for the larger “family” of humanity
• Judeo-Christian Symbolism
*The Joads, like the Israelites, are a homeless and persecuted people
looking for the promised land.
* Jim Casy can be viewed as a symbol of Jesus Christ, who began His
mission after a period of solitude in the wilderness like Casy . Jim Casy has
the same initials as Jesus Christ. Like Christ, Casy finally offers himself as
the sacrifice to save his people. Casy’s last words , “Listen, you fellas don’
know what you’re doing.” When Jesus’ last words, “Father forgive them;
they know not what they do.” Tom becomes Casy’s disciple after his
death. Tom is ready to continue his teacher’s work, and it has been noted
that two of Jesus’s disciples were named Thomas.
TERMS TO KNOW
• Oakie- term of contempt
• Hooverville- common name of migrant camps
• Weedpatch- term used to describe
government camps
• Bull Simple- acting crazy
Review Assignment
In your group, you will analyze your assigned
quote(s) and present that analysis to the class.
Please include the following information for
each quote:
-Who said the quote? Why is this character
important to the novel?
-What was happening at this point in the novel?
Where would this event fit on a plot diagram?
(Example: inciting incident, rising action,
climax, falling action, resolution)
Review Assignment Continued
-What is the meaning of the quote? (put the
quote in your own words)
-What key historical idea does it connect to? or
What theme does this quote represent? Why?
-Other analysis?
-Photos or Graphics?
GOW Quote #1
• “ ‘Cause what’d they take when they tractored
the folks off the lan’? What’d they get so their
‘margin of profit’ was safe? The got Pa dyin’
on the groun’ an’ Joe yellin’ his first
breath…they jus’ chopped folks in two for
their margin a profit.”- Chapter 6, page 55
GOW Quote #2
• “Place where folks live is them folks”- Chapter
6, page 55
Tractored Out
Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange,
Photographer of the Dust Bowl Era
a Migrant Mother and Children
GOW Quote #3
• “The women watched the men, watched to
see whether the break had come at last…And
where a number of men had gathered
together, the fear went from their faces, and
anger took its place.”- Chapter 29, last full
paragraph
GOW Quote #4
• “And the women sighed with relief, for they
knew it was all right – the break had not
come; and the break would never come as
long as fear could turn to wrath.”- Chapter 29,
last full paragraph
GOW Quote #5
• “She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome
her position, the citadel* of the family, the
strong place that could not be taken.”Chapter 8, page 79
– *fortress, usually on high ground
GOW Quote #6
• “Sometimes I’d pray like I always done. On’y I
couldn’ figure what I was prayin’ to or for.
There was the hills, an’ there was me, an’ we
wasn’t separate no more. We was one thing.
An’ that one thing was holy.”- chapter 8, page
88
GOW Quote #7
• “Then he crept into houses and left gum
under pillows for children; then he cut wood
and took no pay. Then he gave away any
possession he might have a saddle, a horse, a
new pair of shoes. One could not talk to him
then, for he ran away, or if confronted hid
within himself and peeked out of frightened
eyes.” –chapter 10, page 104
GOW Quote #8
• “The death of his wife, followed by months of
being alone, had marked him with guilt and
shame and had left an unbreaking loneliness
on him.”-chapter 10, page 104
GOW Quote #9
• “…at the wheel, his face purposeful, his whole
body listening…his restless eyes jumping from
the road to the instrument panel…every nerve
listening for weaknesses, for the thumps or
squeals, hums and chattering that indicate a
change that may cause a breakdown. He had
become the soul of the car.” –chapter 13, 2nd
paragraph, page 133
Migrant Family on Rt. 66
GOW Quote #10
• “…perhaps the owners had heard from their
grandfathers how easy it is to steal land from a
soft man if you are fierce and hungry and
armed. The owners hated them.”- chapter 19,
page 256-257
GOW Quote #11
• “A crop raised – why, that makes ownership.
Land hoed and the carrots eaten – a man
might fight for land he’s taken food from. Get
him off quick! He’ll think he owns it. He might
even die fighting for the little plot among the
Jimson weeds…We gotta keep these here
people down or they’ll take the country.”chapter 19, page 259-260
GOW Quote #12
• “The changing economy was ignored, plans
for the change ignored; and only means to
destroy revolt were considered, while the
causes of revolt went on.”- chapter 19, page
262
GOW Quote #13
• “If he’ll take twenty-five, I’ll do it for twenty.
No, me, I’m hungry. I’ll work for fifteen. I’ll
work for food. The kids. You ought to see
them. Little boils, like, comin’out, an’ they
can’t run aroun’. Give ‘em some windfall fruit,
an’ they bloated up. Me. I’ll work for a little
piece of meat…” – chapter 21, pages 312-313
GOW Quote #14
• “…And this was good, for wages went down
and prices stayed up. The great owners were
glad and they sent out more handbills to bring
more people in. And wages went down and
prices stayed up. And pretty soon now we’ll
have serfs again.”- chapter 21, page 313
Picking Lettuce
GOW Quote #15
• “And the companies, the banks worked at their own
doom and they did not know it. The fields were
fruitful, and starving men moved on the roads. The
granaries were full and the children of the poor
grew up rachitic, and the pustules of pellagra
swelled on their sides. The great companies did not
know that the line between hunger and anger is a
thin line. And money that might have gone to
wages went for gas, for guns, for agents and spies,
for blacklists, for drilling. On the highways the
people moved like ants and searched for work, for
food. And the anger began to ferment.”- chapter
21, page 313
Protest
GOW Quote #16
• “The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in
the river, and the guards hold them back, they
come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges,
but the kerosene is sprayed. And the stand still and
watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming
pigs being killed in a ditch…and in the eyes of the
people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the
hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the
people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing
heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”- chapter 25,
page 385