Q. Can any body tell me what it is about? I have to read it over the summer for my honors english class but it was too dull. If any one could give me a breif overview it would be a big, BIG help!
Thanks!
Thanks!
Answer
Tom Joad, newly released from prison, returns to his family farm in Oklahoma to find that the combination of drought and the Great Depression have caused his family* to lose the place. Having heard wonderful things about California and the living to be made picking fruit, they load all their belongings that will fit onto a pickup truck and head west, camping out along the way. The grandparents die along the way, and they bury Grandpa beside the road with a note in a glass jar explaining who he is and how he died. When Grandma dies a little later, they have no alternative but to let the county they are then in bury her in a pauper's grave. Some of the places where they camp are shanty towns, each one ironically called "Hooverville," while others are government-run campgrounds with good sanitation and compassionate staff. Once they arrive in California, they find (of course) that it is not the Promised Land they envisioned but that they will be working for meager wages, growing deeper and deeper in debt to the company store. Tom becomes involved with the labor movement. By this time, Connie has deserted the family. In a rather chaotic ending, Tom is inbvolved in a fight between labor and the orchard owners and kills a man. The preacher is killed protecting the Joad family so that they can escape the law, and Rose of Sharon gives birth to a stillborn baby is the supposedly deserted house where they have all take refuge. At the very end, they find an old man in the house on the vergo of dying of starvation, and Ma Joad delicately suggests, without putting it explicitly, that Rose of Sharon can save his life. Rose of Sahron timidly agrees if her mother will stay with her. The end.
*Consisting of Tom's parents, his grandparents, his widowed and childless Uncle John, his brothers Al and Winfield (a child), his sisters Ruthie (also a child) and Rose of Sharon (a young married woman who is pregnant), and the latter's husband, Connie. When they set out fo California,the local preacher, Jim Casey, also goes along.
Tom Joad, newly released from prison, returns to his family farm in Oklahoma to find that the combination of drought and the Great Depression have caused his family* to lose the place. Having heard wonderful things about California and the living to be made picking fruit, they load all their belongings that will fit onto a pickup truck and head west, camping out along the way. The grandparents die along the way, and they bury Grandpa beside the road with a note in a glass jar explaining who he is and how he died. When Grandma dies a little later, they have no alternative but to let the county they are then in bury her in a pauper's grave. Some of the places where they camp are shanty towns, each one ironically called "Hooverville," while others are government-run campgrounds with good sanitation and compassionate staff. Once they arrive in California, they find (of course) that it is not the Promised Land they envisioned but that they will be working for meager wages, growing deeper and deeper in debt to the company store. Tom becomes involved with the labor movement. By this time, Connie has deserted the family. In a rather chaotic ending, Tom is inbvolved in a fight between labor and the orchard owners and kills a man. The preacher is killed protecting the Joad family so that they can escape the law, and Rose of Sharon gives birth to a stillborn baby is the supposedly deserted house where they have all take refuge. At the very end, they find an old man in the house on the vergo of dying of starvation, and Ma Joad delicately suggests, without putting it explicitly, that Rose of Sharon can save his life. Rose of Sahron timidly agrees if her mother will stay with her. The end.
*Consisting of Tom's parents, his grandparents, his widowed and childless Uncle John, his brothers Al and Winfield (a child), his sisters Ruthie (also a child) and Rose of Sharon (a young married woman who is pregnant), and the latter's husband, Connie. When they set out fo California,the local preacher, Jim Casey, also goes along.
What are some examples of how the Joads overcame adversity in The Grapes of Wrath?
ekb11293
Answer
The best two words anyone could use to describe Steinbeck's greatest work are "overcoming adversity." From the beginning of the epic tale of the great dust bole migration from Oklahoma to California in the 1930s, when Tom Joad returns home from prison only to find the house has been bulldozed to the ground, hardship after hardship is endured by the Joads and their fellow displanted migrants.
As during the Great Gold Rush, California was still seen as the place to go to make money. Indeed, California was an imaginary land in the 1510 Spanish romance "Exploits of Espladán," by Garci Ordóñez de Montalvo, supposed to have influenced the imaginations of early Spanish explorers. Although not known for sure where Montalvo derived the name, a good possibility is from the Black Amazon warrior queen of legend who bore the name Califia. At any rate, the "Okies" (as they were called with derision by cruel and uncaring people not dealt the same hand) found their trek to California long and arduous, and the realities of life and work there upon arrival less wonderful than expected.
The first great loss to the Joad clan is that of Grampa Joad, a proud and spirited old man who lost part of his soul when forced to leave his native Oklahoma and dies not long after the family's departure. Then, the closer to the Promised Land the Joads move, the worse the news gets as it is passed back along the line by word of mouth. One disgusted man tells Pa Joad that not only is the job availability 800 for every 20,000 new arrivals, but that his own wife and children have died.
At last inside the border, Gramma Joad dies, and growing tired of moving from filthy migrant camp to camp, Noah Joad, the eldest son, abandons the family and is soon followed by Connie, an unrealistic young dreamer married to Tom's younger sister Rose of Sharon (Rosasharn). Hostility of the permanent residents of California to the hordes of homeless, penniless and road-dirty travellers is high. Life is harder than anyone today can imagine, with thousands of displaced Americans packed into disease-ridden camps where the former Oklahomans are often worse to each other than the native Californians.
An full day's work by the entire Joad family pays such low wages by money-grubbing employers that a single meal is hard to buy with it. When the inevitable happens, and the migrants and locals become riotous, Tom Joad ends up killing a police officer and is forced to flee. The rest of the family must fend for themselves.
You'll have to read the book yourself, as you should anyway, to find out the ending that is shocking even by today's standards.
The best two words anyone could use to describe Steinbeck's greatest work are "overcoming adversity." From the beginning of the epic tale of the great dust bole migration from Oklahoma to California in the 1930s, when Tom Joad returns home from prison only to find the house has been bulldozed to the ground, hardship after hardship is endured by the Joads and their fellow displanted migrants.
As during the Great Gold Rush, California was still seen as the place to go to make money. Indeed, California was an imaginary land in the 1510 Spanish romance "Exploits of Espladán," by Garci Ordóñez de Montalvo, supposed to have influenced the imaginations of early Spanish explorers. Although not known for sure where Montalvo derived the name, a good possibility is from the Black Amazon warrior queen of legend who bore the name Califia. At any rate, the "Okies" (as they were called with derision by cruel and uncaring people not dealt the same hand) found their trek to California long and arduous, and the realities of life and work there upon arrival less wonderful than expected.
The first great loss to the Joad clan is that of Grampa Joad, a proud and spirited old man who lost part of his soul when forced to leave his native Oklahoma and dies not long after the family's departure. Then, the closer to the Promised Land the Joads move, the worse the news gets as it is passed back along the line by word of mouth. One disgusted man tells Pa Joad that not only is the job availability 800 for every 20,000 new arrivals, but that his own wife and children have died.
At last inside the border, Gramma Joad dies, and growing tired of moving from filthy migrant camp to camp, Noah Joad, the eldest son, abandons the family and is soon followed by Connie, an unrealistic young dreamer married to Tom's younger sister Rose of Sharon (Rosasharn). Hostility of the permanent residents of California to the hordes of homeless, penniless and road-dirty travellers is high. Life is harder than anyone today can imagine, with thousands of displaced Americans packed into disease-ridden camps where the former Oklahomans are often worse to each other than the native Californians.
An full day's work by the entire Joad family pays such low wages by money-grubbing employers that a single meal is hard to buy with it. When the inevitable happens, and the migrants and locals become riotous, Tom Joad ends up killing a police officer and is forced to flee. The rest of the family must fend for themselves.
You'll have to read the book yourself, as you should anyway, to find out the ending that is shocking even by today's standards.
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