Grapes of Wrath Review

In Chapters 1-3 of “The Grapes of Wrath” where the Joad family begins their journey to California in hope for a better life is a very intriguing scene. The author John Steinbeck exposes the desperate conditions under which the migratory farm families of America, along with focusing on the hardships and migration from Oklahoma to California of the Joad family during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes, and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California on the "mother road", along with thousands of other "Okies" seeking jobs, land, dignity, and a future.

The story begins by showing the Joads abandoning their home and their very livelihoods due to the Dust Bowl’s devastating drought destroying the crops on their farm. Thus, being unable to pay their mortgages or invest in the kinds of industrial equipment now necessitated by commercial competition. Steinbeck tracks the Joad family with long narrative chapters but alternates these sections with short, lyrical vignettes, capturing the westward movement of migrant farmers in the 1930s as they flee drought and industry. The novel shows how the Joad family deals with moving to California, as the Joads are met with obstacles, setbacks, and challenges that make their journey more complicated and grueling than they ever could have imagined. This includes surviving the cruelty of the landowners that take advantage of them, facing poverty and the reluctant willingness to work.

The novel shows how the Joad family deals with moving to California, as the Joads are met with obstacles, setbacks, and challenges that make their journey more complicated and grueling than they ever could have imagined. This includes surviving the cruelty of the landowners that take advantage of them, facing poverty and the reluctant willingness to work. Steinbeck intersperses his chapters about the Joads with chapters that explore the life and times of the Dust Bowl through a broad, historical lens. These chapters tend to assume a stream-of-consciousness, as it depicts banks evicting tenant farmers, corrupt car salesmen selling broken-down cars for too much money, and even the very dust storms that ruin the land. However, the Joads continue to fight and to persevere through the obstacles they face, and by the last chapter Tom comes to the revelation to fight for social justice and glorious future, rather than dread on the bad luck that was issued and believing there is no hope.

The book was noted for Steinbeck's passionate depiction of the plight of the poor, and many of his contemporaries attacked his social and political views. Bryan Cordyack wrote: "Steinbeck was attacked as a propagandist and a socialist from both the left and the right of the political spectrum. The most fervent of these attacks came from the Associated Farmers of California; they were displeased with the book's depiction of California farmers' attitudes and conduct toward the migrants. They denounced the book as a 'pack of lies' and labeled it 'communist propaganda'". Some[who?] argued that his novel was filled with inaccuracies. In his book The Art of Fiction (1984), John Gardner criticized Steinbeck for not knowing anything about the California ranchers: "Witness Steinbeck's failure in The Grapes of Wrath. It should have been one of America's great books...Steinbeck wrote not a great and firm novel but a disappointing melodrama in which complex good is pitted against unmitigated, unbelievable evil."Others[who?] accused Steinbeck of exaggerating camp conditions to make a political point. He had visited the camps well before publication of the novel and argued their inhumane nature destroyed the settlers' spirit.