Flashcards
Themes in The Grapes of Wrath
Cards in this deck (7)
- 1HumanityThe Joads are indicative of thousands of families. Through all their sorrows and hardships - which are many - they maintain a sense of dignity. Even in the face of starvation and infant mortality, they never lose the capacity for kindness. And kindness is repaid to them from those who have almost nothing. Steinbeck's hope lies with our basic sense of decency.
- 2InhumanityThe Okies suffer from cruel weather changes, but the greater cruelty comes from the people who seek to profit from another's misfortune. The used car salesmen, the pawn shops, the crooked cops, the greedy land barons. The inhuman gestures lay side-by-side with the kindnesses in the text.
- 3FamilyThe Joads' strength comes from their togetherness. They are at their best and most resolute when they remain as a unit, drawing hope from one another and operating a fair division of labor. The Joads also operate within the larger family of the migrants. In short periods they form deep bonds, celebrating births and grieving each other's deaths.
- 4AngerAs the novel constantly reminds us, anger is useful in the hands of the oppressed. The migrant women frequently look to the men to see if their spirits have been broken by their travails. In a group fear is replaced with a righteous anger, and they can endure.
- 5The evils of capitalism.Steinbeck's novel comes from a time with multiple social systems operating in the world. The author repeatedly questions capitalism's need for profit and the faceless toxicity of market forces. The banks force them from their own land. The land barons squeeze them for every penny of labor. All in the name of increased profits.
- 6FaithJim Casy turns his back on organized religion because he believes in something bigger. The human spirit, he says, is the holy spirit. Like Christ, whose initials he shares, he leads sermons and ultimately dies for the sins of others. Tom Joad, his apostle, carries on the work because he has faith in Casy's teachings.
- 7CriminalityTom Joad has just been released from prison for manslaughter. It was an act of self-defense and he claims he would do the same thing again in the same situation. By the end of the novel, this comes to pass. He is hunted by crooked law-men, enforcing crooked laws. The rich have rigged the system against those with nothing, forcing them against each other and with no repercussions for those at the top.
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- Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is full of meaning. The author covers themes such as in/humanity, criminality and family.
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- Deleted user · Jan 2019
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- Jan 17, 2019
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- Created by Denise Draper · Jan 17, 2019
- Copied by Denise Draper · Jan 17, 2019
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