grapes of wrath argument essay

AP Assignments for The Grapes of Wrath

By tim roberts san dieguito academy encinitas, ca, 2009.

On a schedule in which there is never enough time and within a curriculum in which everything, at least on paper, has to be tied to the AP Language exam, finding a place for a novel the size of  The Grapes of Wrath  can take some doing. What follows are two suggested AP writing assignments that could be done with the book to supplement whatever other literary or response-based approach you may choose. As far as teaching to the test, the language exam has a number of qualities to recommend for it despite its necessarily superficial and abbreviated format. Rhetorical analysis promotes close reading, and the interchapters lend themselves well to such analysis. They are rich in imagery and figurative language, widely range in tone, and employ syntax to varied and dramatic effect. The synthesis essay calls on students to use research materials in forming a coherent argument; there are a number of topics in the novel that could be grouped with outside readings to provide the basis for such an essay. It’s an assignment that would lead students to examine the novel’s themes more thoroughly and explore their significance more deeply.

Rhetorical analysis

I’m familiar with  The Grapes of Wrath  as a staple in AP Language classes that had their roots in American literature courses. It’s still possible to invest the time to read the book with students while preparing them for the exam. I’ll assume that most students would have been introduced to rhetorical analysis already. The interchapters represent a stylistic tour de force on Steinbeck’s part, kind of the writerly equivalent of a jazz musician referencing Dixieland, swing, bop, and free jazz in a concept album. “Perhaps no aspect of Steinbeck’s accomplishment in  The Grapes of Wrath  has been overlooked as often as the sheer genius of prose style throughout the novel,” writes Louis Owens in  The Grapes of Wrath : Trouble  in the Promised Land . His excerpt on style, “From Genesis to Jalopies: A Tapestry of Styles,” is an adequate reference on the interchapters’ stylistic variety from the opening’s biblical cadences and epic sweep to the fragment-filled passages that render the confusion generated by the fast-talking used car salesmen.

The analyses could be approached in a number of ways. An entire chapter could be analyzed; the students could identify what they see as Steinbeck’s major purpose in the selection and explain what rhetorical elements uses to convey it. Alternatively, students could be given a section of the chapter, perhaps of a roughly equivalent length to an AP selection. For example, Chapter 23 has several short scenes depicting the migrants’ pleasures at the roadside camps, including telling stories, making music, dancing, getting drunk and getting saved. Any of those slices would be a suitable subject for analysis. Even a more seamless interchapter, such as Chapter 15, can be divided into smaller, more manageable units (the initial description of the diner, Mae and Al; the description of the “shitheel” couple). In another variation, the prompt could be focused to mirror some of the AP rhetorical analysis exercises. For example, students could analyze how Steinbeck conveys his criticism of the used car salesmen in Chapter 7, or his view of technology as expressed in the depiction of the tractor in Chapter 5.

Synthesis essay

In addition to the rhetorical analysis, the multitude of developed topics in  The Grapes of Wrath  could be used to give students practice with the synthesis essay. The essay calls for students to integrate at least three of six to seven given sources into a coherent argumentative essay. Teachers could choose topics and passages for the students to integrate into an essay supplemented by material that they have found or that students locate through research. In addition to the skills involved in crafting a solidly argued synthesis essay, the assignment could have students meet a number of other goals. For example, they could learn to identify thematic topics in novels such as are developed in  The Grapes of Wrath . They could also research supplementary works to complement their topics.

A few suggested topics with suggested supplementary works follow. (If you’re like me, you want to use your own. I usually find more reasons to reject people’s suggested titles than adopt them, preferring to find my own. An assignment of this nature might work best if the teacher or students chose works of particular interest to them. However, the suggestions are offered in the spirit of providing some leads and examples.)

The alienating nature of technology Steinbeck presents conflicting views.

In Chapter 5, the tractor is presented as an insect-like destructive force that rapes the land and separates its driver both from the land and the community. However, in Chapter 10, Al is described as closely in tune with the truck, monitoring it for problems. That close relationship is echoed in Chapter 12, the interchapter depicting the migrants’ “flight” along Route 66. Finally, in Chapter 16 Steinbeck gives nearly step-by-step instructions in how to replace a con-rod in 1925 Dodge that highlight the men’s intimate relationship with the machine. The intimacy that characterized the farmers’ relationship with the land now colors their relationship with machines. These alternative attitudes toward technology – intimate and alienating – can be found in a number of other works. I’ll suggest three:  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance  by Robert Pirsig (that dates me);  “The Case for Working with Your Hands”  by Matthew Crawford, which appeared in the May 21, 2009 New York Times Magazine and is adopted from his book  The Soulcraft of Shop Class ,; and “ Brain Candy: Is pop culture dumbing us down or smartening us up? ” by Malcolm Gladwell, which first appeared in  The New Yorker .

The immorality of capitalism

Throughout the novel, Steinbeck presents an indictment of a capitalist system that allows people to starve, exploits them mercilessly and, ultimately, is complicit in their murder. That topic is explored in a number of short essays by eminent economists, philosophers and politicians entitled  “Does the free market corrode moral character? ” available at the John Templeton Foundation website.

The morality of working for the good of the group

In the novel, Steinbeck charts his characters’ growth from looking after their own self-interests to caring for the good of the whole, depicts their movement from “I to We.” This is a topic with a rich tradition in American literature from which to draw: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”; the poetry of Walt Whitman; aspects of Mark Twain’s  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . An interesting companion piece might be William Golding’s  Lord of the Flies , a staple of early high school years with an arresting counterpoint to Steinbeck’s view of the group behavior. For an interesting evolutionary biological view, try Natalie Angier’s  “Of Altruism, Heroism and Evolution’s Gifts ” from the September 18, 2001  New York Times .

There are a number of other lesser topics that can be followed and extracted out of  The Grapes of Wrath  that could make for engaging work: the crippling effects of guilt, sin and shame, as illustrated by Uncle John’s condition, the nasty shopkeeper that Ma converts in Chapter 26 and misery-dealing evangelicals; the nature of work, both satisfying and alienating, seen, again, in the alienated tractor driver in contrast with the pleasures of hefting a pickaxe in Chapter 22; the dangers and uses of anger, providing people with the righteous outrage to fight on bookended in the first and penultimate chapters but worrying Ma that it will reduce Tom to a “walkin’ chunk a mean-mad”; the advisability of taking life one day at a time and going with the flow suggested in Tom’s repeated strategy of just putting one foot in front of another and Ma’s ability to ride easily in the truck and adjust to the life changes, the latter explained to Pa in Chapter 28.

The above is not, by any means, intended to lay out a complete serving of topics in  The Grapes of Wrath . (I haven’t even broached the repeated references to road kill.) It does suggest ways to incorporate a lengthy novel in a curriculum hemmed in by the demands of the AP Language requirements.

The Grapes of Wrath

John steinbeck, everything you need for every book you read..

Humanity, Inhumanity, and Dehumanization

In The Grapes of Wrath, the most brutal adversity the Joads face doesn’t come from the unforgiving natural conditions of the dustbowl. Rather, the Joads and the Okie community receive the cruelest treatment from those most capable of helping them: more fortunate individuals, typically ones who wield institutional power. Throughout the book, establishments and technological advances are shown to corrupt the humans behind them. Steinbeck’s depiction of the state police shows that they’ve been perverted…

Dignity, Honor, and Wrath

Despite their destitution, Okies are shown to be extremely conscious of maintaining their honor. No matter how dire their circumstances, the Joads are unwilling to stoop to accepting charity or stealing. When they do accept help, they are quick to repay the debt—for example, when the Wilsons offer Grampa Joad a deathbed, Al repairs their car and Ma replaces the blanket used to shroud Grampa. With this strong sense of honor comes an equally powerful…

Faith and Guilt

At different times in The Grapes of Wrath , nearly all of the main characters endure spiritually trying times. Casy is the first to address this theme when he speaks of his reformed faith: instead of the black-and-white teachings of Christian dogma, Casy has come to believe in a natural unity of the human race. Tom , too, comes to this realization later in the novel, after hiding from the law in the woods. Finally…

Powerlessness, Perseverance, and Resistance

The novel often focuses on characters who resist in situations that seem hopeless. At the beginning of the novel, the Oklahoma sharecropper families are rendered powerless by the repossessing landowners. All the same, Muley Graves remains on his land, in spite of regular run-ins with law enforcement. He knows he can’t change his circumstances, but he refuses to let go of his heritage. The land turtle that appears in an early chapter, is a metaphor…

Family, Friendship, and Community

Time and again in The Grapes of Wrath , Steinbeck demonstrates the profound ties and nuanced relationships that develop through kinship, friendship, and group identity. The arc of the Joad family shows, on one hand, a cohesive unit whose love and support of one another keeps them from abandoning hope. On the other hand, however, the novel shows that this unity comes with complications. Ma Joad ’s assertive leadership strips Pa of his masculine identity…

John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath"

An Observation of and Commentary on Migrant Labor

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The Grapes of Wrath is one of the greatest epic novels in American literature , but what purpose did John Steinbeck have in writing the novel? What meaning did he infuse into the pages of this great American novel? And, does his stated reason for publishing the book still resonate in our contemporary society, with all the ongoing issues of migrant labor?

Steinbeck peeled back the layers to show what human beings were doing to one another through migrant labor was inhumane, and he depicted in graphic detail what an individual can accomplish if and when he sets his mind to it all in the interest of the collective good, in harmony with nature.

In short, John Steinbeck explained his purpose in writing The Grapes of Wrath , when he wrote to Herbert Sturtz, in 1953:

You say the inner chapters were counterpoint and so they were—that they were pace changers and they were that too but the basic purpose was to hit the reader below the belt. With the rhythms and symbols of poetry one can get into a reader—open him up and while he is open introduce things on an intellectual level which he would not or could not receive unless he were opened up. It is a psychological trick if you wish but all techniques of writing are psychological tricks.

"Below the belt" usually refers to an unfair tactic, something that is underhanded and/or against the rules. So, what is Steinbeck saying?

Core Messages of The Grapes of Wrath

The message of The Grapes of Wrath is similar in some ways to the message in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle . About that book, Sinclair famously wrote, "I aimed for the public's heart, and by accident hit it in the stomach," and like Sinclair, Steinbeck was aiming to improve the plight of the workers—but the end result, for Sinclair, was to bring about wide-reaching change in the food industry while Steinbeck was geared more toward a change that was already happening beforehand.

Perhaps as a result of the popularity of Sinclair's work, the Pure Food and Drugs Act and the Meat Inspection Act was passed four months after the novel was published, but the Fair Labor Standards Act had already been passed in 1938 with Steinbeck's novel following close on the heels of that legislation, when he first published his book in 1939.

While we can't say there was a definite causal effect, Steinbeck was still capturing the injustice of the people during a transitional time in American history. He was also writing about an issue that was a hotly discussed and debated topic at the time of publication as the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act did not put the matter to rest.

The Ongoing Debate on Migrant Labor

In fact, it should also be noted that Steinbeck's social commentary is still valid in today's society, with the ongoing debate on immigration and migrant labor. We can, no doubt, see changes in the way migrant labor is treated (compared to the late 1930s and Depression-era society ), but there are still injustices, hardships, and human tragedies.

In a PBS documentary , a Southern farmer said: "We used to own our slaves; now we just rent them," though apparently we now provide them with basic human rights like health through The Migrant Health Act of 1962.

But, I say once again that the novel is still very relevant in contemporary society because while the focus of the migrant labor debate has changed and evolved, the controversy around whether they should be allowed to work in new countries and how much they deserve to be paid and how they should be treated continues to this day.

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The Grapes of Wrath is 75 years old and more relevant than ever

Steinbeck didn't want us to lose hope – he wanted us to get angry at those who would strip hope from us

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J ohn Steinbeck was not the best or most brilliant writer America ever had. He may have a brighter legacy than any other, though, in part because he suggested wrath could be good. He inspired Cesar Chavez and John Kennedy; Bruce Springsteen and Woody Guthrie (and by extension Rage Against the Machine ); John Ford and South Park. The Grapes of Wrath, published 75 years ago today, means just as much to the US now as it did in 1939, when the Dust Bowl destroyed the American west, the economy lay in tatters, a minority held the keys to the bank, and a vast migrant population wandered without homes or rights.

For those unfamiliar with the book (or at least for those who don't remember), The Grapes of Wrath tells a simple story: devastating weather and a bank's debt system force the Joad family off their farm; they go west, for work and good weather in California. They discover thousands of other migrants living in desperate poverty, exploited by the rich, abused by police, and abandoned by the government; they suffer, fight back and endure.

In the morning the dust hung like fog, and the sun was as red as ripe new blood. ... An even blanket covered the earth. It settled on the corn ... it piled up on the wires, settled on roofs, blanketed the weeds and trees.

Just a glance at The Grapes of Wrath reveals a familiar scene. The book opens with a nightmarish vision of drought and dust – the 1930s Dust Bowl that suffocated so many farms and families, forcing them to move or starve. Today, California faces record wildfires and what could be its worst drought in 100 years , the aquifers beneath heartland states are drying out , smog hovers over western cities and mining leaches water from shale states.

The book closes with biblical floods, washing away crops, homes and people; in 2014, the Gulf coast and east coast take years to recover from hurricanes – if not biblical in scope, then at least devastating in practice. Steinbeck never thought that humanity could goad the climate as we now know it does, but he still told a story of mankind's disrespect for the earth – and the penalties we pay for presuming invincibility.

Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some … were angrey because they hated to be cruel, and some … were cold … And all of them were caught in something larger than themselves.

Steinbeck's wrath, however, isn't directed at the weather, but at those who abuse power. Banks chase farmers out with debt, and businessmen exploit migrant labor and disband unions. Steinbeck's America paired governance and capitalism while the majority labored for the sake the powerful's profit. (Steinbeck was unapologetic about certain socialist views, and the book's nominal hero, Tom Joad, says he's "bolshevisty".)

Today, megafarms and meat companies carve out sections of the market, divide and conquer farmers with debt, and control the food industry; the culprits include Cargill for corn, Tyson for meat, and Monsanto for its infamously creative genetics. (The film Food Inc and book The Meat Racket carefully document the rise and monopolistic methods of corporate agribusiness.)

Steinbeck's "monster" banks still evict families, still take bailouts, and still indenture Americans with debt. While families with fortunes survived 2008's "Great Recession", the unfortunate majority had to scrape by, losing homes and jobs, with millions still struggling six years later. Meanwhile, the fast food industry and Walmart stave off workers' unions as the strikebreakers of the 1930s did, only with corporate lawyers reciting appeals rather than guards swinging truncheons. When a venture capitalist suggests a "Kristallnacht" is coming against the " one percent ", Steinbeck's observation that cruelty comes from fear and disappointment rings uncomfortably familiar.

"It's a free country." "Well, try to get some freedom to do. Fella says you're jus' as free as you got jack to pay for it."

As if that weren't enough, the heroes of Grapes should be familiar: migrant workers mistreated and discriminated by the states. The Obama administration has deported more people ( about 2m – nearly four times the documented population of Wyoming) than any other American government, and a congressional mandate to the Border Patrol requires they hold 34,000 undocumented migrants in custody every day. Authorities chase farmers without papers through forests and across deserts, splitting families and deporting lifelong residents . Nor do Steinbeck's stories of police abuse don't seem out of place in a country where local law enforcement sometimes merits federal inquiry .

To an extent, The Grapes of Wrath is simply a parable of disillusionment and survival set in the American west. It would appeal or annoy any generation, and it's got plenty of flaws – weak characters, flat style, blunt symbolism and melodrama, the list goes on. (The book opposes the classic "Wild West" libertarian ethos : instead it builds on the west's quiet history of socialism, like Woody Guthrie did, and feminism, as Georgia O'Keefe did.) But Steinbeck wanted to change minds and change society, and armed Grapes accordingly.

The Depression affected Steinbeck as war did Hemingway and exile did Nabokov: it changed his life and filled his work. Seventy-five years later, The Grapes of Wrath is a mirror to a country splintered by inequality, controlled by a minority, and facing climate "catastrophe" . The world has come a long way since Steinbeck's day, but America at least still needs a voice as brutally honest as his. He debunked the myths of the American west (and the American dream) piece by piece, while also insisting that people were always better than the hardships they suffered. Steinbeck didn't want us to lose hope; he wanted us to get angry at those who would strip hope from us.

And what's wrath, after all? It's not the fury of a undoubting believer, nor the calculated, spittle-flecked performance of a pundit. Wrath sprouts when one person chooses greed over equality, and it grows anytime self-interest wins over compassion. Wrath ferments in disrespect and the abuse of power. Wrath is equal parts revenge and justice. Steinbeck's odd title – chosen by his wife from Civil War anthem The Battle Hymn of the Republic – is a call to outrage. In Steinbeck's world, wrath, when it protects the weak, can renew hope. Steinbeck didn't need to write clever, dense books, as his contemporaries did and as plenty of great writers do today. Steinbeck only had to remind America that its heart, from the heartland east and west, deserve respect, and that respect was worth fighting for – that wrath can be good.

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Analysis of Cesar Chavez’s Wrath of Grapes Speech

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The Grapes Of Wrath

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The Grapes of Wrath: An Argument Paper

Introduction

The Grapes of Wrath is a novel which radically analyzed the exploitation of agricultural workers and the culmination of the racist emphasis on whites as victims in the thirties. It argued that Anglo-Saxon whites were the main subjects who deserved worthy of treatment. The novel attacks the assumptions with respect to class difference and private property by which the social order ideologically rests (Steinback, John & Demott, Robert; 2006). Its political intervention is contradictory by nature as it became a ground of confrontation between the American racist tradition and the anti-capitalist consciousness in the thirties (manifest destiny versus manifest dispossession and exploitation).As a proletarian novel, The Grapes of Wrath provides an insight about capitalism which provides an acute sense of economic forces and how they operate in oppose to the interest of the masses (Steinback, John & Demott, Robert; 2006). It is further viewed as the “laboring” of American culture which included the working class as cultural subjects and producers. Furthermore, the novel argues how the working class is divided by race and in a view, presented the impact of capital accumulation on workers who have chose to band together regardless of race (Steinback, John & Demott, Robert; 2006).

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The Story of the Migrant Workers

The novel’s cultural intervention with respect to historical context can be best understood by assessing its relationship with other popular accounts of the “Okie” migration (Steinback, John & Demott, Robert; 2006). This may be supported by providing an account of the labor struggles in California agriculture. Generally, the south westerners have migrated towards the kinds of locales where they came from. Both town and city dwellers had predominantly settled in the Los Angeles area. The farm people moved to the agricultural San Joaquin Valley. Migrants dreamt of sharing the wealth of agricultural valleys who eventually became small land-owning farmers; however, little were they aware that it was an entrenched corporate agribusiness which “mocked” agrarian myths. Southern share croppers and tenant farmers’ conditions were as worse as the conditions of agricultural laborers. Majority of the labor was needed at harvest time. As small but permanent workforces in California farms had existed, migrant laborers performed and followed crops within a six-month harvest season. Working conditions and pay worsened in the 1930s for over sixty years (Steinback, John & Demott, Robert; 2006). Few possessions were left for the migrant workers who were forced to live in makeshift camps and sub-standard company housing, not to mention they have to provide their respective transportation. Children had little healthcare and were deprived of access to education.

Over the years, the migrant workers’ ethnic make-up changed and who were rather considered as minorities than citizens of the United States (Steinback, John & Demott, Robert; 2006). They have become vulnerable to exploitation the fact that they were considered as “aliens”. Anxious about reduced profits, the migrant workers responded with “angry militancy”. Between 1929 and 1934, organizations such as the Communist Party-sponsored Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (CAWIU) and the American Federation of Labor (AFL) emerged (Steinback, John & Demott, Robert; 2006). Among the committed unionists were Filipino and Mexican workers. As a result, a state’s sentiment rose to deport Filipino and Mexican workers (between 1931 and 1934, one third of Filipino and Mexican populations in the United States were deported).

Steinback’s Argument

Steinback’s focus on the “dust bowl refugees” is important as it they replaced deported Filipinos and Americans as a rationale for why Anglo-Saxon whites were considered to dominate accounts of the migrant problem (Steinback, John & Demott, Robert; 2006). He claimed that Filipino and Mexican workers came from the “peon” class; that is, they were migrants by nature. On the other hand, the Okies are “Old Americans”, intelligent and resourceful, who experienced how it is to own a land. Moreover, they were descendants who crossed the Middle West and won their land by means of fighting. Rather than birth, they were gypsies by force of circumstances. All of them originated from the Nordic descent: German, English and Scandinavian (Steinback, John & Demott, Robert; 2006). As noted by Steinback, the very reason why their racial lineage is significant is because it shall prevent the growers from abusing them as what they did to the “peons”. The old methods of repression, wages starvation, intimidation and beating are not going to work with this new race; that is, they are considered as American people.

Steinback argued that class exploitation shall be exposed from the confrontation between the white workers and white owners. On the other hand, he also argued the problem’s class nature by implicitly stating that other races are more vulnerable to exploitation relative to the whites. He further claimed that the “peons” were “proved” militant workers who were by far, better unionists compared to the Okies (Steinback, John & Demott, Robert; 2006). Rather than racial inheritance, Steinback referred to a dissent and fighting heritage. He also notes that new migrants have been accustomed to local popular democracies which were based on the “self-containing, old agrarian farm” where there is quite little room for industrial penetration. “When thrust into California agribusiness, they will presumably respond with the independence they are accustomed to” (Steinback, John & Demott, Robert; 2006). At the back of this principle, he still viewed race as a primary agent of the “aimed-for” migrant militancy.

Works Cited

Steinback, John & Demott, Robert (2006); “The Grapes of Wrath”; Penguin Books (464

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The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath is a novel written by John Steinbeck in the year of 1939. It takes place during the tragedy of Oklahoma, the Dust Bowl in the midwest. In the middle of summer,  the cornfields are shriveling up because of the waterless drought they are in. The dust is filling the skies and every single crop

An Analysis of the Two Characters of The Grapes of Wrath and Fifth Business that Have Flaws

People who feel trapped often do desperate things that affect themselves and others. Fifth Business and The Grapes of Wrath are two novels that both consist of trapped characters that are affected physically, emotionally, and socially. These elements are the very foundation of entrapment, which lead to the downfall of the characters. Mary from the

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