This final chapter shows us death, desperation, and deluge along with the tenacity of the Joad family and others to survive no matter what. The Joad family's flight has parallels to the Old Testament book of Exodus with Plagues, The Exodus, and the Promised Land. Answer both of the following questions:
1. How does the Joad family symbolize the immigration movement to our nation today?
2. What is YOUR REACTION to this novel? Dig deep again. Don't give me a surface reaction. If you were to remember one scene from this novel five years from which scene do you think it would be and why?
20 comments:
The Joad family moved from a place of poor working conditions to a place of more poor working conditions which is similar to todays immigration of Mexicans. The Mexicans move from their country which is poverty stricken only to become slightly better off in the U.S. while still working in undesirable jobs.
This novel has taught me a lot about a group of people who existed in past who we can gain some knowledge from. While most of the book is a description of how the people lived in the Dust Bowl era, we can learn about human morale, courage, and behavior from it. We learn that people must join together to fight injustices and that family has to stick together through tuff times. I will probably remember the scene where a baby gets eatin by pig for as long as i live, because if there's one good thing i learned from this novel, it's to lock the pig up so it doesn't eat a baby
The Joad family shows how immigrants are treadted when they go somewhere new. They receive little money even though they work strenuously day after day. Immigrants seem to work for less than the citizens these days. Immigrants come to America to work because even if they are payed low wages, they know that they can get help from the government.
This novel taught a lot of life lessons. I felt sympathy for the Joad family through out the entire novel ecause of the hardships they encountered. If I was to remember one scene from the novel it would be the scene where the Jesus Lovers resented the dances in the government camp. How they sat there and watched the sin instead of trying to help the "sinners". It shows that not everyone can be satisfied in life. The people that are unhappy with the actions of others do little to chang it.
In today's world, the U.S is viewed as the land of opportunity by many. Many hispanics come to the country anyway they can get here, most often illegally, and bring their families, in search of better lives and better jobs. This parallels with the novel because the migrants left Oklahoma to find a better life in California, and try to get job for little pay, that no one else was willing to do. When they get to California, they suffer from both the prejudice people have formed of the "Okies" and many were rejected entrance into California. The Hispanics do work here in America, that many americans do not want to do, and they do it for a smaller paycheck, and they continue to believe they're in a better situation then they would be in Mexico.
The ending of the novel is the scene that will most often come to mind if the Grapes of Wrath is ever brought back up in a conversation. Rose of Sharon throughout the novel, does everything she thinks will help the baby. She drinks milk, doesn't dance, and goes a little above and beyond what she needs to. However, even though she does all this, ironically, she still has a stillborn baby. Although that life is lost, at the end when she feeds the man, she is saving another for starvation. My reaction to this novel as a whole is both shock, and disbelief. It is hard to imagine that people actually suffered this much right here in America and little was done about it to help supply jobs, food, and other necessities to those who had lost everything. Although this was fairly time consuming to read, I think it is something every american should read at some point in their life.
The novel can be compared to current immigration issues, particularly in the chapter, where Steinbeck notes that all those who settled California were originally Hispanic. Many immigrants face EXACTLY the same scenario as the Joad family, they must work in the same menial labor jobs and often have a difficult time finding money to eat and survive. I personally hope and think that conditions have improved, but there is room for more improvement. Reading Grapes helped me empathize with the situation and problems that migrant workers, both in the past, currently and in the future, face.
One memorable aspect of Steinbeck's writing is his vivid, abstract expressions of opinions, people and mindsets. I will always remember how those helped my understanding of the novel immensely. I found the novel to be long, but well worth reading, and it helped me to gain insight into other perspectives and crossapply themes and issues in Grapes of Wrath to issues currently within society, such as immigration and the constant battle between "haves" and "have nots", this is surely the largest impact the novel had.
The Joad family did what all immigrants do. They go where the rumor says thats the best place. During the Dust Bowl California was supposed to be the best place to find work for good wages, but it turns out the corporations were exploiting the workers. Today illigal immigrants think this is the promise land and will let them make their fortune. However the corporations know thats what they see so they hire them for less and make them work harder because the immigrants don't know any better.
This along with other books we must read, (Uncle Tom's Cabin and The Jungle), are very sad books telling about the horrors of their time. This constant reading of this material does not help our mental health with our raging hormones constantly up and down. In fact those depressing books may increase depression and even suicide rate. However I realize that these books are protesting against the wrong-doings of others. With our reading of these books maybe we will not make the same mistakes they did. Those books are informative, but reading them at the most trying time in our lives may not be the best solution.
The story of the Joad family parallels the immigration movement in the US today because both are people moving to try and find the essentials of existence in any place possible. Immigration today occurs mainly in the sense of others traveling to the US to try and find jobs. The Joad family's movement is just the same because they travel to try and find work. Both movements are motivated by need: the needs of food, water, shelter, and some sort of stable life.
This novel is meaningful to me on several different planes. On one level, I appreciate the novel for it's existence as a political statement to try and wake up the world to the realities of how people are treated. But more importantly, on another level, I recognize the classical themes of human life that are represented through the raw hope, want, and need. The book can portray these desires more than another book because this novel describes a family that has been removed from all livable conditions which makes the basic human impulses surface. The most meaningful part of the novel for me is the description of Pa's personality slowly dying. The human response to conflict is interesting in all circumstances. In the novel, Pa seems to disintegrate as a character leaving behind nothing but a fragile shell. At times, Pa himself almost seems "bull-simple." This book demonstrates to me the reality that the human mind is a wonderful thing and is capable of handling all sorts of situations, but under stress, seems to destroy itself and leave in it's place maybe only a stain of what conscious activity used to occur.
The Joad family and the immigrants today share many similarities. The Joads leave Oklahoma because the land was destroyed and poverty has taken its toll on their family. Many Mexicans leave their hometowns in search of work and a better life in America because the conditions in Mexico are unbearable for their families. Today in Mexico there is a huge gap in classes, with very few middle class a majority of Mexicans are in the lower class. When reaching the “promise land” the Joads encounter various prejudices and racist actions. The Californians are discriminatory towards these “Oakies” that invade their land. This is also similar to the immigration movement today, immigrants are treated poorly, given less pay, and zero rights.
I was let down by the ending of the novel. The open ended scene of the Joad family left in the flood left me hanging. The last few scenes had an odd tone, although I did like the deep symbolism of Rose of Sharon losing life, but also gaining a compassionate quality towards the dying old man. Steinbeck’s symbolism of life and death was the strongest part of the ending. The novel as a whole has made me empathetic towards the toil and mishaps of the migrant; an event which I had never given much thought. That is what Steinbeck’s goal for the novel was, to address one of the most pressing social issues of his time, and the issues that were problems then are still evident today.
Although this sounds odd, in five years the scene that sticks out to me the most would be the turtle crossing the highway. When initially reading it I was not familiar with the writing style that Steinbeck used in Grapes of Wrath, and questioned the significance of a turtle crossing a road and how that would have anything to do with a migrant family moving to California. However, after our Socratic circles, and some deep thinking I understood the tremendous amounts of symbolism in those four or five pages. This has been a learning experience for me and I will now search for symbolism in literature, even if its talking about a reptile on the interstate.
The Joads symbolize the current immigration movement in numerous ways. First, they show the extremes that families go to in order to make a better life and stick together. They also show that, then and now, immigrants/migrants may not find total happiness in the place they fled to. The migrants in the novel weren't treated very well, and this same treatment can be seen with today's immigrants. There are too many workers and too few jobs, leading to the unemployment of many.
When I reflect upon the novel, the (I forget the technical name...)short, inbetween chapters stick out to me the most. Steinbeck uses an abstract style to, not only paint a picture in the reader's mind, but to make them feel as though they were, too, experiencing the situations. I think the ending scene would probably be the one to stick in my mind for a while. Although the ending doens't provide the most closure for the novel, it shows how the charcters evolved through desparation, and the extremes they are willing to go to to help one another survive. The novel gave me a more clear understanding of the hardships of the Great Depression, and showed me what current immigrants may be experiencing.
The Joad family had nothing left of their past, they had no choice but to move on. They believed that California was the answer, the land of milk and honey. Well, they were wrong, just like many of the immigrants who believe this country is THE land of opportunity. But when they get here they find that it's much tougher to survive.
The book was very moving. Without reading this book, most people would have no idea what it's like to live and not know when and where your next meal will be. It definitely has made me appreciate what I have more than I used to. The most memorable part of this book though is when Ma goes in to the store at the peach farm and sees the high prices. The clerk says it's because you can either buy stuff at that price or use the gas to go to town and buy it for a slightly lower price. This sticks out in my mind because this still goes on today. When you go to a small town you will see prices raise because you can either buy it there or you can use the gas and go to a big town where you can get the same thing for a slightly lower price due to the competition in the city.
Immigrants today move from where they are to where they want to go to make a better life. They work strenously and for lower wages (sometimes) than the rest of the working world. They just want to support their families. Just like in the book. The Joads just want to work and support each other, well, Ma does at least. They move from where they are to where the work is supposed to be the best, and where everybody says is the best.
If I were asked years down the road about the book, Grapes of Wrath, what I learned from it and what stuck out the most, I would say the following. I learnt that if you stick together, you can pull through. Families can be broken or brought together in tough times, and the Joad family showed a bit of both. The scene that really sticks out the most at me is when Rose of Sharon grows up and nurses the elder man. It shows that she has matured after the loss of her child.
Many immigrants pursue the American Dream and hope that by moving they can provide a better life for their family. The Joads knew that by staying on their farm they would not get ahead in life. They hoped that California would hold a new brighter future with a “white house”. Many still hope today, it is much better to hope and try for a better future than to settle with the dim one you have.
This novel left me hanging on a thread in the end, in a negative way. I was amused by the rich complex characters and the dialects in which they spoke in. I enjoyed the novel, with its rich details and hidden meanings; however rich detail lacked in the last few pages of the book. We do not even know what happens to Tom, he just disappears. Neither do we learn if the milk given to the starving man kept him sustained. I enjoyed this novel, until the last few chapters; and of course this last impression of incompleteness will follow me and haunt my thoughts when I reflect back on this novel.
The Joad family sybolizes immigration today through their flight west. Like the Joads, many immigrants have to leave many things behind. They have to leave their language and culture, much like the Joads left their farm atmosphere and the agricultural setting in which all their efforts were toiled over. Also like the Joads, immigrants come to a world of hostility, facing discrimination, racism, and competition for good jobs. The Joads also faced discrimination ("Oakies") and could not find a decent job because of the demand for them.
My reaction to this novel is one of shame. Although a fictional plot, most of the events in the novel actually happened. There were people starving in our country, and there were humans being as cruel as ever. Many times, we look to other countries and see similar things, and hold ourselves above them, regarding ourselves as more developed and/or more civilized. To have such things here is almost hypocritical. If one scene was to stick with me, it would either be the one where Tom described the pig eating the baby or (to reflect more what you're asking for) the scene in which Rose of Sharon nurses an adult man. This is a powerful scene in which Rose of Sharon matures from a girl to a woman within a Mary-like aura.
1. The Joad family symbolize the realistic (if a tad bit overworn with bad luck) lives of moving from one home to a new place. While the Joads participated in emmigration, today we mainly hear about immigration.
2. I read this book the summer before 5th grade on a dare from my Dad. When I reached the ending, I was upset with the openness and tried to find a sequal. (That made my Dad laugh.) Although I struggled to find the deeper meanings behing Steinbeck's words when I was that young, reading it trhough again at 17 really opened up my perspective to the novel.
Personally, this is one of my favorite books (although I could use with less of the flowery descriptions.) The scene that has stuck out to me since I finished reading it all of those years ago, are the ones involving the little turtle. Back then, I just liked the turtle because it was a cute little thing, but now, I enjoy the meaning and symbollism of the turtle scenes even more.
The Joads give us insight into the immigrants that come into our country everyday looking for work because they have been pushed out of their homes. They often have to deal with the jobs nobody else wants and the conditions in these jobs are not bearable. The situation in the novel that really brought me into the condition of the Joad family is when they more or less forced Granpa to leave his home and he dies on the journey to
California, they do not even have enough money or the time to give him a proper burial. The desire the family had to improve their lives was so great they did not stop to pay proper tribute to the oldest man in the bunch.
The novel The Grapes of Wrath clearly revolves around the Dust Bowl and the struggles American citizens went through while migrating to the West. While migration was popular in the 1930's, in modern society immigration (and illegal immigration) are prominent issues. The Joad family plans to move to California in hopes of finding "the Promised Land". This "Promised Land" claims to hold hope and reassurance for the future--a better life . Immigrants move cross the border to the US for the same reasons today. Many immigrants, Mexicans for example, come to America because in their eyes, the US holds a better life for themselves and their families.
Also, as the Californians were extremely unwelcoming to the Okies during the Dust Bowl, many American are not convivial to immigrants today either. This stems from several different factors. First, many American citizens are in opposition to illegal immigration and once again, in the case of Mexican immigrants, it has become difficult to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants. Therefore, many people from this race are consequently looked down on. In addition, the Californians in this novel may have been resistant to migrants because there was a likely chance that these migrants would rob native Californians of their jobs. Therefore, their first defense was to be unkind to the migrants. In the twenty-first century, many immigrants are also capturing jobs many American could utilize. Thus, United States citizens are not hospitable to immigrants today as Californians were not friendly to migrants in the Dust Bowl for similar reasons.
The Grapes of Wrath was definitely an interesting and eye-opening novel about the Dust Bowl and the continual struggle families battled in hopes of a new life. Many of the descriptive scenes in this novel will be memorable for years to come. For example, many of the intercalary chapters provided an fascinating innovative view of situations relevant to both the 1930s and modern society. For example, Chapter Three's use of the turtle to parallel struggle, obstacles, and the government was ingenious and Chapter Seven was fun to link to the viciousness of car salesmen today. One of the most disturbing scenes, in my mind, was the one-eyed man from Chapter Sixteen. The imagery about this man was outstanding along with the lesson Tom gave the man about not letting anything hold you back. However, although these incidents currently strike me as unforgettable, to be honest, there's a good chance I won't remember them in five or ten years. However, I do not believe I will forget the ending of this novel. The ending was definitely not what I expected. In the back of my mind, I was hoping the Joad family's life would make a turn for the better which is one reason I think I disliked the ending so much. The flood was disastrous to both the Joad's and the resolution in my point of view. Not to mention, Rose of Sharon's feeding the grown man with her own milk was not something I expected either, especially as the last paragraph of the novel. Overall, I liked being able to join the Joad's on their journey to California and experiencing the struggles alongside the family. This take on the Dust Bowl was helped me to realize the devastation of the Dust Bowl on the structure of a family.
1. How does the Joad family symbolize the immigration movement to our nation today?
The Joad family represents every single family that has to deal with that hardships back then and today. Every death, every newborn, and every job there were too many people to do. It shows us all the hardships they had to go through and all the deaths that were caused from it.
2. What is YOUR REACTION to this novel? If you were to remember one scene from this novel five years from which scene do you think it would be and why?
My first reaction was what a CRAPPY ending it had. Don't get me wrong, it was writin well but the way it ended so abruptly without telling us what happened to them or anything really bugged me. I liked reading about all their pursuits of happiness but i hated how that every other chapter was about something other than the Joad family. It confused me and made me lose concentration on the story itself.
1. The Joads are left without a chance for success at their home. Immigrants that come to the U.S. are often left without a chance for success at their home. In California the Joads are part of the poor community which is despised, yet taken advantage of for its possibilities of cheap labor. In the U.S. immigrants are often despised and taken advantage of for their possibilities of cheap labor. The Joads symbolize the struggle of the lower class in a foreign, hostile area.
2. I will most likely remember the very last scene which includes Rose of Sharon breastfeeding the old dying man. The reason behind this is that I noticed how a recurring theme in the novel was Men dying and babies being born to replace them. Multiple times this was mentioned in the novel. Rose of Sharon's experience is a direct contradiction to this. She has a baby, but it dies. Because of this she has the ability to produce milk. The old man is sick and about ready to die, her milk that she can offer him, only because her baby died, ends up saving the man. I do not understand yet the full significance of this, but I am sure in five years I will have figured it out and will most likely remember it.
The Joads are now a symbol for the Hispanic immigrants today, as just about everyone else has mentioned. They have the dream that America is paved with gold, where they can do anything, just like how the Joads viewed California.
This book made me think, which is unusual. (Just kidding). My father has a job in the agricultural industry, and it made me question what would happen if there were another dust bowl, or if there was an act of nature large enough to force us from our home. Would we have to start over like the Joads? Would we have to pack everything we were taking in our little sedan? It really makes you question how stable your "safe" lifestyle really is. Even if you are as stable as you can be, something completely outside of your control could just throw a wrench into your life. Well, knowing me, I wouldn't be able to remember this book 5 years from now (heck, I might not remember I read this book at all), but if I was blessed suddenly with a higher quality memory, I would remember Weedpatch. I found it the most interesting, how everyone, it times of such despair, could work together to form a faux society, like they were all a huge family. It amazes me so much because even in times of American crisis today, people seem unable to band together. After the wake of Hurricane Katrina, there was looting, arson, mugging... a truly terrible time. I think if any single one of us were to walk away from this book with the sense of family that these immigrants have, like their families were the most valuable things they possessed, America would be so much better as a whole.
1) The ties between the Joad family and the Mexican families that are immigrating to our country today are outstanding. I have already referred to this symbolism is earlier posts, yet for the benefit of the reader I shall restate my thoughts on the issue. The Mexican families often physically resemble the Joad family in that they are large extended families that are all moving at once with the hope of starting a new and better life. The obstacles that must be overcome are nearly identical in both situations; a few examples being the temptation for the main worker in the family to want to go off on his own, the dreadful affects of allowing the family to fall apart, and the prejudice from those of higher social status against the immigrants.
2) The novel helped me further understand the plights of low-wage workers and the ways in which our economy works, during that period and today. It also helped me understand the ways in which government will react when problems such as the massive flood of migrants into one concentrated area occur. The powerful ways in which Steinbeck illustrates his story reminded me of the horrible cruelty that can come upon a person when they begin to fear something, for example the cruelty of the police in California when they realized the workers would soon over throw the current society if they were let alone. The passage that will stay with me for years and years to come is the image of Casy's head being smashed in by the man with the club, for it is a constant reminder of what atrocities humans are capable of causing.
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