Style Critique Grapes of Wrath

A detailed Summary of Style Critique Grapes of Wrath

"To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth..." So starts The Grapes of Wrath, one of the most popular books of the twentieth century. Written by John Steinbeck, it tells the tale of a family of Oklahomans en route to California, displaced from their land by the Great Depression. They find many troubles along their journey to "The Promised Land", including several cases of prejudice and other hardships. This book is rich in style, with many allusions and hidden meanings scattered throughout it's some 455 pages.

The predominant theme of this book is one of man versus the machine. The Oklahomans have been displaced from their land by "The Bank." Whenever something goes wrong in this book, the bank is the one who did it. "He got his orders from the bank. The bank told him, 'Clear those people out or it's your job'" The bank is portrayed as the incredibly evil force behind the land re-possessions, when it really is not the bank's fault at all. It is just simple economics. When some service a business offers no longer becomes useful, then that service is discontinued. Same concept here. The land was

The basic plot of the story is that the Joad family is a group of poor, Oklahoman farmers who have been thrown off their land by a bank because the land is no longer fertile. One of the family's sons, Tom, has just been released from prison and is just now becoming aware to the effects the stock market crash has had on his family and the surrounding farmers in the area. Like many other families, the Joads have received hand-bills advertising the seemingly unlimited need for fruit pickers in the "Garden of Eden" that is California. So of they go in search of a better life, encountering the many obstacles that become the major bulk of the book. When the Joads do finally get there, they discover that California is not all that it was cracked up to be, with no work to be seen and low wages for the jobs that they could find. The book ends on somewhat of a happy note, foreshadowing that not all is lost and the Joads are on the road to recovery.

The speech of this book is hard to understand, for the Oklahoman farmers speak in the dialect from their region of America at that point in time. The informal speech is further complemented by the sheer amount that it is used. It seems as if everyone spoke like that, even some of the Californians. Such words as "yella" for "yellow", "dunno" for "don't know", and other such colloquialisms. But once one gets passed the language barrier, the book becomes much easier to read. It is much helpful for one to be well-versed in the dialect of the time, which is still pretty much spoken in the south of America.

The tone in the beginning and middle of the story is slightly dark, yet slightly uplifting. It is half and half. When the odd-numbered chapters are in play, the tone is negative, displaying how the farmers are being kicked off their land. The even chapters are lighter of feeling, always optimistic. The Joads start off happy that Tom had returned to them, but down trodden that they have to vacate to California. But they are always optimistic, talking about how beautiful and prosperous the west is going to be. The later chapters take a turn for the worst, continuing to have a depressing tone t

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1456
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels