The Grapes of Wrath
As Americans, the knowledge of our history through media, books, and family stories is very important in understanding what happened to our ancestors before we were born. A lot of what happened in American history effects us today. Their victory's, defeats, struggles and hard work all make America what it is now. One movie in particular that shows the hard work and struggles is the movie The Grapes of Wrath. The Grapes of Wrath is about The Economic Depression also known as "The Great Depression" and the effects of it. Three main points that I got out of the movie that greatly express the effects of the depression were unemployment, Government camps and the culture of the family. Although the movie does not talk about everything that went on in the 1920's and 1930's it sure takes a big chunk out of it. In The Grapes of Wrath it showed what the lands looked like and how bad the soil was. Grandpa Joad demonstrated this by grabbing a handful of dirt and saying, "This is my dirt. It's no good, but it's mine, all mine." With the crops dead the Joads had no money to pay the mortgage so the bank took their land. They moved to their Uncle John's house for a while until Uncle John's house was taken by the bank. When they had
The Joad family arrived at three government camps throughout their journey the first being the Hooverville migrant camp. Farmers and their families were living in their cars or in tents with miserable conditions. The camp was crowded with other hungry, starving, jobless and desperate travelers. It was like a human junk yard and Tom Joad says "Sure don't look none too prosperous." With only one gallon left they had to stay at the camp with the hopeless crowd. That evening tom overhears a mob of towns people planning on burning the camp down. So they packed all their stuff and headed out for another place to stay. The next government camp that they arrived at was the Keene Fruit ranch which had many striking farmers and police fluttering the gates. No one said a word about what was going on. They got to work for half a day and made enough money for the whole family to eat meat. When Tom found out about what was going on with the strike and that Casy, his friend, was right about the employers cutting the wages. They took off in search for a new place. They finally arrived at the third government camp "the wheat patch government camp." They relize that this camp is self governed and that they have showers and sanitary units. They also find out that police can't step on the grounds without a warrant, to the Joad family this place seems like a paradise. The townspeople, along with the police tired to start a fight during a dance,
Some common words found in the essay are:
Keene Fruit, California Joad, Grandpa Joad, Ma Joad, Tom Joad, , Depression Depression, Uncle John's, Pa Joad, Grapes Wrath, grapes wrath, government camp, joad family, grandpa joad, grandpa joad died, government camps, california jobs, john's house, uncle john's, joad died, american history, uncle john's house,
Approximate Word count = 975
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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