Grapes of Wrath society before one's self

A detailed Summary of Grapes of Wrath society before one's self

The Grapes of Wrath is written by John Steinbeck as a political statement about the need to put the well being of society as a whole before the individual needs. He discusses this idea in the book through his three main central characters, Tom, Ma, Casy and through his intercalary chapters. Throughout the book they all come to realise this need and the events that lead up to their realisation are used as evidence to prove to the reader that this notion is indeed necessary.

At the start of the book it is evident that Tom's concerns are short sighted, naive and undeveloped. His concerns lay centrally with the family and he is yet to embrace the notion that unity among poor will lead to change. In one of the earlier chapters in the book, in a conversation with Ma about prison, Tom quotes,

"You can't go thinking when you're gonna be out. You'd go nuts, you got to think about that day, the nex' day..."

This clearly illustrates the shortsightedness of Tom's initial state of mind. He also says to Casy, "I only climb fences when I got fences to climb."

Casy however is aware throughout the book of the need to work as one and he is the one who inspires this train of thought in Tom. He tells Tom at the start of the book, "Mayb

Aside from the story John Steinbeck uses intercalary chapters to argue that the needs of the individual must be secondary to those of society as a whole. The first obvious chapter is chapter fifteen. It explains a story of a woman in a roadside cafe who is confronted with some 'Oakies' who are low on money and food, at first she is quite unfeeling but then warms to them when she sees the two little boys, she gives the boys two pieces of candy worth a nickel each for a penny. This shows a sign of people helping other people and working as a whole. Other intercalary chapters which convey the same message are chapter 17 which talks about the union between families, "the twenty families became one family, the children were the children of all" and chapter 23 which talk about what the migrants did in their leisure time together .

e all men got one big soul ever'body's a part of." Casy starts also putting his faith into action when he covers for Tom for hitting the police officer. In jail he has an experience where one man starts yelling for more food, then another, then all of them do and they get more food. He then realises the greater good that can come from everybody working together. When he leaves jail he goes on a strike for the migrant farmers. Tom accidentally meets up with him again an

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Approximate Word count = 881
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels

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Grapes of Wrath society before one's self

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