The Grapes of Wrath: Question 3: Part 1

The Grapes of Wrath is just full of themes. They range from survival, to religion, and they all play a big part in how the story develops and how the characters grow in the story. There are three very big themes that help shape the novel; change, family, and lies.

Change is the very basis on which this book starts and develops with. The reason why the Joads are forced off of their land? Change. The reason why hundreds of thousands of people are on their way to California? Change. The reason people become violent and crazy? Change. The farmers would have just liked to stay where they were, do what they were doing, but the banks had other plans.

One good quote that shows how the people getting pushed off of the land feel; “’Fella gets use’ to a place, it’s hard to go,’ said Casy ‘Fella gets use’ to a way of thinkin’ it’s hard to leave’” (Steinbeck 51). I can’t even imagine how hard it would be to get forced out of my house, especially if it were the same house that my father and I were born in, and one that my grandfather had to fight for his life to secure.

When the man buying a car from the car salesman in chapter seven tries to trade with his mules to get some extra money towards the car the salesman replies “Mules! Hey, Joe, hear this? This guy wants to trade mules. Didn’t nobody tell you this is the machine age? They don’t use mules for nothing but glue no more” (Steinbeck 64). This shows how the people who were getting pushed off of their farms still used plows pulled behind mules and other such “outdated” tools to farm their land, but now that there were tractors, there was no need for small farms, and big ones started taking over.

In chapter sixteen, Casy almost seems to have a “phycic” ability to anticipate what is going to happen when he says “’They’s gonna come somepin outa all these folks goin’ wes’—outa all their farms lef’ lonely. They’s gonna come a thing that’s gonna change the whole country’” (Steinbeck 174). And sure enough, he was right

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.