The Grapes of Wrath Essay
The Joad’s family trek from Sallisaw, Oklahoma to California was one full of suffering and devastation ,yet was full of hope. Upon arrival to California, the suffering and devastation did not cease or lessen ,it grew, as hope became nothing but a mere inkling in minds of the Joads. John Steinbeck ,the author of The Grapes of Wrath ,wrote of many topics that revolved around the “American dream” and the obstacles in between. Human survival became a first and violence became an everyday issue. People had it bad where they lived and they fled their country looking for a second chance in California because that’s what the “American dream” is; a second chance. All those who took refuge in California went through a process and several changes. Steinbeck used the Joads to give his novel a personal feel ,almost an up close view, and then he had those chapters that were repetitive and more widespread. Some of those chapters really help capture a lot of the inhumanity ,indignity ,fellowship, and selfishness in his novel.
Within the first chapters of the book we learn about the struggle to get to California. One of the most symbolic chapters in the beginning of the book would be chapter three, where one reads about a turtle struggling and dragging itself along a highway. He reaches a highway embankment with his head held high ,but once he starts climbing up the embankment his efforts become much more frantic. He strains and slips , then has to crawl over a four inch wall of cement and while doing so he has this wild oat wrapped around his front legs. He crawls over and is on the burning hot highway, a light truck swerves just to hit him and he skids across the highway. His foot ends up caught on a piece of quartz which he then uses to roll off his back and then makes it to the dirt, on the side of the highway. The oat seeds fall off from the strand