Themes from "The Grapes of Wrath"
Themes from "The Grapes of Wrath"
Throughout history man has made many journeys, far and wide. Moses’ great march through the Red Sea and Columbus’ traversing the Atlantic are only but a few of man’s great voyages. Even today, great journeys are being made. Terry Fox’s run across Canada while having cancer shows one of such journeys. In every one of these instances people have had to rise above themselves and over come immense odds, similar to a salmon swimming up stream to fulfill it’s life line. Intense drive and extreme fortitude are qualities the Joads had to possess during their travels. In The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck shows the Joad’s endurance by his use of extended metaphors in intercalary chapters.
Steinbeck uses intercalary chapters to provide background for the various themes in the novel. This effectively foreshadows upcoming events by telling of the general state of the local population in the intercalary chapters and then narrowing it down to how it effects the main characters of the novel, the Joad’s. Setting the tone of the novel in the readers mind pulls out yet another function of Steinbeck’s intercalary chapters. In chapter three, Steinbeck describes the long tedious journey of a land turtle across a desolate highway. From the onset of his journey, the turtle encounters many set backs. All along the way he gets hindered by ants, hills, and oak seeds under his shell. The turtles determination to reach his destination becomes most apparent when a truck driven by a young man swerves to hit the turtle. The turtle’s shell was clipped and he went flying off the highway, but the turtle did not stop. He struggled back to his belly and kept driving toward his goal, just as the Joad’s kept driving toward their goal. Much like the turtle from chapter three, the Joad’s had to face many great hardships in their travels. The planes of Oklahoma, with their harsh summer weather, was the Joad’s desolate highway. The truck driver represented the Californians, who buried food and killed live stock to keep the Joad’s and others like them away from their dream. Sickness was their ants and hills. But even through all of this the Joad’s persevered. They were driven by great motivating powers to endure poverty and hunger. Just as the turtle searched for food, the Joad’s were searching for paradise, "the Garden of Eden."
Through...