Grapes Of Wrath By Steinbeck (491 words) Essay Example For Students

Grapes Of Wrath By Steinbeck (491 words) Essay Grapes Of Wrath By SteinbeckPurpose Essentially, The Grapes of Wrath is a novel of social protest. It wasdesigned to inform the public of the migrants plight. It is a plea for the landowners of California and the banks in the dust bowl states to be more tolerant. It shows how the migrants were made to starve by the California land owners andbanks just so they could turn a profit. It shows many of the methods that theyused to cheat the migrants out of money and keep them from organizing. Ma JoadMa Joad is the backbone of the Joad family. When things were really bad thefamily turned to her and not to Pa. The family gauged their own emotions bylooking at her reaction. She knew that if she faltered then the whole familywould collapse. She is always concerned for the welfare of her own family, butstill tries to help others as much as possible as show by her helping of theWilsons and when she gave food to the children in the camp when she barely hadenough to feed the family anyway. She fights throughout the book to keep thefamily together, and without her the family would have fallen apart quickly. Inspite of this she still sees that the family is breaking apart. She fights thisas much as possible, but isnt completely successful. She knows that if Pa evergives up, the family will collapse, so sometimes she goads him into anger sothat he doesnt. Jim Casy The preacher, Jim Casy, can be seen as a modern dayChrist figure, except for without the Christian Doctrine. The initials of hisname, J.C., are the same as Jesus Christ. When he is saying grace in chaptereight, he compares himself to Jesus: I been in the hills, thinkin, almostyou might say like Jesus wen into the wilderness to think His way out oftroubles.(pg 70-71) Casy believed in the Emersonian Over-Soul, that we areall have a small part of a larger soul, and everybody is holy. As Tom said,one time he went out in the wilderness to find his soul, an he foun hejus got a little piece of a great big soul.(pg 373) He just wants to bearound people because he sees everybody as being holy. He also thinks thatpeople working in cooperation is holy: When theyre all workin together,not one fella for another fell, but one fella kind of harnessed to the wholeshebang thats right, thats h oly(pg 71). In the first half of the bookCasy is thinking and forming his ideas. He changes from a thinker to an man ofaction when he sacrifices himself for Tom. When in prison Casy sees theadvantage of organizing people to achieve a common goal. When Casy tried to puthis ideas into action he, like Christ, aroused the antagonism of the people inauthority and was brutally slain. He died, like Christ saying to his crucifiers,You don know what youre a-doin.