Hope?

Rose of Sharon breastfeeding a starving man

Steinbeck uses the road as a tool to develop his characters. There is a clear flight, as shown in the Joad family, to a better life in the West. The experiences along the road are arguably more significant than the actual goal of arriving in the West. Through the road trip, Steinbeck illustrates an unspoken system of kindness, empathy, and misunderstanding. In the end when the dreams of the West don’t turn out as promising as they seemed, he tries to leave the reader with hope as one man is saved by the death of a child. Overall, one of the strengths of the novel lies in the depiction of the human condition; whether fictional or not. Ashley states in The Grapes of Wrath: Overview, “Steinbeck at his best, as in The Grapes of Wrath, writes of basic plights of mankind”. Whatever his intentions were, Steinbeck expressed trickles of hope in the good of mankind throughout his novel.

“The movement changed them; the highways, the camps along the road, the fear of hunger and the hunger itself, changed them” (Steinbeck 282). It seems as though people, whether characters or not, embark on road trips with a goal in mind. The goal can be realized, changed, or forgotten along the way, but there is some sort of change that happens. For the Joads, their goal was to go West in search of a better life. Although the ending is ambiguous as to their future, the movement, as Steinbeck writes, did change them. When we are put in situations that are unfamiliar we are forced to adapt to survive. Sometimes these survival instincts will be animalistic in nature and other times compassion will overcome them. As I read the novel, I envisioned Steinbeck had some sort of belief in the good in man. Although a good portion of the novel was about the machines holding the man down, I also saw a more hidden optimistic side. Through the compassion and willingness of the Joad family and other characters in The Grapes of Wrath, there is a clear undertone of unity and perseverance of mankind.

On another note:

Report: Growing Ranks Of Nouveau Poor Facing Discrimination From Old Poor