Grapes Of Wrath The Great Depression example essay topic

In the presence of such power, such observation, such compassion, such humor, it seems almost ungrateful to make reservation to ask that what is so good should be even better of Steinbeck's books. Its just amazing how he can take a classic tragedy and turn it into a top selling novel. He can define them so deeply and amusingly. The first time I picked up Mice of Men I couldn't put it down.

Then I read Grapes of Wrath. He made me feel like I was right in the action when it happened. But the sad thing is that in Steinbeck's novels there are always tragic events in the families some way or another. Take Grapes of Wrath and Mice of Men for instance. In Mice of Men there was these two friends traveling together trying to find work. Only one of the guys were handicap.

And since he doesn't know any better he kills animals cause he can't control his. And then in the Grapes of Wrath Tom Joad just got released from prison, for attempted man slower, right in the beginning of chapter two. "Steinbeck has achieved his success by working within limitations which are perhaps self imposed but which seem on the whole to be imposed but which seem on the whole to be imposed on him by his temperament". (W.M. Fro hock) Pg. 323 In both books the characters try to find a more refreshing life to live then the one they have been living. But they also mess there old lives up by doing bad things. In Mice of Men Larry kills things or says something's that hes not sa posed to say. But he doesn't know better cause hes handicap.

So he just does things. In Grapes of Wrath Tom Joad is just like Larry in Mice of Men. Tom does things with out thinking even though he is not handy cap. He just got mixed up in some bad things. But that's not why the Joad family had to leave town, they had to leave town because of some other type of tragedy.

The Grapes of Wrath, generally conceded to be Steinbeck's best novel, was taken to be a fitting achievement, for it concentrated, more successfully than any other novel, on the depression and on the needed for economic and social reforms. (Max Westbrook) Pg. 326 The cause of the Mice of Men characters to move from place to place was because Larry always caused trouble even though he didn't mean to. "Steinbeck, aroused over the trampling of human life, put this strongly in accents of burning anger and disgust". (John S, Kennedy) The reason for the family of Grapes of Wrath to leave is because of the great depression going on in that time. That was when allot of crops didn't grow and died. So no one could live so they all migrated some place else.

The effect of Larry, Mice of Men, was always messing things up, his friend he was traveling with had to kill him cause he didn't want anyone else to kill or harm him. It is partly Steinbeck's habit of oversimplifying both life and art that has kept him from seeing and taking hold of the complex entirety. The effect in Grapes of Wrath was the great depression which made the family have to move or migrate so that they can find food and grow it. In conclusion both Grapes of Wrath and Mice of Men suffer from great tragedies. In Mice of Men Larry had to be sacrificed so that he wouldn't get tortured and so some stranger didn't kill him.

And in Grapes of Wrath the great depression probably killed allot of people because they didn't have anything to eat. More pertinent perhaps, the tittle of the grapes of wrath is itself a direct christen allusion, suggesting the glory of the coming of the lord, revealing that the story exists in Christian context, indicating that we should expect to find some Christian meaning. "By far the strongest and most enduring of the talismanic identifications in Steinbeck's fiction is that of men with the land". (Todd M. Lieber) Pg. 407.