The Grapes of Wrath

The movie Grapes of Wrath, took place during the Great Depression in the 19305, where the load family looses their home and farm in Oklahoma. The family is forced to become migrant workers and move to California for more work. Without their farm back at home, they have no source of income. Therefore, they must move wherever work is being offered and this is why they go to California. On theirjourney they learn about what is really going on in the United States economically, politically, and socially. The Joad family and movie represent the large population of people who had to move out of their homes, and forced to live in foreign places just to find work. This film was based off of real events that took place in US history ad had many underlining themes.

One of the most important themes is man’s brutality to other men, During this time period many people began to lose money, their jobs, and their homes. The Joad family proves to be an example of this, They lost their farm to the Depression and the Dust Bowl, so they had no other choice but to abandon their farm and move west in hopes of starting a new life. The inhumanity within the moves is shown when one of the Joad‘s neighbors knock down their house. Although this neighbor did not want to do it, he says that the bank is paying him good money to knock down the house. At this time, the banks were failing and people became even more desperate. This changed the way people in the United States were treating one another.

Also, this theme is evident when they get to California to find work, and the man who owns the company offering the work treats the workers and families like animals. This film shows how the Great Depression and Dust Bowl affected people. They were forced to become desperate and cruel to one another in order to survive, [n the Grapes of Wrath, there are many economic, political, and social decisions that had to be made in order to keep the country from failing completely. A political decisions that was revealed in the film concerned that fact there was no one person to blame in the matter. When a man showed up at the Joad’s farm house and told them they had to leave by the morning, Pa Joad wanted to know if there was anyone else who he could talk to so that he could blame them for everything, The only thing that this man could say was that the monopolies and trusts were in charge and no one man could be singled out to blame.

To go along with this, there were many political decisions made by Franklin Roosevelt. When the Joad family had reached a work place in California, they discovered that the government ran it. This was apart of the governments New Deal, which helped with unemployment rates in order to help people get back on their feet. With the help of FDR and his New Deal, this addressed the economical problems in the United States. More projects were being created like this one to gather more materials to build roads, etc, Because of this, there was more government spending, and it slowly brought the stock market into recovery. However, some of the social conditions were not addressed during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Many people protested the wages they were getting, and at the same time, others were taking the jobs because they had nothing else.

Socially people were willing to do almost anything because the needed to get whatever they could. This film is relevant to today because of our economic crisis that we are going through. Just like in the 19305, in 2007 there was a major decline in the stock market and many banks and large corporations were forced to declare bankruptcy. By studying what happened in the 19305 and comparing it to what is happening now, we can see how history repeats itself and we can learn from what they did back then The government and the president took an active role in fixing the economy and making an effort to give people jobs, However, there has been a little effort done by our government today. This movie shows what can happen if the correct actions are taken.

The movie, Grapes of Wrath, tries to show how a great leader can create a great country and improvement of it. Without someone like Franklin Roosevelt, the Joad family may have never found a safe work place for the family to live and be protected in In conclusion, this movie, Grapes of Wrath, had many underlying meanings and that great leadership creates an even better nation. With the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl coming to the country, FDR was able to react and be a proactive leader to create jobs, boost the economy, and improve the political status of he country The Joad family was closely examined and the film recognizes their day-to-day struggles to stay alive and be able to have food. It reveals how companies take advantage of their workers. Overall the movie was able to show how people in the 19305 survived.

The Grapes of Wrath, author John Steinbeck creates s and shifts tone to show the failure of the economic system and how that failure causes people’s anger to grow inside them, like grapes, growing ripe for harvest. At the beginning of the chapter, the tone is positive. He describes California in the spring, using positive diction such as “beautiful” and “full green hills” (Paragraph 1).

He also describes al of the crops, how the tree limbs “bend gradually under the fruit” because there is so much of it. Steinbeck makes nature seem perfect; the hills are “round and soft as break SST” and the men are “of understanding and knowledge” (paragraphs 2 and 3). He creates a sense of hope which is only to be destroyed later on in the chapter. In paragraph 5, the fruit begins to ripen. This is when money is introduced: “Hell, we can’t pick ‘me for that. ” Right away, with the nit reduction of money, the tone shifts from positive to negative.

Words such as “hell” and cool Ours like “black” and “red” are used. The reason for this shift in tone IS because the starving pee people are angry because there is an overabundance of food that is just being wasted. Paragraph pH 12 simply says “And the smell of rot fills the country. ” This describes all of the wasted food, the word “rot” insinuates that the economic system stinks. Sanchez 2 The last few paragraphs are a warning to the system. In paragraph 13, Steins eek uses parallelism: “Burn coffee for fuel in the ships [s] laughter the pigs and bury t me” (paragraph 13).

He does this to emphasize how this was deliberately being done just so a profit could be made. He writes about how crime “goes beyond denunciation” (paragraph 14). People are so desperate for food that they are willing to do anything to get it. Children die b cause “a profit cannot be taken from an orange. ” All of these horrible things lead up to the la SST paragraph of the chapter; the warning to the system. People are trying to fish for potatoes that have just been dumped in the river, but the guards hold them back.

They are trying to grab the dumped oranges, “but the kerosene is sprayed. ” Eventually, the hungry become furious. The food at they could be eating is being wasted simply because a profit cannot be made from it. Their anger IS growing inside of them like the “grapes of wrath,” growing ripe for the harvest. The book title itself is used in this chapter. It is used to describe how people’s wrath is growing like grapes, “growing heavy for the vintage. ” This indicates that some wing big is going to happen: the harvest.

The Grapes Of Wrath Gena Rodriguez Student in Crime Films The Grapes Of Wrath The Grapes Of Wrath was a book that followed the Joad family on their journey from their deserted farm in Oklahoma to the riches of California, as their farms were destroyed in Oklahoma. They took few possessions with them on their journey, however they had eachother. They even picked up others along the way, all in hopes of a vision of getting their lives on track in California. Their journey was not easy as they had trouble with their vehicle, they lost family members and friends to death, and even heard several rumors of a depleted job market.

The salesmen and pawnbrokers took full advantage of them as they knew that the families were in no position to deny payments for their goods. The family continued to stay together and remained positive as they looked forward to what was to come. Upon arrival in California, the Joads were met with much hostility. The camps were overcrowded and full of starving migrants, who were often nasty to each other. The locals were fearful and angry at the flood of newcomers, and label the migrants as “Okies. Work is almost impossible to find or pays such a meager wage that a family’s full day of work cannot buy a decent meal. Farmers resent the droves of Okies from flooding the state, as hungry and impoverished people are a danger. They are viewed as vagrants and thieves. The farmers, police and landowners were in a position of power, and it seems that they only seek to take advantage of those below them. They did not falter even when they were in a position to save a family, they refused to give up their wealth.

The farmers used the police to their advantage, as they would have deputies destroy secret gardens, so that the camps people would not have extra food. The police labeled labor organizers as “red” and had them removed from camps for trying to organize and get decent wages and contracts for workers. Those labeled as “red” were placed on a blacklist and could not get work. The farmers’ association even tried to organize a riot, which they would pay certain “Okies” to start trouble, get the organizers put in jail and have the camp shut down.

The migrants, got word of this and prevented it. Police seemed to be uncaring, rude, and cold mannered. They were abusive and corrupt. Many of the people in the camps felt they had to pretend to be incoherent and ramble, act “bull simple”, so that the police viewed them as unthreatening and idiots. Many of the “Okies” seemed to lack respect for the police due to their degrading treatment. An example would be Ma Joad chasing the police officer with a skillet. The police also acted recklessly such as in the shooting of Floyd Knowles.

The police shot at him, but struck another woman in the crowd. Floyd Knowles was being arrested for trying to organize a contract and wages for workers, however the farmer became angry and informed the police. Knowles was later arrested on a bogus charge. The portrayal of police in this book can easily be compared to that of current police portrayals in movies and television shows. The times have changed to where people want to see the bad cop win or more action from police. The book portrays police as almost heartless and insincere, and corrupt.

It portrays the police officer not as someone you go to, but someone you stay away from, which is very much in line with current trends in media. There are so many different types of police officers portrayed. Certain fictional dramas have come to show police officers as being corrupt and taking advantage of the power they hold but in my opinion this is not just fictional but rather a reality. This typed is definitely apparent in the book and the show “Underbelly”. There are some shows which portray police as masculine, overly intelligent, fit, aggressive, action packed, and always willing to shoot at suspects.

The reality is that the public want to see these kinds of police officers. All of the excitement and glamour of being a police officer is what everyone wants to watch. A show where police are filling out forms and writing up boring reports just won’t cut it. The glamourized types of officers are portrayed in shows like “Hawaii 5 0” and “NYPD”, whereas the more realistic approach to policing is portrayed in shows like “First 48” and “cops”. References The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

In the movie and or novel The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck approaches and takes on, many political and social problems that the depression held. One topic that seems to be overlooked is how the storyline has many examples of economic forces at work in the film. One of these economic forces, which are also one of the most apparent, in the film is the message of unemployment. At the opening of the film the family of the grapes of wrath is faced with eviction from their farm home; which is due mostly because of the dust bowl as well as the great depression.

The family, out of work, decides to travel cross-country with the hopes of finding a Job as a migrant worker, only to find that a hiring ploy had been pulled, which made this next economic force apparent to the family. The next economic force at work in the story is supply and demand. The hard-pressed family soon after arriving in California realized that the demand for Jobs far exceeded the supply, thus sending them from farm to farm, looking for work. Although this example of supply and demand is not applied to consumers and goods, his example still shows the economic force of supply and demand at work and how it affected the family.

The last of the economic forces at work in the film that I will mention is the economic force of labor. Labor, by definition, is; the physical and mental effort of humans used to produce goods and services. In the movie, this is exactly what the many hopeful workers hoped to do in California, making a desperate trek from the Midwest of the United States, to the farms, vineyards, and orchards of the west coast, trying to overcome the previous economic forces of unemployment, and supply and demand or Jobs to raise their income and standard of living to a point where one could survive.

Sadly, John Steinbeck isn’t one for happy endings, concluding on a light point of hope and insight amidst surrounding sadness and distraught. The analysis of this novel/ movie as in the standards of economic forces is insulting to this great piece of American literature, defacing its deep underlying messages given in the last chapter (or scene) through intense “biblical” imagery, that show an account of humanity and humanity’s perseverance to survive and succeed.