The Grapes of Wrath in Never too Late to Read Classics

Aug 31, 2025 Cleo rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, american-literature

Read August 31, 2025

I don't like it when people attempt to exploit reality to achieve a result that reflects solely their point of view. And I don't like to be manipulated. I felt Steinbeck did both with the creation of this novel.

So the novel begins with the Joad family who are thrown off their farm, partly due to the consequences of the Dust Bowl and partly because of the Great Depression. They decide to head to California and the whole book consists of their experiences in their travels and t Read August 31, 2025

I don't like it when people attempt to exploit reality to achieve a result that reflects solely their point of view. And I don't like to be manipulated. I felt Steinbeck did both with the creation of this novel.

So the novel begins with the Joad family who are thrown off their farm, partly due to the consequences of the Dust Bowl and partly because of the Great Depression. They decide to head to California and the whole book consists of their experiences in their travels and their struggles to find work in a "foreign" state.

First of all, one has to like characters before you feel sympathy for them. Was I supposed to like Tom who had killed a man (in self-defense) but always reacted with anger and violence to each slight against him? Or Al, who was a serial philanderer and then suddenly became a loyal fiancee with no real reason for this completely new aspect of his personality? Or Rose of Sharon, who initially was rather self-focussed and then seemed to gradually lose her grip on life? At best, I felt ambivalent towards most of Joad family and at worst, occasionally a sort of repulsion. Yet also, the characters' adventures somehow didn't feel real. Apparently, Steinbeck spoke to a large number of "Okies" to gather their experiences and it was as if he took the very worst and shocking stories from each, and then placed them all onto the Joad family. So while individually each experience is "true" in a sense, consolidating them all into one family is not an accurate picture of reality. In the novel, children died of starvation with bloated stomaches, and there were other starvation cases related yet when I looked up information on the Great Depression, I found it was rare that someone died of starvation, yet people could be malnourished and therefore pick up diseases easier. So more misleading information from Steinbeck in order to achieve an effect.

Then there was the one-sided evil bankers and corporations who, from Steinbeck's point of view exploited the poor job-seeking farmers by throwing them off land, continually cutting their wages and not letting them farm land that belonged to someone else but was just "sitting there". No doubt there was some of this exploitation, but he completely fails to mention that EVERYONE was experiencing The Great Depression. Banks were interfering with farms because those farms held loans with them and it was in their best interests to make sure the farmers remained solvent. And the farmers wanted to remain working as well. The only costs that they could control were wages and yes, we see the economic policy of supply and demand in action where, if there were an oversupply of workers, the price for them would go down. Steinbeck makes it seem like all big businesses were terrible exploiters of the poor worker, without mentioning that most businesses had rules for wage-protection and it was only the agricultural sector that didn't have these protections (I'm assuming because crop successes and failures could be volatile and to put wage guarantees in this sector would risk farmers going out of business, but I'm not entirely sure).

He also completely failed to show the reasonable resistance of the Californians towards the "Okies". As far as I can tell, at this point there would be about 25% unemployment. Why would local people who were struggling and often out of work (and who had perhaps spent their life building their state and community) feel responsibility towards people from another state who arrived and added additional burden to their lives?

There were also continual scenes of people running over of animals in their cars and I can't even figure out where that comes from. Man vs. nature? Man wants to kill nature so nature responds in kind? Whatever ...

So the Joads go from tragedy to disaster and from distaster to tragedy. And almost every single person was terrible to them. Granted, there was the odd time where Steinbeck brought in a sympathetic contrast to help them or sympathize but for the vast amount of the novel, they were few and far between. If you believe this novel, almost every single Okie would have died in their quest to find work and a new life.

There were also chapters that I think were cheaply written in a particular way. I highly suspect that Steinbeck was simply going through his notes and throwing things together but I can't prove it so I'll leave it there.

Then there's the ending, which honestly I found twisted. It's not that I object to the general possibility in a believable situation, but in this case I think there was a sexual component to it that came from Steinbeck's perverted view of women. And, while not particularly liking Rose of Sharon, it actually made me feel sorry for her, since in many ways she'd already been abused (by Connie and life and circumstances), and she is now compelled to allow herself to be abused once again.

Ah, I'm feeling two stars is generous, but there are certainly aspects of Steinbeck's writing that are excellent. However, the novel itself is a distortion of reality and therefore highly disappointing. ...more

3 likes · Like · see review