What does the Title mean?

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10 years ago
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Spock's Cat The lyrics of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" themselves are a reference to the imagery in Revelation 14:19-20. Here, angels are harvesting the earth; one uses a sickle to harvest the grapes, another throws them into the "great winepress of God's wrath" (NIV). Thus, the grapes (I think) are people and the wrath is God's wrath. Thus, the title does seem to hint at themes of both redemption and judgement. And of course, the harvest metaphor ties in neatly with the agricultural work of the Okies. As does the apocalyptic imagery with the overall sense of upheaval in the novel.

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Jason Hart As Kges1901 said, it is from the song "The Battle Hymn of the Republic". The first stanza is:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

For me, it means that the oppression the migrants are under is building up. One day, all the insults and degradations they have suffered will come to a head. The fruit of that wrath will lead to the migrants overcoming their oppression.

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Emilie He mentions "the grapes of wrath" in the text, it's on chapter 25 : Spring is beautiful in California, but, like the migrants, many small local farmers stand to be ruined by large landowners, who monopolize the industry. Unable to compete with these magnates, small farmers watch their crops wither and their debts rise. The wine in the vineyards’ vats goes bad, and anger and resentment spread throughout the land. The narrator comments, “In the souls of the people, the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”

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