The Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath novel begins with young Tom Joad's return home from a prison term to find his family's Oklahoma farmstead in ruins and deserted. He soon locates his relatives nearby, preparing to leave their land for the promise of a new life in California. We follow their travails and partake of their hopes, only to share in their disappointment when California's agricultural bounty makes no provision for them except as occasional day laborers. Under the strain, the Joad family gradually comes apart until only a struggling remnant survives. In an unforgettable conclusion, we leave these few bereft of everything except their imperishable humanity.

Along the way, we meet a cast of characters as overstuffed as the Joad family's panel truck. From the indomitable matriarch Ma Joad to the starving old man in the book's final scene, Steinbeck gives them the individuality that an unforgiving economy threatens to cost them. In a remarkable balancing act, they represent those displaced by the Depression without ever subsiding into mere

• Reader’s Guide
   
• Bibliography: John Steinbeck
  
  
• Bibliography: The Great Depression
  
  
• Bilingual Facebook Group: The Grapes of Wrath - عناقيد الغضب
  
  
• Contest by Salinas Public Library: Write a Novel in one month!