愤怒的葡萄论文

1. Introduction1.1 The authorJohn Ernst Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California on February 27, 1902. His mother, Olive, nourished a love of reading and writing in her son who, at age fourteen, declared his intention to become a writer. He attended Stanford University from 1919-1925, studying English literature but never receiving a degree. He worked with ranchers and migrants, relationships which clearly inform his body of work. As Shillinglaw observes, these relationships led Steinbeck, in his earliest fiction of the 1930s, to “claim his people…common people shaped by the environments theyhumorous look at the peasants of Monterey, received both critical acclaim and popular success.L ike many 1930s intellectuals, Steinbeck sympathized with communism’s concern for the working class (though Steinbeck himself was never a communist, nor did he approve of the Soviet system’s repression of the individual). This concernalso met with controversy, however. While widely regarded as Steinbeck’s finest work, it aroused the anger of Oklahomans and Californians. Still others objected to its “crass” language.Steinbeck served as a correspondent for the New Y ork Herald Tribune during(1961), a critique of what Steinbeck regarded as the overly materialistic Americanin 1968.Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 for “his realistic as well as imaginative writings, distinguished by a sympathetic humor and a keen socialperception” (Shillinglaw 46).1.2 The novelThe novel The Grapes of Wrath tells the specific story of the Joad family, featuring the hardship and oppression suffered by migrant laborers during the Great Depression. “It is Steinbeck’s epic masterpiece of social consciousness in its picture of helpless people crushed by drought and depression” (Hu and Liu 392). It is an explicitly political statement that champion collective action by the lower classes and chastise corporate and banking elites for shortsighted policies meant to maximize profit even while forcing farmers into destitution and even starvation.Tom Joad was released from the Oklahoma state penitentiary where he had served a sentence for killing a man in self-defense. He traveled homeward through a region made barren by drought and dust storms. On the way he met Jim Casy an ex-preacher, the pair went together to the home of Tom’s people. They found the Joad place deserted. While Tom and Casy were wondering what had happened, Muley Graves, a diehard tenant farmer, came by and disclosed that all of the families in the neighborhood had gone to California or were going. Tom’s folks, Muley said, had gone to a relative’s place preparatory to going west. Muley was the only sharecropper to stay behind.Spurred by handbills stating that agricultural workers were badly needed in California, the Joads, along with thousands of others, made their tortuous way, in a worn out vehicle across the plains toward the mountains. Grandpa died of a stroke during their first overnight stop. And, to add to the general misery, returning migrants told the Joads that there was no work to be had in California, that conditions were even worse than they were in Oklahoma. But the dream of a bountiful West Coast urged the Joads onward.However, Circumstances eventually forced them to leave the camp where they lived when they arrived in California because there was no work in the district. While Tom and Casy were talking, deputies, who had been searching for Casy, closed in on them. The pair fled, but was caught. Casy was killed. Tom received a cut on his head,but not before he had felled a deputy with an ax handle. The family concealed Tom in their shack. The rate for a box of peaches dropped, meanwhile, to two-and-a-half cents. Tom’s danger and the futility of picking peaches drove the Joads on their way. They hid the injured Tom under the mattresses in the back of the truck.The autumn rains began and the stream which ran beside the camp overflowed and water entered the boxcars. Under these all but impossible conditions, Rose of Sharon, Tom’s sister, gave birth to a dead baby. When the rising water made their position no longer bearable, the family moved from the camp on foot. The rains had made their old car useless. They came to a barn, which they shared with a boy and his starving father. Rose of Sharon, bereft of her baby, nourished the famished man with the milk from her breasts. So the poor kept each other alive in the depression years.1.3 Literature reviewconditions under which the migratory farm families of America during the 1930s live under. The novel tells of one family’s migration west to California through the great economic depression of the 1930s. The Joad family had to abandon their home and their livelihoods. They had to uproot and set adrift because tractors were rapidly industrializing their farms. The bank took possession of their land because the owners could not pay off their loan. The novel shows how the Joad family deals with moving to California. How they survive the cruelty of the land owners that take advantage of them, their poverty and willingness to work.In the book In Search of Steinbeck the author Anne-Marie Schmitz discussesthathatred of corruption resulting from materialism (money) and his abiding faith in the common people to overcome the hostile environment. The author also analyses Steinbeck’s Language. Easygoing and plainspoken for the most part, Steinbeck’s language is richly evocative. Indeed, his example shows these qualities are not at odds, but, in fact, related. In Steinbeck’s passages of description, he never gets bogged down in detail, never lets the eye linger too long. In addition, Steinbeck also has a perfectly tuned ear for the rhythms of American speech and idiom. He renders the simple beauty of American dialects so well that his writings serve as a declaration oftheir value. He manages to avoid ever writing any “throw-away” dialogue, and sometimes achieves this by relying on the natural power and beauty of speech alone.idea of Christian goodness exhibited in the Joads and other migrant workers. Those in the book representing this type of selfless sharing are a Christian concept of good fellowship. Particularly, Ma shows her caring towards others from the beginning and urges others to do the same. Jim Casy, while struggling with the orthodox view of Christianity, still displays a general concern for his fellow man. Repeatedly the family and others associated sacrifice comfort for the requirements of others. When people are in need, a sacrifice for their behalf makes society more pleasant to inhabit.Timmerman explains that Steinbeck describes the unrelenting struggle of the people who depend on the soil for their livelihood. Steinbeck uses the journey and its ever-changing environment to put the Joads through many situations and the journey of the Joads can be seen as the same that forced farmers to become migrants from the dust bowl westward or of any mass migration since the beginning of time. Through this way Timmerman reveals the beauty of man’s endurance and struggle he sees ina life journey in which man is searching for truth.This paper aims to analyze the great influence of the Great Depression on American farmers from different aspects which include the influence on their life, their connection with land; the influence on the changes of their characters and the influence on all kinds of human relationships.2. The Influence of the Great Depression on Relationbetween Man and Nature2.1 Man and landIn the novel The Grapes of Wrath, the author John Steinbeck conveys the connection people have with their land, without which they feel they cannot survive mentally or physically. Initially, back in Oklahoma, each family feels a strongattachment to the land because the ancestors of these farmers fought and cleared the Indians out of the land, made it suitable for farming, and worked year after year in the fields so that each generation would be provided for. Passing down the land to successive generations, Human beings can become proprietary about their land. They believe that the land belongs to them, and they belong to it. Before the Joads is finished packing, Grandpa decides he does not want to leave. He says, “This country ain’t no good, but it’s my country. No, you all go ahead. I’ll jus’ stay right here where I b’long” (Steinbeck 143). Grandpa knows that it is better if he goes, but he is tied to the land and cannot break himself free. He cannot go on, neither mentally nor physically, away from the land where he feels he belongs. Jim Casy makes this observation after Grandpa’s death. “He was foolin’, all the time. I think he knowed it. An’Grampa didn’t die tonight. He died the minute you took ’im off the place…He was that place, an’ he knowed it” (Steinbeck 187). Mentally, Grandpa is dead by the time the Joad family crosses the Oklahoma border. Physically, he dies soon afterwards. This breaking of his connection to the land forces him to die. It shows that the farmers here come to realize that the land is all that they own. It is their family’s source of sustenance. However, the strong bond between man and the land is broken when the bank comes to vacate the tenants during hard times. Just as said in the novel “Sure, cried the tenant men, but it’s our land. We measured it and broke it up. We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. That’s what makes it ours being born o n it, working it, dying on it. That makes ownership, not a paper with numbers on it” (Steinbeck 45).The tractors hired by the bank literally tear down the bond between man and the land. The fa rmers’ lands are confiscated by big firms and they not only have no places to go but also loose the lands where their forefathers have worked and planted from generation to generation. Due to the eviction, the farmers are forced to move to California, where work is supposedly in demand. As each family takes off for California, it no longer feels a connection to the lands through which it is traveling. Once it reaches California, there are still hunger and unemployment which are waiting for them. Although they are hired to work in big farms, the working hours are longand the pay is so low that they can not even afford a decent meal. Again, they are disposed and feel no connection to the lands.2.2 Man and environmentFrom ancient times till now, environment is closely connected with human activities. The influence between human beings and environment is mutual. The environmental changes in The Grapes of Wrath are the consequence of exasperate relations between man and environment.2.2.1 The “Dust-bowl” dro ughtThe Dust Bowl which brought starvation to southerners is a main reason to force Oklahoma farmers to move.The dust from the roads fluffed up and spread out and fell on the weedsbeside the fields, and fell into the fields a little way. Now the wind grewstrong and hard and it worked at the rain crust in the corn fields. Little bylittle the sky was darkened by the mixing dust, and the wind felt over theearth, loosened the dust, and carried it away. (Steinbeck 4)During the Dust Bowl, hundreds of thousands of southerners faced many hardships. It was an ecological and human disaster in the Southwestern Great Plains regions of the United States in the 1930s.The areas affected were Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado.Misuse of land and years of sustained drought caused it. Millions of acres of farmland became useless. During this time the “Okies”，a name given to the migrants that traveled from Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, or anywhere in the Southwest or the northern plains to California—encountered many hardships. These hardships are brilliantly shown in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Scholars agree, “The most important fact about the dust storms was not scientific but human: their tragic effect upon people seeking livelihood on the stricken Midwestern farms” (French 4). Steinbeck believed society was inhumane to the Okies.2.2.2 The heavy rainfall and floodAlthough many of the migrants were able to escape the dryness of the dust bowl, it becomes ironic how flood causes suffering in California. Steinbeck implements the readers the suffering and destruction of the rain.And the rain pattered relentlessly down, and the streams broke theirbanks and spread out over the country. In the wet hay of leaking barnsbabies were born to women who panted with pneumonia. And old peoplecurled up in corners and died that way… At night the frantic men walkedboldly to hen roosts… if they were shot at, they did not run, but splashedsullenly away; and if they were hit, they sand tiredly in the mud.(Steinbeck 592)The heavy rain in California at the end of this novel lasted three days long which deepened the farmers’misery that the Great Depression had brought. The migrant families wondered how long the rain would last. They fear that the creek will flood. The rain damaged cars and penetrated tents. During the rain storms some people went to relief offices, but there were rules: one had to live in California a year before he could collect relief. The greatest terror had arrived no work would be available for three months. Hungry men crowded the alleys to beg for bread; a number of people died. Anger festered, causing sheriffs to swear in new deputies. There would be no work and no food. The migrant workers must face yet another hardship, this one perhaps the worst of all. With the coming of the rains is the end of the harvest season. The migrant workers face starvation, yet cannot receive any government relief. For Steinbeck, the treatment of these workers is not only inhumane, but below even the treatment of livestock; he makes the point that no farm owner would leave his horse to starve when it was not used. However, the farm owners are doing just that for the migrant labor force. And the rain (Ironically in the beginning lack of rain was a cause of the problem) now is keeping them from working. No work for three months. The migrants are faced with hunger and sickness.3. The Economic Deprivation and Exploitation3.1 PovertyIn the 1920s, after World War I, danger signals were apparent that a great Depression was coming. Farmers weren’t doing to well because they were producing more crops and farm products than could be sold at high prices. Therefore, they made a very small profit. “This insufficient profit wouldn’t allow the farmers to purchase new machinery and because of this they couldn’t produce goods quickly enough” (Timmerman 559). Also the new agricultural technology destroyed the rich farming land in the Great Plains and the manmade desperation pushed the residents into migrating to California for another chance in life. The government didn’t realize how the new technology destroyed the soil. New farming devices like reapers and tractors destroyed the soil as the farmers overused them. The tractors loosened up the soil and the windstorms blew the soil easily. From viewing this, it is easy to see the push factor that made the Okies migrate to the west. There is nothing but the house that the Okies could keep in the Great Plains. The storms and the tractors dramatically destroyed their farmland and if they didn’t move, the only option to their life was starving to death.The Grapes of Wrath sets the picture of an area which has been ravished by harsh weather. “The sun flared down on the growing corn day after day until a line of brown spread along the edge of each green bayonet. The surface of the earth crusted, a thin hard crust, and as the sky became pale, so the earth became pale, pink in the red country, and white in the gray country” (Steinbeck 3). The families of the areas were bombarded by high winds and dust storms which barraged their houses, crops, and moral. The idea was clear that the farming plains of Oklahoma were a cruel and difficult place for a family to make a successful living. It impoverished the farmers and bought great threaten to their lives. The soil, the people (farmers) have been drained of life and are exploited. “The last rain fell on the red and gray country of Oklahoma in early May. The weeds became a dark green to protect themselves from the sun’s unyielding rays…The wind grew stronger, uprooting the weakened corn,and the air became so filled with dust that the stars were not visible at night” (Steinbeck 5). The farming in Oklahoma becomes even more difficult for the heavy winds uplift the soil and carry it great distances. Then the farmers are left with no soil to grow their crops. The Joads livelihood depends on the soil. If the soil is rich, then it will feed hundreds. But if the soil is dry, it destroys crops and causes famine.3.2 Causes for immigrationThe Joads is forced to move to California because of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl, which has made it impossible for them to earn a livelihood through farming. The motivation of leaving for California is to look for better life. Drought and depression has made it impossible for farmers to grow a substantial amount to live on. As inflation rises and wages drop, a gigantic worker migration heads west in search of Jobs. They have seen notices asking for workers in the western part of the United States, and travel thinking that they will find gainful employment. However there is much to learn about the United States in its economic turmoil. During the depression, thousands of people looked for work, and were cheated every step of the way. Many families were hurt by the depression.Due to dust bowl, farmers can’t survive on dehydrated land. Nor can the banks that own the l and make an income when the tenant farmers don’t produce enough to nourish even themselves. In contrast to the dry Dust Bowl, California is fruitful and lush. Its orchards and fields grow fruit, nuts, cotton, and vegetables of every sort. It’s the Promised Land, the land of milk and honey. It’s paradise, except for the people trying madly to keep the migrants at bay. For hundreds of thousands of migrants, including the Joads, of course, California turns out to be a lost heaven. When describing California Steinbeck used beautiful words to make great comparison to the situation in Oklahoma.They drove through Tehachapi in the morning glow, and the sun came upbehind them, and then—suddenly they saw the great valley below them.Al jammed on the brake and stopped in the middle of the road, and,“Jesus Christ! Look!” he said. The vineyards, the orchards, the great flatvalley, green and beautiful, the trees set in rows and the farm houses.(Steinbeck 309-310)Also California has great attraction to people in Oklahoma as Ma expresses her optimistic expectation for this migration “I like to think how nice it’s going to be in California. It’s never cold. Fruits grow everyplace, and people just living in the nicest place, little white houses among the orange trees. I wonder, that is, if we all get jobs and all work, maybe we can get one of those little white houses” (Steinbeck 61). For the Okies, California is a “promised land” which could give them the comfortable life they desire .The attraction of California is another important factor to make the Okies have the motivation to immigrate.3.3 Exploitation and unemployment in CaliforniaOnce in California, the Joads are floored by its beauty and by its rich, lush land. There are orchards and fields everywhere, and the soil is rich and moist. However, life is dangerous and it is harrowing in the beautiful state. Many migrant families continue to move from place to place, setting up campgrounds called Hoovervilles (named after President Herbert Hoover) on the outskirts of towns.The Joads set up camp at one such Hooverville, but it’s not that fun. In fact, it’s downright un-fun. The Hooverville is full of starving people who have little left and who are fighting to feed their children. Their tents are tattered, they live in makeshift shacks, and they are unkempt. Weedpatch, by contrast, is a government camp with beautiful restrooms, running water, hot showers, self-elected committees, dances, string bands, and occupants who look out for one another. The Joads live for a time in an abandoned boxcar near Tulare, CA. They are one of the first families to discover the boxcar, and, soon after, many other families flood the land and camp around the boxcars. The Joads feel like royalty, because their home is warm, dry, and has a roof. But then the California winter comes and, with it, heavy rains. The rains soak and flood the land, and the Joads must flee. California is depicted as fiercely beautiful, but incredibly dangerous. Against the backdrop of growth and cultivation, families starve.At the same time, Dust Bowl immigrants like the fictional Joads did not get awarm welcome from California’s farmers and politicians. The newcomers were herded into slum-like migrant camps, given low wages for back-breaking work and treated like criminals. Much of this was an effort by local farmers to take advantage of a cheap labor pool and to prevent labor organizing that would raise wages. Much of it was the result of fear on the part of Californians who were faced with a huge influx of ragged families. The people are migrants now. People in the west terrified of the migrants. Worry about safety and competition for jobs.Steinbeck follows the Joads as they leave their farm to forge a new life in California where life is golden and jobs ar e abundant …or so they think. They are met with distrust and dislike by the residents of the cities they pass through, and they have little success in finding jobs with salaries that they can survive on. Once the Joads reach California, they discover that the situation there is much the same. A whole migrant family working from sunrise to sunset earned hardly enough to buy food for that day. After the harvest season, they were out of work for several months and even the lowest paid jobs were not available. Many migrants survived through begging or scrounging garbage dumps. This situation becomes a great obstacle, not only for the Joads, but for the suffering people of the depression.4. The Influence of the Great Depression on Human Relationship 4.1 Significance of familySteinbeck places much more importance on family values. Each of the twelve characters which make up the family the novel has a distinct purpose in the group. When one leaves, the group suffers for it, making the chance for success not as strong. As families move along in their journeys to California, they begin to trust one other and begin to camp together at night. When this happens, they learn to create sophisticated little worlds in their campgrounds, replete with unspoken laws and codes that cannot be broken, and that, if broken, will result in either death or isolation. The worlds function as efficiently and as intricately as any town or city might. Family is all the Joads have to hold onto in the uncaring world in which they live. It is theonly way they survive in the system which thrives on the exploitation of the poor. The best way for the Joads to gain strength was through groups. Each time a fairly stable group or community was achieved, those in power attempted to destroy the group, effectively taking their strength away. Heavilin explains the theme of teamwork “a more positive characterization of group behavior emerged…where workers could acquire dignity, strength, and power, all inaccessible to the exploited and impotent individual” (Heavilin 56).There is also separation of family during the immigration in Grapes of Wrath. Connie is Rose of Sharon’s nineteen-year-old husband who is “frightened and bewildered” by the changes his wife’s pregnancy has brought upon her. He constantly talks of educating himself by correspondence in order to get a good job, but he is all talk and no action. He often tells Rose of Sharon that he should have stayed behind in Oklahoma and ta ken a job driving a tractor. Connie is devoted to his wife, but he’s a little fearful of her too “Whenever he could, he put a hand on her stood close, so that his body touched her at hip and shoulder, and he felt that this kept a relation that might be dep arting”(Steinbeck 46). He’s a moderate kind of guy “He drank enough, but not too much; fought when it was required of him; and never boasted. He sat quietly in a gathering and yet managed to be there and to be recognized” (Steinbeck 46). Although he is des cribed as “a good hard worker who would make a good husband” (Steinbeck 38) he eventually deserts Rose of Sharon because he has no faith in the family’s struggle to find a better life in California. Connie leaves the Joads for good, abandoning his pregnant wife, when he realizes just how grim the situation is in California. This act of selfishness and immaturity surprises no one but his naïve wife Rose. Connie’s action in this immigration shows the dark side of human beings. It also shows that the destruction of great depression is so tremendous that some people lose their faith and hope.4.2The influence on the Joads and their friendThe Great Depression also brings some changes to some important characters in The Grapes of Wrath. These characters undergo a baptism during this harsh periodand they get to know themselves all over again and turn to be more mature.4.2.1 Ma Joad and RoseThe mother after all, is holding her family together. She becomes stronger and stronger through the migration. She represents the endurance and perseverance of the people in great depression years. Regardless of how bleak circumstances become, Ma Joad meets every obstacle unflinchingly. Time and again, Ma displays a startling capacity to keep herself together and to keep the family together in the face of great turmoil. At one point in the story, Tom Joad considers leaving home rather than possibly endangering his family, however his mother reminds him that without his family, he has nothing. There is no question that in this model the mother makes the most important contributions to the family stability. Ma is always an optimistic person who keeps the whole family going and unified. In California, among family members, only Tom finds a job which lasts just 5 days. Other men remain unemployed and become dismayed. However, Ma does not lose her morale. She encourages them to go on finding jobs. She says “Y ou don’t get the right to be discouraged. This here the family is going under. Y ou just don’t get the right” (Steinbeck 63).Under Ma’s guidance, the Joads continue to search for work in California’s countryside. When Pa Joad expresses his anxiety and sees no hope for the future, Ma encourages him that they will overcome the obstacles as long as they make the greatest effort. She expresses her optimistic attitude toward life in a conversation with her husband “We aren’t going to die out. People are going on changing a little, maybe, but going right on. Everything we do seem to me is aimed right at going on. It seems that way to me. Even getting hungry, even being sick; someone dies, but the rest is tougher. Just try to live the day, just the day”(Steinbeck 64).Under the instruction of these encouraging words, Ma Joad illuminates her family to Triumph over their difficulties and survive in the Great Depression. “She speaks for no particular class but for all human beings” (Hayashi 94).A change is also evident in Rose of Sharon. At the beginning of the novel, she is a self-centered person who does not think very highly of the family or of the people insimilar circumstances. She is pregnant for the first time and in love with her husband so her little world is complete. She constantly bemoans the fact that she needs nutritious food so her baby will be healthy. She is always concerned that what she does or what others do to her will hurt her baby in some way. She is so wrapped up in herself and the baby she is carrying that she does not realize that her family is falling apart. She whines and moans her way through most of the book. However, her attitude undergoes a change at the end of the novel. The death of her child seems to transform her. “Wit h the loss of her husband, Connie, and her still-born baby, she transforms into a dynamic character that puts the cause of the group, survival, before the well-being of herself” (Owens 4). This is shown in the end of the story when she makes the greatest sacrifice and gives dying man sustenance through the milk from her breast. She couldn’t give life to her baby, and feels that being able to give life to another could make up for the lost life. She too is learning about the fellowship of man. “Her hand mov ed behind his head and supported it. She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously” (Steinbeck 581). She is satisfied that she is able to help give life to another person in need because that is her goal in life. “Ju st as Christ did she is able to give up a part of herself for others benefit a decision she made on her own that shows her true maturity level that she has gained from experiences like these”(Shockley 106).Y et it took a deep personal loss, the delivery of a stillborn child, to enable Rose of Sharon to aid the man. She cares for the anonymous man with the same love as she would her child, eschewing her selfish individual concerns for a communal good. With this sacrifice she finally understands her mother and her role as a woman. With her sacrifices Rose of Sharon depicts the ruined aspirations of the Okies and truly becomes a woman. This illustrates the growth of Rose Sharon’s individual soul under the force and suffering of the Great Depression.4.2.2 Tom Joad and CasyTom Joad is capable of many different actions throughout the story, including intimidation, guile, support, love, and even murder. Tom is depicted as wary,。