This was detailed in the story when the Joads first arrived in California and were astonished to discover that it was not a nice place to live; while the landscape may have been nice, they found that migrants were not entitled to any of it. (Steinbeck 139) Steinbeck's experiences touring these camps were put down in words as the tale of Tom Joad, who upon his release from prison found his family the victims of an economic disaster
"The Chrysanthemums has been called John Steinbeck's best short fiction, and some rank it with the world's greatest short stories." (Haggstrom, Page 1) He wrote the story just a few years before the United States entered World War II
The main problem in their marriage is "a more deeply rooted dysfunction between Henry and Elisa -- a lack of communication." (Palmerino, Page 164) He cares for her and makes efforts to please her, but their marriage lacks a more than superficial emotional connection
On every side it sat like a lid on the mountains and made of the great valley a closed pot." (Steinbeck, "The Chrysanthemums," Page 1) A deserted ranch in the vivacious state of California, during the winter -- the reader should be alerted that there will be tensions in the story and something is awry, restless, or unbalanced: "…fields seemed to be bathed in pale cold sunshine, but there was no sunshine in the valley now in December…It was a time of quiet and of waiting
"Elisa has probably had to bear many hardships; but when she later sees her "babies' at the side of the road where the tinker has thrown them, she is catapulted into sadness." (Thomas, Page 2) In this way, the flowers are symbols for Elisa
In researching this novel Steinbeck toured many migrant labor camps and "saw firsthand the destitution of migrant families in government camps and spontaneous Hoovervilles." (Railsback, 2006, p
"Okies" were thought of as "invaders" by the local Californians who claimed that "they bring disease, they're filthy. We can't have them in the schools." (Steinbeck, 1939, p
But was Steinbeck accurate in his portrayal of "Oakie" life? In a 2002 article Keith Windschuttle presented a series of demographic statistics and census data which he claimed supported his assertion that the numbers of people characterized as "Okies" were far fewer than Steinbeck presented in his novel. (Windschuttle, 2002) While it is difficult to argue with hard facts, Steinbeck's point in writing the Grapes of Wrath was not to make claims about the numbers of people harmed, but to present a social problem in terms of the story of an individual family
Well, sir, you may get a laugh outa this -- I'll take a Buick-Puick. That's good enough. (Steinbeck, 1939, p
We couldn't stop him until it was too late. (Parini) Jay Parini notes that it is the unstoppable craving (or dreaming) that causes the characters to come to harm -- for Curley's wife and Lennie, especially
Steinbeck shows how she nurtures the flowers, just like children. He writes, "Back at the chrysanthemum bed she pulled out the little crisp shoots, trimmed off the leaves of each one with her scissors and laid it on a small orderly pile" (Steinbeck)
He was never mistaken." Charles Baudelaire used to make his morning prayers to God and to Edgar Poe (Bloom 1)
" He sees the intense symbiosis between love and hatred. Love is rarely as simple or as happy as hoped" (Hoffman)
Since then, his works have resulted in uncountable want-to-bes and motivated artists, playwrights/screenwriters and composers. Commentators have seen foreshadowed in him William Butler Yeats, Walter de la Mare, Amy Lowell, Franz Kafka, Graham Greene, Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Satre (Wagenknecht 7)
]" (Tammaro 101). Interestingly, although Steinbeck spent a great amount of time researching this novel and formulating the characters, he really did not take a stand for or against labor or the owners, as this critic noted, In Dubious Battle" exposed the capitalist dynamics of corporate farming, it was consciously nonteleological in its positioning and consequently took no side for or against labor, preferring instead to see the fruit strike as a symbol of "man's eternal, bitter warfare with himself" (DeMott 163)
Lisa's character is richer than the casual reader might perceive. But Werlock also points out how the humanity of other characters -- Mac, Jim, and Doc in particular -- is determined by their relationship with Lisa, and how the "quiet power," of the woman functions throughout the novel (Hayashi xviii)
He has been able to defeat every natural obstacle but himself he cannot win over unless he kills every individual. And this self-hate which goes so closely in hand with self-love is what I wrote about" (Owens 81)
There were the beefluggers, who carried two-hundred-pound quarters into the refrigerator-cars; a fearful kind of work, that began at four o'clock in the morning, and that wore out the most powerful men in a few years. There were those who worked in the chilling-rooms, and whose special disease was rheumatism; the time-limit that a man could work in the chilling-rooms was said to be five years (Sinclair 116-117)
She was hurt so bad she didn't even want a priest. I guess I got something burned out of me that night" (Steinbeck 242)
It is not simply about how mankind treats each other, it is about how mankind sees itself with a kind of self-loathing, and that translates into everything we do and think as humans. As one critic said about the book, "It still stands as the same hard-edged, face-to-face encounter with the human dilemma regarding the nature of work, power, personal freedom, and degree of responsibility and commitment individuals have toward their fellow human beings -- all of this played out in a universe of benign indifference" (Tammaro 101)