Grapes of Wrath

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Grapes Of Wrath written by John Steinbeck illustrates the hard ships families went through during the Dust Bowl. Families were forced to leave their farms, jobs, and lives to go find work elsewhere. John Steinbeck shows the struggles through the Joad family, he takes the reader on their journey from leaving Oklahoma to arriving in California. While this family could have given up hope and given into despair they kept on pushing. They never gave up hope despite all of the struggles they faced. Some signs of hope that appeared in the novel were looking for jobs, Rose of Sharon suckling the man, and making it to California.

Along the Joads journey to California they were constantly searching for work along their way. The family needed a job to help pay for their car troubles along with food. Throughout their journey they acquired a couple jobs here and there but nothing to give them enough money. The jobs the family did happen to acquire they got paid barely enough to feed themselves at night.”– we're half starved now. The kids are hungry all the time. We got no clothes, torn an' ragged” (5.13). When the family could no longer take it anymore a new job would come up and they would be able to feed themselves once again. They had to keep their American Dream alive while traveling to their bright new home. If the Joads would have given up hope throughout their journey they would have broke down and been forced to starve to death, instead they kept pushing and kept looking for work.

At the very end of the novel Rose of Sharon does an act most would hesitate to do. She had just had her still born son and her husband had left her. They were living in a box car during a huge storm that lasted for days. They go on in search for dry land and find a barn. The Joads go into the barn to find a young boy and his father very sick and starved. The father had not eaten for days giving all of his food to his son. “Say he wasn’t hungry, or he just ate. Give me the food. Now...
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