The Grapes of Wrath

Core Value: Communication21st CLE: Students should apply processes of analysis, evaluation and creation in problem-solving.Std12: Students will identify, analyze, & apply knowledge of the structure & elements of fiction & provide evidenceEQ: What are enduring questions & conflicts that writers grappled years ago but are still relevant today?

The Grapes of Wrath

By John SteinbeckHistorical Context

And Introduction


John Steinbeck


Steinbeck’s Vitals• 1902-1968, born in Salinas, California• ·One of the “Big Four” of early 20th Century American Authors-

Steinbeck, Hemmingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald• Nobel Prize in 1962• ·In Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, The Winter of Our

Discontent, Travels with Charley, Cannery Row (he considered East of Eden his best work)

• Proletarian novel – one that documents the oppression of the downtrodden. * (study for test)

Steinbeck Quotes “I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.” “In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.” “The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.


Historical ContextBlack Sunday

Sunday April 14, 1935 - Storms last until May.

-- Lack of crop rotation-- Draught


Black Sunday (4/14/35)


Covers 100,000 acres in mid-southwest for 8 years


Black TuesdayThe Great Depression Imbalance between rich and poor: 0.1 percent of society

earning the same total income as 42 percent.

On Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the stock market crashed, triggering the Great Depression, the worst economic collapse in the history of the modern industrial world. It spread from the United States to the rest of the world, lasting from 1929 until the early 1940s.

-- 15 million unemployed (1/4 of the workforce) Unemployment skyrocketed at an unprecedented rate:

in 1929: 3.2% in 1930: 8.9% in 1931: 16.3% in 1932: 24.1% in 1933: 24.9%


2.5 Million People Leave


Many go to California


Housing Conditions


Homes were now brought with them.


Hoovervilles


Dorothea Lange’s Iconic Image: Migrant Mother


Notes (continued)

• Transcendentalism: literary movementthat focuses on how the ordinary in life can lead to spiritual awakening.

Documents

The Grapes of Wrath