Preview

Character Analysis of Grampa Joad in Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
618 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Character Analysis of Grampa Joad in Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath
Throughout today’s world, many people portray home to be a place to live. Home, on the other hand has a greater meaning. For people being able to have grown up in houses owned by their parents, they became the main source for memories as a child — the place that were played and argued and that hung artwork around and marked the wall with pencil lines as children grew and aged. For better or worse, the houses of childhoods represented an outward expression of how hard work had paid off in respect of the community. Home is a place where people are comfortable, safe, or even where they grew up with their family. Home influences the life of people and how people live their life. Throughout the Grapes of Wrath, people are drastically hurt by the sight of the dust bowl destroying their own home. Thousands had to evacuate their communities in order to stay alive, to make money, and to just protect their family. Grampa Joad in this book shows that home is not only where one lives, but how they live their life and others by his family and own geographical surroundings. Throughout chapter ten, Grampa Joad explains that his home is where his family is from, and where he grew up. He said, “Me-I’m stayin’. I give her a goin-over all night mos’ly. This here’s my country. I b’long here. An’ I don’t give a goddamn if they’s oranges an’ grapes crowdin’ a fella outta bed even. I ain’t a-goin’. This country aint no good, but it’s my country. No, you all go ahead. I’ll just stay right here where I b’long.” Grampa Joad explains that his home is his own life and moving will change him and his culture whether there’s more tog et from leaving his own home. His home is his country; A part of his life where his is safe and benefits himself plus the benefit of others. Many people say there home is one place, but Grampa Joad explains that his home is where he stays to live and to die. Oklahoma is where he and his family grew up and will not leave. Grampa said, “Goddamn it, I’m a ol’ man,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Homesickness is the experience of longing for one’s home during a period of absence from it. In “Snapping Beans” by Lisa Parker the idea of homesickness is a described as a young girl and her grandmother snap beans together after she returns from college. Although the snapping of the beans is a very important aspect of the poem the symbolization of a “hickory leaf” is far more important than this simple yet important and homely task. The summer green hickory leaf represents the girl breaking away from the morals and ways of life her grandmother has set for her, although she is breaking away, from the old school point of view her grandmother has, she still is able to stay true to the person she is. First and…

    • 536 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In addition, Gram and Gramps also helped Sal accept her mother’s death. Within the book, on page 143 Gram says to Sal, “Sometimes you know in your heart you love someone, but you have to go away before your head can figure it out” (Creech 143). I can infer, that Gram was trying to explain to Sal that her mother didn’t leave because of her, but to clear her mind. Gram saying this to Sal was important for Sal’s knowing that her mother didn’t leave because of the baby that died before birth. Along with Gram saying that to Sal, she one day realized, “that our whole trip to Lewiston had been a gift from Gram and Gramps to me. They were giving me a chance to walking my mother’s moccasins - to see what she had seen, and feel what she might have felt on her last trip” (Creech 262). Although Sal didn’t realize it during the trip, looking back, she figures out that Gram and Gramps were leading her through the stages of grief and allowing her to cope with the loss of her mother. Surely, Gram and Gramps had an impact on Sal accepting her mother’s death in numerous ways.…

    • 275 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The author, John Steinbeck, of “The Grapes of Wrath,” wrote this masterpiece of a novel in 1939. Steinbeck who utilized his books to write about the lives of the most downtrodden people of society during those times, used “The Grapes of Wrath,” to depict and fixate on the lives of workers migrating from Oklahoma to California during the early part of the 1930s (Steinbeck-Introduction Section). In Steinbeck’s story “The Grapes of Wrath,” he breaks the chapters down into three parts. Chapters one through eleven describes a terrible drought, called the Dust Bowel, which had ravaged an area of land known as the Southern Great Plains located between the western parts of Oklahoma to the panhandle areas of Texas. The area received its name because…

    • 342 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    From his portrayal, it seems that he would miss the place where he grew up with all the memories and people that it has that have previously affected his life. On the other hand, I illustrate home in a different way, describing various aspects of my room and my…

    • 637 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Home is defined as the place in which one lives or resides, usually with those they love. However in Thomas Kings “Borders” a family is kept from their home and loved ones because of a difference in opinion of what defines a home. In his short story of determination ad persistence King uses the duty free store and its parking lot to define the family’s home and what exactly that means to both them and the world. For simply borders surrounding you but how can one truly define some home know what is home, for it is different for everyone.…

    • 808 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    John Steinbeck is an American novelist and is considered also a socialist. He was born in February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. He dropped out college and tried to work as a manual laborer but failed. Later he began to be a successful writer. His novel The Grapes of Wrath is a prize-winning novel that portrays the plight of rural laborers during the Great Depression. In this novel, both Steinbeck’s wrath and optimism are woven. His sympathy towards the migrant workers and sense of outrage are well-portrayed in the novel. This research paper will handle in detail how the novel’s state of anger is prevailed as well as the novel’s different…

    • 112 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Over the course of a student’s life under the American education system, they will read at least two books by California writer and possible communist, John Steinbeck. The longer, sadder, and more proletarian book, Grapes of Wrath, tells the tale of the great migration of Midwestern farmers traveling to California during the 1930s. Grapes of Wrath was not Steinbeck’s first venture into the tragedies that faced migrant farmers once they reached California. He had previously composed an article titled Starvation Under the Orange Trees in 1938 which detailed the hardships that migrant farmers faces in California. Steinbeck uses these two works to describe the atrocities that migrants’ faces and place blame on landowners and corporations and declare…

    • 1389 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Great Depression affected the lives of the rural poor. People who farmed were pushed away from their homes when they lost their farms, and money. Some farmers that moved away were called names that made people feel horrible. The biggest effects that caused these impacts on farmers was the Dust Bowl, their lose of money, and Discrimination.…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A person's morals change over time with economic burdens, social struggles, and for political reasons. In different situations a person is going to adjust accordingly. In the novels The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain the two protagonists, Tom Joad and Huckleberry Finn their morals changed with certain circumstances they were put in and were not influenced by the law itself. Throughout each one of the books all of the characters showed growth and developed in three main areas socially, politically, economically, and with family.…

    • 969 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun explores one extended family’s journey toward social and economic agency against the turbulent backdrop of post-World War II America. While Hansberry speaks to the idea of dreams deferred, she also emphasizes that the path to home ownership and social presence promises to be a significant undertaking for the Younger family. Hansberry offers pointed commentary on the frustration of African Americans (embodied in the Youngers’ experiences), who exist as second-class denizens without the rights of true citizenship. Consistent with this commentary are the dominant and reoccurring themes of social and heritage displacement that threaten to relegate the Youngers to an ephemeral existence.…

    • 108 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the Autobiographical Essay “On Going Home” by, Didion’s goal is to show how a parents “home” will not be the same as their Childs “home”, How everyones home is different. Didion accomplishes this goal and demonstrates her point well.…

    • 271 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Introduction: To many of us, the definition of home is consistently referred to as the place where one lives perpetually, particularly as a member of a family or household. However, the definition in a textbook does not take into account the stories we carry on our shoulders and the powerful impacts people contribute upon us.…

    • 793 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In my creative piece, I used Lassel’s technique of depicting photographic moments to convey what home means to me. Just the topic of the southern lifestyles comes as a sensitive yet powerful subject for me. In my essay I decided to thoroughly develop strong mental pictures of the place I was raised and explain what it is that makes that friendly community of Lake Travis, Texas so special to me. Pinpointing the things that jog my memory of what it’s like to be from the welcoming town of LT in Austin, Texas. My main goal of the creative piece I wrote was to make everyone from different origins and hometowns, think about where they’re from and discern what having that place to call home means to them as I so passionately specify what it means to me.…

    • 2536 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Handmaids Tale and 1984

    • 1182 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Home is where one’s family is. It is the one place people connect with their loved ones and create memories that last a lifetime. In John Bon Jovi’s song “Who Says You Can’t Go Home,” he sings about the exclusive qualities a home possesses. He sings “there’s only one place left I want to go, who says you can’t go home” (Bon Jovi). When one is with his family, the force from within feels almost invincible. A group of individuals is always more powerful than one single person. One’s family is a group he can always rely on. Winston and Offred lack the ability to branch out and fight for their beliefs because if they should, they would be isolated. It is difficult to be different when one is different alone. Offred is forced to acknowledge the lifestyle of Gilead and has no choice but to adopt Gilead as her new family. Winston must accept the rules and a regulations presented by Oceania, and has no choice but to pursue the life Big Brother has planned. With the help and support of a true family, fear will subside and the once thought impossible, can become possible. The great Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird, said “You can choose your friends but you sho ' can 't choose your family, an ' they 're still kin to you no…

    • 1182 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    father says where they live is the best place by saying, “Those people, when they see our…

    • 1384 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays