First, Steinbeck uses California as the setting of The Grapes of Wrath. California is an Eden of sorts. The Joad family wants to live in this beautiful place.
“we all live east of Eden ... in our race's imagination we come out of the East, out of the land where the sun rises. And in America, in California, we contemplate the starting out on our imaginary journey even as we stand in the place of our dreaming, the embodiment of all our doubts." (Ditsky). …show more content…
They are moving from place to place, trying to save enough to just "live off the fatta' the lan'." (Mice, 57). Second, Steinbeck’s tone in Of Mice and Men is sympathetic to the