Grapes Of Wrath Rhetorical Analysis

Written and published in 1939, John Steinbeck’s novel ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ captures the despair, almost frantic, nature that American society had become after the Wall Street crash of October 29th, 1929. The characters within the novel are attempting to make their way westward across the country – following in the footsteps of many American citizens who, prior to this time period, were pioneers attempting to follow the ideals of Manifest Destiny. During the ten-year-long depression that consumed America in the 1930’s, many Americans completed the same journey that the Joad family are attempting to complete within the novel. The novel, as a whole, depicts a deeply sympathetic emotion towards the migrants, workers, and lower class of American …show more content…
Words such as “jalopies” are frequently scattered around the passages to further the commonplace scene that is being described. The dialect used by the characters facilitates the familiarity of the scene; the use of “ain’t” and “baloney” portray the use of dialect to the omnipresent narrator eloquently as other members of society in a different position would not use this vocabulary. The lack of proper grammar whilst speaking combined with the dialect reflects the tone of the people and characters making their way along the road. Another literary technique used by Steinbeck in order to imply the human nature of the characters travelling, is the lack of punctuation. Whilst the passages from ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ include, and imply, dialogue between characters, there is an absence of correct punctuation – specifically in regards to speech marks. This adds to the frantic emotions that were evident during this time period – each character is simply trying to progress forward along the road, as quickly as they can, in order to improve their stance in society. The lack of punctuation in passages help to portray this to the readers; no matter how many years later they read the