John Steinbeck was born and grew up in California. He was enamored by the life and beauty that surrounded him, and his first best sellers carried strong imagery and ideas related to the environment. After the refugees from Oklahoma came pouring into California, a local news agency hired Steinbeck to interview them and learn about the circumstances that brought them their. As a result, during the 1930’s he personally met with and interviewed many of the refugees from Oklahoma. He found they were coming to California in hopes of finding work in the luscious lands of California. Their own homes had been ravaged by the dust storms caused by over farming, making the land infertile and the soil loose and vulnerable to the strong summer winds. There
…show more content…
Water symbolizes many things in literature: purity, cleanliness, and most importantly for this work, life. For a farmer, water is the one of the most important sources they will ever depend on, for without it, they risk losing everything. Steinbeck focused quite a bit on the dust; emphasizing the enormous amounts the people could not escape even in their own homes. This dust is the opposite of water, if their had been water the land may have been spared its harsh and dirty fate. Although Steinbeck only mentions the word water briefly, its power as a symbol is much more stressed by its absence than its presence. It could even be inferred that water is a signifier of wealth, for if the farmers had been able to buy the water they would not be in this mess (Cassuto, pg. 68-71). A lack of money was one of the main reasons the Dust Bowl occurred in the first place. Poor farmers tried to make up for previous years failures by tilling more land, but without water they only ended up destroying it more. Water was not only a symbol of wealth, but also of hope for a dying …show more content…
He appeals to the reader’s empathy of the plight of the farmers as they try to support their families in unfertile land. The anger these men must have felt as they watched their crops wither and die repeatedly, therefore losing any source of income their family could have made. Even the title The Grapes of Wrath implies the author’s own wrath at the situations of both the farmers and the environment. The farmers depend on the land for survival; unlike others they truly understand the importance of the environment for the livelihood. However, understanding the importance of land and knowing how to take care of it are two different things. When the land kept getting worse, instead of stopping and thinking about what they were doing, the farmers persevered and kept hoping that things would get better, “after awhile the faces of the watching men lost their bemused perplexity and became hard and angry and resistant.”(Mckibben and Gore, pg. 257) The more the land failed to provide, the angrier the men became, reflecting the authors own anger at the situation. The author tries to get the audience to understand the frustration of these men, but also make them realize that the harm they caused will take years to fix. It seems to be a warning against being overconfident in an area one knows little about. The farmers felt this frustration when they finally realize they cannot control nature.
Water symbolizes many things in literature: purity, cleanliness, and most importantly for this work, life. For a farmer, water is the one of the most important sources they will ever depend on, for without it, they risk losing everything. Steinbeck focused quite a bit on the dust; emphasizing the enormous amounts the people could not escape even in their own homes. This dust is the opposite of water, if their had been water the land may have been spared its harsh and dirty fate. Although Steinbeck only mentions the word water briefly, its power as a symbol is much more stressed by its absence than its presence. It could even be inferred that water is a signifier of wealth, for if the farmers had been able to buy the water they would not be in this mess (Cassuto, pg. 68-71). A lack of money was one of the main reasons the Dust Bowl occurred in the first place. Poor farmers tried to make up for previous years failures by tilling more land, but without water they only ended up destroying it more. Water was not only a symbol of wealth, but also of hope for a dying …show more content…
He appeals to the reader’s empathy of the plight of the farmers as they try to support their families in unfertile land. The anger these men must have felt as they watched their crops wither and die repeatedly, therefore losing any source of income their family could have made. Even the title The Grapes of Wrath implies the author’s own wrath at the situations of both the farmers and the environment. The farmers depend on the land for survival; unlike others they truly understand the importance of the environment for the livelihood. However, understanding the importance of land and knowing how to take care of it are two different things. When the land kept getting worse, instead of stopping and thinking about what they were doing, the farmers persevered and kept hoping that things would get better, “after awhile the faces of the watching men lost their bemused perplexity and became hard and angry and resistant.”(Mckibben and Gore, pg. 257) The more the land failed to provide, the angrier the men became, reflecting the authors own anger at the situation. The author tries to get the audience to understand the frustration of these men, but also make them realize that the harm they caused will take years to fix. It seems to be a warning against being overconfident in an area one knows little about. The farmers felt this frustration when they finally realize they cannot control nature.