Grapes of Wrath- Themes

I think that the theme of a book is very important to the overall message the book is trying to put out. I think the theme in the book Grapes of Wrath is the struggles people were faced with back when this story took place. These struggles could be because of nature, society, or even because of your own family. The farmers back in this time period faced many struggles with nature because there was a long drought that killed their crops. Because of this long drought, the farmers also had to struggle to keep their farms from being taken over by the bank. This book contains a lot of hardships that the Joad family has to overcome. Almost all of the farmers in this book are either forced or chose to pack up their families and head to California. I think that some of the farmers that chose to pack up and leave did this because they knew that their farm was in trouble, and they did not want to fail so they left before they were forced to. I feel really bad for all of these families that have to leave everything they have behind because I know I would have a hard time doing that. It is easy to see that some of the farmers are excited to go to California because they want to get away from all of the struggles back home and get to where they think life will be easy. On the other hand, some farmers did not want to leave their lives back home behind, they loved their farm and they did not want to leave but they realized they had to. By reading this we can tell as readers that the author knows that everybody goes through struggles in their lives, and as portrayed by the Joad family, you have to persevere through them and try to stay together. I think that the theme in this book told us a lot about what the farmers back in this time had to go through just to survive.

Bibliography

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2002. Print