John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath, was first written and later published in the 1939. From the time of its publication to date, the exemplary yet a simple book has seen Steinbeck win a number of highly coveted awards including Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and later on Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. Set at the time of the Great Depression, the book most remarkably gives a descriptive account of the Oklahoma based sharecropper Joad’ poor family in the light of economic hardship, homelessness, and the impacts of worst changing agricultural and financial sectors to the poor in America then. Throughout the chapters, the book brings into sharp focus the dehumanizing individual lives of the lower class during the time of Great Depression and lack of political goodwill among the rich political class to reverse the trend. The aim of this paper therefore is to provide an in depth review of The Grapes of Wrath.The book begin with the aftermath of the Midwestern dustbowl and the great economic depression on the lives of the poor farmers in Oklahoma, America after the World War I. the commercial banks under the directives of the ruling class introduced a loan scheme in which the poor farmer were empowered to acquire tractors and other expensive agricultural equipments so as to fully mechanized their agricultural production operations. In the process, productive lands were used as a security to guarantee repayment of the advanced loans. The author puts it out rightly that the aim of this loaning scheme to the farmers as given by the bank was an economical tool preplanned and effected by the top ruling elites to rob the farmers of their lands.As the American Economic depression set in purportedly under the contrivance of the ruling …
…ctual mood of the book. Steinbeck artistically used literary techniques to develop his theme against a hostile environment. Apparently as one reads the book, it creates mental visualizations of the true feelings held by the exploited migrants. Nevertheless, the critics of Steinbeck maintain that the book is more of a fiction because he incorporates very limited independent references and historical evidence about the subject matter of his book. It is therefore dismissed as a pure work of socialist propaganda particularly in Oklahoma and California.In conclusion, the book not only plays a very important role in exposing the miserable lives of the poor farmers: Okies in America but it also captures the detrimental effects of the American Great Economic Depression on the lives of the lower class. It is on this basis that I recommend this book for general readership.
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