Grapes of Wrath Essay: Theme of Strength Through Unity -- Grapes Wrath

Theme of Strength Through Unity in The Grapes of Wrath   The conventional benevolent family represents a necessary transition between self and comm building blocky. In the difficult era of the 1930s, the familys role shifted to guard against a hostile outside world kind of than to provide a link with it. With the drought in the Dust Bowl and other tragedies of the Great Depression, many were forced to look beyond the traditional family unit and embrace their kinship with others of similar necessity. In his novel The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck habituates the etymon of strength through unity to comment on the relationship between the looseness of the bowels of individual families and the unification of the migrant people. The journey of the Joad family west illustrates this as they depart a parched Oklahoma, arrive in a hostile California, and eventually chill out in amongst others as unwelcome there as they argon. With the return of Tom to the family in the begin ning of the story, the Joad family is once again united, though at the same time we see them to be utterly isolated from other migrants. It is not until the loss of a proverbial right-arm of the family (Grandpa) that the family is first unified with others, the Wilsons. As their journey progresses, they lose more than members and struggle through increasing hardships, but in each situation the two families act as one and persevere. Grandma follows her husband to the grave, Ivy Wilsons wellness degrades, Noah leaves the family he knows doesnt truly love him, their cars continually break down, and their money is fast disappearing. Vehicles, food, and money are all shared, but with one familys loss the constitutional group benefits. The Joad familys experiences when they first arrive in California ar... ...ns baby is stillborn, signifying a terrible loss to the Joad family. Soon after, they come upon another family, and Rose of Sharon is able to use the milk meant for her dead chil d to help a sick, starving old man. Whats more, Rose of Sharon used her own milk, something normally only for the family, signifying the absence of a traditional family, and instead a universal family of a common plight. Throughout the course of the story, roughly half of the Joad family dies or disappears, but by the end of the novel the Joads are in a desperate yet relatively comfortable position. This was because as they gave up their kin, they were welcomed into society as a whole. In this manner John Steinbeck uses the theme Unity leads to Survival to comment on the relationship between the dissolution of individual families and the unification of the migrant people.