Analysis of a Passage from The Grapes of Wrath Essay -- essays researc

Depicting the Dust Bowl exodus, The Grapes of Wrath is a literary masterpiece. Development and hierarchy are portrayed. In the passage to be studied, almost at the beginning of the novel, Tom Joad, who has just been released from prison, discovered his abandoned house. Travelling with Casy, a former preacher, they met Muley Graves , one of his former neighbours who refused to leave the country, after people have been tractored off. Hardly the only one to speak, Muley explained how he then lived alone, wandering from one empty house to another. A certain evolution is present throughout the passage that can be compared to a human being?s life. First, birth can be paralleled with a kind of creation. Then, the adult is the one who makes a living, and has responsibilities towards the younger ones, as well as the older ones. And finally, a human being?s life ends with death, and this shift can last more or less. Birth is the beginning of life. It can be compared to a kind of creation. Muley refers to a birth in his discourse: Joe?s birth. Because it is a significant episode and it illustrates the beginning of a new life, one?s birth has always been a happy event: ?An? her so proud she bust three cups that night? (l35-6). Becoming a father is a meaningful step in a man?s life. Moreover, a child is the promise of something new: new hopes, a new life. But parents have to take decisions for the wellbeing of their child since they are the only means of survival, and the most important decision might be the one choice of the place where the child is to be born. As far as the land matter is concerned, nationality depends on the place where somebody was born. Therefore, it explains the strong feeling someone can have for the place wher... ...ossible advancement. A kind of hierarchy is present throughout the passage: in life, in society, and with Nature. A person is born, lives and dies. In the countryside, people live thanks to Nature and what it offers its best: a land to work. But in town, people, especially clerks and banks, have another preoccupation: benefit. The passage enhances that money is becoming more and more important, and it will take an important place in people?s life from now on. Between the three characters, a kind of hierarchy is felt too: the child, self-centred, but who wants to learn what life is, the adult, open-minded, who wants to help others, and the old one, desperate and lonely, who has no future but to think incessantly to his past life. A transcendentalist vision can be added to the passage, and then the part played by Nature opposed to the part played by human beings.