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Description
Forced from their home, the Joad family is lured to California to find work; instead they find disillusionment, exploitation, and hunger.
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis
Summary
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of the Joads, an Oklahoma farming family, as they attempt the journey across the southwest to California and make a new life for themselves during the Dust Bowl and Great Depresion.
Cast of Characters/Important People
Memorable Quotes
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“66 is the mother road, the road of flight”
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“From all of these the people are in flight, and they come into 66 from the tributary side roads, from the wagon tracks and the rutted country roads”
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“Men who can graft the trees and make the seed fertile and big can find no way to let the hungry people eat their produce”
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“Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be eaten”
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“The last clear definite function of man--muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need--this is man. to build a wall, to build a house, a dam, and in the wall and house and dam to put something of Manself, and to Manself take back something of the wall, the house, the dam; to take hard muscles from the lifting, to take the clear lines and form from conceiving. For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.”
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“Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live--for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. And fear the time when the strokes stop while the great owners live--for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken. And this you can know--fear the time when Manself will not suffer an ddie for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.”
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“Sure I got sins. Ever'body got sins. A sin is somepin you ain't sure about.”
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“There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do. It's all part of the same thing. And some of the things folks do is nice, and some ain't nice, but that's as far as any man got a right to say.”
First Sentence
To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.
Table of Contents
Authors & Contributors
- John Steinbeck (Author)
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