Setting in the Grapes of Wrath
In literature, setting serves to mirror what is occurring in the novel, and can reinforce the mood or climate of the novel. In The Grapes of Wrath the setting of California is symbolic of dashed hopes. As early as Chapter 5, we hear of California as a tantalizing "promised land." The bank spokesmen leave the tenant farmers with one small seed of hope. They ask them, "Why don't you go on west to California? There's work there, and it never gets cold. Why you can reach out anywhere and pick an orange." (46) Through the words of the bank spokesman California is portrayed as a warm, fruitful climate, in which work is readily available. This seems like a place that everyone would want to move to, and for the most part this accurately described the landscape and climate of California. "...Valleys in which the fruit blossoms are fragrant pink and white water in a shallow sea. Then the first tendrils of the grapes, swelling from the old gnarled vines, cascade d
Quite literally the juicy cherries, grapes, and vegetables represent the migrant farmer population, blushing with hope and radiating promise. The full green hills are round and soft as breasts. When the Joads and the other "Okies" arrive in California, however, they find the reality much different than the dream. , And coroners must fill in the certificates-died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. And on the level vegetable lands are the mile-long rows of pale green lettuce and the spindly little cauliflowers, the gray-green unearthly artichoke plants. The Joads travel thousands of miles to live in worse conditions than they had previously lived, with much better scenery. Surely they were not optimistic about their future. However the cherries, grapes, and vegetables, which had grown full of anticipation, have now rotted and fallen upon the fertile earth. " (477)In fact California is not what it is cut out to be. What the Joads do not realize is who does California, as described not seem appealing to? Nonetheless, it they had nothing to lose and everything to gain. In this sense California represents the dashed hopes of the migrant farmer population that had immigrated to California.
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Acceptance Essays
