The Grapes of Wrath: Final Thoughts

I thought The Grapes of Wrath was an excellent book. I loved how the chapters moved from the Joad family, to a more broad view of their predicament. Reading this book is about the third time I have learned about this time period within the past year. We learned about it in American History last year, and I just read a section over it in A People's History of the United States for my AP US class. I like how this novel gave me a different view of what happened. The history books always skim over the things that happen, but this book carried me through the journey with the Joad family.

I thought the book seemed very real. The Joad family is definitely not a perfect family, but they are a family nontheless. They will do anything for eachother, like every other loving family will. The novel takes us through very bad times with the family, but also very happy times. As the reader we share the greif of loosing a loved one as Grampa and Granma Joad die, and Noah and Connie leave. We also share the greif of loosing a friend when Casy and the family dog die.

I think any age group could read this book. Maybe not younger kids, just teenage to adult. Teenagers can relate to this novel through Al Joad. Al is the sixteen year old son who loves cars and girls. He's the typical teenager. At the end of the novel when he decides to marry Agnes Wainwright, the reader becomes very happy for him although a lot of other terrible things are happening.

I also liked how the novel showed the different types of people. For example, the wealthy landowners and farmers, the poor migrant farmers, and the people who work in gas stations, diners, ect. The reader gets to see the differences in all these people. The wealthy landowners and farmers tend to be mean. They do not let anyone farm on their land. They are afraid that the migrant farmers will try to overthrough them like their ancestors overthrew the Mexicans. Most of the poor migrant farmers are pretty compassionate. They see eachother as part of "their people". They try as hard as they can to help eachother out while aslo helping their own family. The other workers, like the gas attendants and waitresses seem mean and greedy at first, but when put in a situation, they usually do the right thing.