The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck: book review

In the deep depression of the 20s the Joad family becomes one of many families to migrate towards the West Coast. As they travel from Oklahoma to California they hopes are raised by employment adverts; however their hopes and dreams are smashed as the Great Depression inspired injustice forces them down a road that many unfortunate families have travelled.

The Joad family is a strong one, but as they deal with injustice and the power of a few, they must struggle simply to stay together despite the many forces that seemingly threaten to break them apart at every step. As they move from city to city, not finding work and in many cases being shunned, they cannot understand the amount of waste as people starve and die.

I have been lucky in life, and although there have been times where money was scarce, I never really was in a desperate situation. As I read this wonderful book I soon began to realize how lucky I was; the sense of poverty, depression and sheer fear is very tangible in this book. It portrays the starkness and reality of the Great Depression and shows it through the eyes of a normal family.

It’s a simple and straightforward book telling the story in a forthright way, not hiding the dangers of such a journey. The starkness really gets the point across, making us think how desperate these people must have been.

In addition it shows the many moral problems as those in power take advantage of the needy, and how the needy have to scramble simply to live.  It comments about the fact that corporations destroy products that they cannot sell rather than giving them to the poor, and thus shows how greed seems to overcome compassion and humanity.

Perhaps the most compelling side of the book is the characters you meet in the Joad family. It’s just a typical family struggling to get by, but within this family you see courage, cowardice, grief, love and most other human conditions; the characters are real, and you do find yourself getting attached to them and feeling their disappointments. You find yourself wondering what happened to them, but most of all you find yourself wondering what you would have done if you had been in their position.

This book is a classic and a must-read; however even if you don’t have the time to read the book, watch the movie – it does a good job of capturing the characters and the starkness.