Talk:The Grapes of Wrath/Archive 1

Difficult to Understand
The plot summary section is very difficult to understand. It makes mention of things without clarifying on what happened (For example "This realization, supported by the deaths of Grandpa and Grandma and the departure of Noah (the eldest Joad son) and Connie (the husband of the pregnant Joad daughter, Rose of Sharon), is forced from their thoughts: they must go on because they have no other choice." mentions those events without explaining them at all.) 71.124.41.111 (talk) 01:03, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Cover
Can't we get a cover of the first edition of the book? Or at least one that dates from the first couple of years? Nobody wants to see some 1997 Penguin cover or whatever that is. --Priceyeah 00:38, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
 * You find one then......Cls14 21:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Found a version of the cover showing both the front and back. I'm not experienced editing Wiki pages. If anyone would like to grab that image and replace the one now displayed it is at http://library.syr.edu/digital/exhibits/g/GrapesOfWrath/lgimage/GrapesOfWrath.jpg —Preceding unsigned comment added by Endy9 07:44, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

True or False
My high school teacher told me that TGOW was written in 30 days. Any truth to it? Can anyone find a source to back it up? Leonida August 27 2006
 * Though I don't have an answer, I would say that that's unlikely. Possibly an early revision of the work took a month, but I find it improbable that the book was written wholesale in a month, it being about five hundred pages, depending on the edition. I'd press your English teacher on that one. Ourai  т с 03:43, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Your teacher may have got confused with On the Road which was written in a few days ("not writing typing") - and it shows. Dr Spam (MD) 07:54, 12 December 2006 (UTC)


 * It depends on what you mean by "written in thirty days". One could easily type out a masterpiece novel in that time span, but that really only accounts for a very small fraction of the work. The actual "writing" is the thinking through of the material that the author wants to include: some people take their whole lives to do that. Given the quality of The Grapes of Wrath, I think we can safely rule out the thirty-day hypothesis. -- Todeswalzer | Talk 00:22, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Steinbeck began writing TGOW on June 1st, 1938 and finished the first draft of the handwritten manuscript on October 26th, 1938. See Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath edited by Robert DeMott, for more info on the composition of the novel.69.109.227.108 (talk) 05:31, 18 December 2007 (UTC)Frank

e-book?
anybody know where I can find the text of this book on-line?


 * there is a text document of the book at S-man64 13:24, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
 * If there is it's not legal, since this book is still under copyright in the US. Cactus Wren 22:22, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Themes
This novel has some very important themes and comments on mankind as a whole. A section relating to themes should be added. (For basic ideas see the SparkNotes entry.) I hope to contribute to this article in the near future. It might be good to establish a to-do list as well. –  Heav  e  n's Wrath    Talk  05:55, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Some clean-up
I've made a number of changes to the structure (but not so much to the content) of this article. To begin with, I've removed the following sentence,


 * The family's name, "Joad", is similar to the first name of the Biblical figure Job (pronounced "Jobe"), who suffered greatly when tested by God, but nevertheless maintained his faith.

from the article for the moment, not because it isn't important or relevant (quite the contrary, in fact), but because there simply is not a place for it at the moment. We can put this back in once a proper section has been established to detail the themes of the novel. I've also removed


 * Woody Guthrie wrote The Ballad of Tom Joad the night he saw the film. He described the film in a column: "Shows the damn bankers' men that broke us and the dust that choked us, and comes right out in plain old English and says what to do about it. It says you got to get together and have some meetins, and stick together, and raise old billy hell till you get your job, and get your farm back, and your house and your chickens and your groceries and your clothes, and your money back" (reprinted in Woody Sez [New York, 1975], p. 133).

because this belongs more on the page discussing the film than it does here. I've also removed the section dealing exclusively with awards and nominations, since this merely reproduces information already found elsewhere in the article.

Finally, there were too many unnecessary sections. I've combined the numerous sections at the end of the article into one main section dealing with the novel's appearance in popular culture (adaptations, music, etc.). I also combined most of the elements of the plot summary into a second lead paragraph, and moved -- for the time being, anyway -- the discussion of the article's title to the end of the plot summary section. This might also be further developed and then moved to a future section about thematic concerns. -- Todeswalzer | Talk 22:42, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

"Explanation of the novel's title"
In the section on "Explanation of the novel's title," I thought it was also because the first flyer that they got was saying they could pick grapes, but when they got there, there weren't any jobs. So that made them angry. Anger is wrath, so you get "Grapes Of Wrath" but please correct if I'm wrong. We're studying the Great Depression in school and our exam will have things about The Grapes Of Wrath, so I'd really like to know if I'm correct! Thanks! Kschechter 03:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

The reference to "grapes of wrath" comes from the Book of Revelations, chapter 14 which is where the hymnist took it from. ("And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God." etc etc) Dr Spam (MD) 07:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)


 * The article's explanation is correct. It was in The Battle Hymn of the Republic.  I would go with this explanation.  –   Heav  e  n's Wrath    Talk  04:14, 17 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It's also a quotation from the end of Chapter 25: "The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back;  they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed.  And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze;  and in the eyes of the people there is the failure;  and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath.  In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage."  Cactus Wren 01:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I think this preceeding fact should be incorperated into the article, especially because that quote is of key importance in the novel: telling us that the hardship will eventually turn to anger and invoke change.78.16.17.186 (talk) 12:49, 17 November 2008 (UTC)


 * This omission caught my eye on the first read as well. I have added it to the article, though I used less of the the next to last sentence than quoted above, and rather described it as "destruction of food to keep the price high" as that is not obvious what is going on from the quote. Wojtow (talk) 14:01, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Bias
"One should note that this novel is a fictional characterization of the plight of tenant farmers. Two-thirds of farmers in the dust bowl, primarily farmers who actually owned the land, actually stayed in Oklahoma and survived these storms. Many of these families held on and actually prospered in later years. One should avoid the tendancy of extrapolating the plight of the Joads into the fate of all residents of the dust bowl era. In many ways, this novel has contributed to a false characterization of the peoples in the affected midwest U.S. areas." That section seems awfully npov...it implies that people didn't suffer during the great depression, though i have read that many farmers actually suffered more than the Joads did. If no complaints, I'm going to remove that section...maybe it can go under criticism or something, though i think it would need support from a credible source. 66.41.62.136 02:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, and it still stinks. "Two-thirds of farmers... actually stayed in Oklahoma..." Two-thirds. That's a lot. You know what else is a lot? One-third. --Tysto 23:30, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Popular Culture
There is a reference to this book on a simpsons episode, I don't know which one but it's the episode where Lisa meets a rival/ --203.97.127.185 06:06, 1 January 2007 (UTC)


 * haha, I don't know if you were trying to be funny with that statement, but the episode is called "Lisa's Rival". The students are making diaramas for "Diarama-rama", and Nelson's is just a pile of grapes. When Skinner inquires, Nelson says "Here's the grapes, and" -- pulling out a hammer -- "here's the wrath." -- Todeswalzer | Talk 16:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Allusions
The new allusions section either needs to be removed, or a lot of work done to it. The novel doesn't 'allude' to Virgil's Aeneid, it just has some parallels that I'm not sure are worth mentioning. Also, its fairly poorly written ("The novel can be a reference to anything."). I propose a complete rewrite or deletion, but I have not read the book in years, so I'm hesitant myself. Lebroyl 14:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Criticism
"Some people feel that the real Oklahoma and its people don't fit the description in the book and that this novel has contributed to a supposed false characterization of the peoples in the affected midwest U.S. areas."

This seems to have been here for a while, but I'm not sure why.

I'm sure 'some people' think that, however in the interests of fairness I think we should have an 'Anti-criticism' section, for which I propose:

'Some people feel that noted revisionist Keith Windschuttle is simply trying to promote his own right-wing agenda.'

Seriously, if no one feels this adds anything of note, I'll delete it. Roman Candle 01:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

For literary criticism, rather than citing one critic, or a generic "some people," it's far better to go for a professional librarian's summary of the criticism. I've provided one, with URL source; he references over thirty sources. 3Tigers07:14, 18 February 2007 (PST)

Upon further consideration, the whole criticism section of this article was totally inadequate. It's one of the most famous novels in human history, with vast amounts of critical literature dedicated to it. I've reworked the whole thing with critical summaries from Steinbeck scholars and librarians, with sources. Needs a lot more work, but I'm short on time. I'll get back to it. 3Tigers09:30, 18 February 2007(PST)


 * I'm with both Roman Candle and 3Tigers here. The "some people" who think that this novel doesn't represent -- at least generally -- what life was like for Oklahoma's poor during the Depression have obviously not picked up either a history book or the novel itself (or both). I don't think we can find a reputable source advocating such nonsense: so please remove the phrase. Better commentary can be found. (And although it's a relatively minor issue, just to help keep things in perspective I feel bound to point out that while the novel is inarguably one of the most important in American literature, I think it falls short of world fame.) -- Todeswalzer | Talk 20:07, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Banned?
I've removed the following from the article to this talk page:


 * The Grapes of Wrath was banned upon its publication in 1939 in Kern County, California, where a great part of the novel is set. The official reason given was the coarse language it contained, and the "nudity" (breast feeding) scene at the end of the book.  However, the driving force behind the banning was the Associated Farmers of Kern County. Criticism was also often leveled at the novel's depiction of a minister as an open sexual predator. The book is frequently banned in schools across the United States, and in 1986, in Graves County, Kentucky, an adult was almost arrested for possession of a copy. In Austin, Texas if you even speak about it you could be in big trouble.

I've never heard of the book being banned and, although a number of books were blacklisted in the United States around the time the novel was first published (such as Joyce's Ulysses), this still needs to be cited. Furthermore, the paragraph just seems to get worse as it goes on. Someone "almost arrested" in 1986 for owning a copy? This seems completely ludicrous to me and I would certainly not accept that as fact without proper documentation. Lastly, there's an obvious POV/clarity issue with the final sentence.

I first tagged the section five months ago as lacking sources, so whoever added this information has had ample time to include their references. The section belongs here until the facts can be properly attributed to their sources. -- Todeswalzer | Talk 02:41, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Influence on New Deal
I removed the unsourced assertion that "[The Grapes of Wrath] is believed to have influenced [the] New Deal." The novel was published in 1939, by which time all significant New Deal reforms had already been implemented, and a central drama (the reactionary Supreme Court and FDR's court-packing plan) had already played out. Indeed, WP's own New Deal article gives an end date of 1938. Given these uncontroversial facts about the duration of the New Deal, it seems clear that this novel couldn't have influenced the New Deal. SS451 07:55, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Tom an advocate for proletarians?
The plot summary says that Tom became an advocate for the proletarian. This might (or might not) be technically correct, but it is very misleading since such vocabulary was not used in the book, and I seriously doubt Tom's character would have any idea what a proletarian was. Note in the film section this quote: "there are several references to socialist politics and questions which appear in the John Ford film of 1940 which do not appear in the novel, which is less political in its terminology and interests." Maybe we could change proletarian to "workers and the oppressed"? Or simply "the oppressed" if we need brevity.

-changed "proletarian" to "the oppressed".


 * Personally, I prefer "proletarian" although it should be "proletariat" which has a specific meaning in the English language: "Wage-earners collectively, esp. those without capital and dependent on selling their labour". I think that's more accurate and pertinent than the comparitively vague and wide-ranging "oppressed", and for this reason I don't think it's misleading to use it. On the contrary in fact. 81.96.164.105 (talk) 12:54, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
 * However, the term proletariat is never actually used by Tom, so I think that we would be violating No original research by assuming that that's what Steinbeck intended. Zeldafanjtl (talk) 14:30, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

What years?
Which year(s) are covered in the novel? Or is just generically "1930s". -- 71.191.131.7 14:31, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't believe that it ever gives an exact date. Zeldafanjtl (talk) 14:27, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality
Isn't it a little strong to use phrases like "The novel is meant to emphasize..." when it is really a rather ambiguous book that never explicitly states its intention in any way? Also, the article states quite definitely that "although Steinbeck was accused of exaggeration of the camp conditions to make a political point, in fact he had done the opposite, underplaying the conditions that he well knew were worse than the novel describes." While it cites a source for this, it never allows for the possibility of the opposite view, which can also be sourced(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okie#_note-6 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okie#_note-7). Carter Butaud (talk) 08:21, 17 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I have to disagree.
 * To describe Steinbeck as an elitist "who misinterpreted the Okie experience and then imposed that leftist misinterpretation on the American consciousness", can hardly be regarded as NPOV. So if the neutrality tag should be used somewhere it is in the Okie article.
 * Furthermore, as far as I can see this article as a whole is neutral and well-balanced. So if this was the only reason to add the POV template, I propose you (1) rework the section by adding appropriate references to it; (2) or use the  tag in the section rather than at the top of the page.
 * Hope you don't mind, but I remove the tag.
 * / Mats Halldin (talk) 17:30, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The Death of Grandpa Joad
The article states that Grandpa Joad died because of the medicine he was given when he resisted going to California. I have never heard anything like that. Has anyone else here ever heard anything like that? Do we know where that statement came from? LLBBooks (talk) 07:40, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The book doesn't say that, it says a stroke. However, someone fixed it, so I guess there's no problem. Zeldafanjtl (talk) 14:26, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Angry Raisins
Typing 'Angry Raisins' into the search field redirects to this article! How brilliant is that?! Apparently that was a rumoured Japanese 'mistranslation' of the title (an urban myth, actually, with no basis in fact). 90.210.185.221 (talk) 21:05, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

South Park episode
Would a short description of the South Park episode "Over Logging" be relevant to this page? The storyline of that episode is loosely based on this book. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.71.39.108 (talk) 16:05, 5 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The issue is "loosely based", which seems to be more a matter of some editors' opinions rather than sourcing to external critical reviews, etc. Tedickey (talk) 16:08, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Muley
Muley was an important character in the beginning of the book. Shouldn't we include him in the list of characters? --SpongeSebastian (talk) 02:21, 1 May 2010 (UTC)


 * His role is only secondary (a walk-on role). The major characters would be involved in the shaping of the plot Tedickey (talk) 12:23, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Grapes of Wrath reference in Boy Meets World
I keep trying to add in the pop culture references section the episode of Boy Meets World called "Me and Mrs. Joad" where the book inspires Cory and Shawn to do a class "strike" without realizing that there's a price to pay to do what you think is right. It keeps getting deleted over and over (even after I went to all the trouble to cite a reference that tells the show's plot) and that episode reflects the book's main plot and moral perfectly. So what's wrong with its inclusion?75.81.204.244 (talk) 17:02, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The source doesn't mention this topic, for instance. TEDickey (talk) 20:21, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The latest edit gave essentially the same information, which doesn't mention this topic. If the (assumed) use of GOW in that television episode isn't marked enough to cite in, and use as a basis for the plot summary, then the episode is unrelated to this topic TEDickey (talk) 13:09, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Contribution by Sanora Babb
I'm working on expanding the article on Sanora Babb, and Steinbeck borrowed the research for her own book about the Dust Bowl, Whose Names Are Unknown. She was born on Otie Indian land in Oklahoma, was raised on a "broomcorn" farm in Colorado and worked for the Farm Security Administration where she collected stories from the displaced farmers. The publication of her book in 1939 was canceled when The Grapes of Wrath became a best-seller, and remained in a drawer until 2004. According to her obituary, several critics preferred her novel.

Anyway, I believe her contribution should be acknowledged. K8 fan (talk) 17:35, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Who banned it?
It's commonly said the book was banned, but who was it? Local only? National? Details please. 75.15.208.182 (talk) 02:10, 28 January 2012 (UTC)27 Jan 2012

The Dreaded "In my opinion...."
In the plot summary the dreaded "In my opinion....." phrase comes up. I shall remove it, lol.

¶ This summary of the novel ends where the movie ends, but there is a further development in the novel: Fairly early, Rose of Sharon's husband, Noah, suddenly abandons his family and runs off - evidently deludeded by a magazine ad for a mail order course on how to fix radios. In the end of the story, the valley where the Joads were camped is flooded out before Rose's baby can be buried. In an act of bitter defiance the baby's corpse is put in a wooden crate and floated out on the flood, to serve as a message of the suffering being endured. The family encounters a young boy who leads them to his father, who is nearly dead from starvation because he had been giving all his share of food to his son; the man is so weak that he cannot now digest any solid food, but Ma scoots the family out of sight so that Rose, in pain from lactating for her dead baby, can wetnurse this near-comatose man to save his life. Sussmanbern (talk) 00:16, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

ken burns - the dust bowl & sanora babb
from Sanora Babb's article

"In 1938 she returned to California to work for the Farm Security Administration. While with FSA, she kept detailed notes on the tent camps of the Dust Bowl migrants to California,[6] that were loaned to John Steinbeck by her supervisor Tom Collins. She turned the stories she collected into her novel, Whose Names Are Unknown. Bennett Cerf planned to publish the novel with Random House, but the appearance of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath caused publication to be shelved in 1939. Her novel didn't get published until 2004."

this information was from the pbs documentary The Dust Bowl by Ken Burns.

doesn't this deserve a mention in the development section? &asymp;Sensorsweep (talk) 02:43, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Galbraith source
There is more than one issue: "How did Galbraith react to this harsh lesson in unintended consequences? He said nothing. I was hoping that he later talked to his friend, John Steinbeck, who wrote about these displaced sharecroppers in The Grapes of Wrath, and maybe pointed out the U.S. government's wrath. But no such conversation is reported."
 * as written, the comment implies that the AAA is a major factor in the problems of the Joads. Steinbeck does not hint of this; he presents the banks and landlords as the source of the problem.
 * The given source is not directly topical, since the only mention made in it is to admit that there is no documented connection, e.g.,

So what we have is possible soapboxing - not a useful change TEDickey (talk) 20:21, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
 * This is old, but true. Where is this at?

Bryan Cordyack's quote
In the critical reception part of the novel it appears as though Bryan Cordyack's quote on the supposed pack of lies of a book that John Steinbeck published is unfinished. There is no quotation mark to tell when his quote ends. This needs to be fixed, but how? Sincerely, FDJK001 (talk) 03:05, 28 May 2015 (UTC).
 * RESOLVED.
 * FDJK001 (talk) 06:52, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Stolen from Sanora Babb
Steinbeck copied the journalist Sanora Babb's notes in order to write "Grapes of Wrath" and that needs to be stated on this page. By stealing Babb's notes, Steinbeck prevented her from publishing her own book. A stolen work should not be a classic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jollyroger23 (talk • contribs) 14:32, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Development
Steinbeck kept a diary as he wrote Grapes of Wrath, chronicling his struggles and successes with the novel. The diary was publishing as Working Days: The Journals of the Grapes of Wrath. It seems appropriate to reference the diary in this section. Sara with no h (talk) 01:02, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Religious Interpretation
This section seems highly biased towards painting Casy and Tom Joad as Christ-like figures. While it is true that some scholars have interpreted them as such, it is also true that this viewpoint has been contested: other scholars interpret Grapes of Wrath in a completely secular manner. This section should reflect both interpretations. Sara with no h (talk) 01:23, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

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movie info
Quote: "The first part of the film version follows the book fairly accurately. However, the second half and the ending, in particular, differ significantly from the book."

Suggestion: Elaborate a little. Does the film end in a happy ending while the novel perhaps does not? Is the political message significantly altered in the movie? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dirk Droll (talk • contribs) 15:19, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Hints of plagiarism
The comment might be interesting, but it's essentially one reviewer's comments (and not readily accessible by most readers) which are paraphrased by the editor. TEDickey (talk) 21:14, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Unmentioned reference in pop culture
There's a GoW reference in "Over Logging" South Park: Season 12, Episode 6

Moving to Californie for internet. Destitute characters in camps. ... Bgates1128 (talk) 17:07, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Difference between pickaxe and pickaxe handle?
I am confused what the difference between a pickaxe and a pickaxe handle is since in the book it is stated that casy was killed by a pickaxe handle, yet it mentions the sharp part, the "pick" Dangervest69 (talk) 18:29, 8 January 2023 (UTC)