'The Grapes of Wrath' Critics Flashcards
Spangler (American Dream)
‘Steinbeck has smashed the notions of the American Dream’
Motley (family hierarchy)
‘Joad family shifts from a patriarchal structure to a predominantly matriarchal one’
Floyd C. Watkins (Ma Joad)
Ma’s change of power was ‘implausible’
Gladstein (Ma Joad’s mentality)
‘mentality of an indestructible woman’ who ‘appears to be flawless on every level’
Malcolm Cowley (Joad’s)
Joad’s ‘story begins to suffer a little from their bewilderment and lack of direction’
Stanley Edgar Hyman (message of novel)
‘the central message of The Grapes of Wrath is an appeal to the owning class to behave, to become enlightened’
Shockley (novel’s biblical allusions)
‘Steinbeck creates a story about the journey of a family and mirrors it to that of biblical events. The entire family, in themselves, were like the Israelites. ‘They too flee from oppression, wander through the wilderness of hardships, seeking their own Promised Land’. Unfortunately, although the Israelites were successful, the Joads never really found out that they could consider to be a promised land’
Daise Lilian Fonseca Dias (Ma Joad)
Represents the ‘ideal universal mother, because she nurtures not only her children, but those who are in need’ + encompasses the ‘four cardinal virtues of woman’s behaviour’, she is always doing something like ‘going out the house, her arms loaded high with the clothes’
Alan Yuhas (banks)
‘Steinbeck’s monster banks still evict families and indenture Americans with debt’
Steinbeck (anti-capitalism)
‘I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this’
Warren French (Ma Joad)
Sees Ma’s change of power as somewhat ‘pathetic as it only exists within the family whilst it is hurtling towards starvation and subjugation
Shindo (novel’s purpose)
Teach ‘a middle class, progressive audience its role in shaping of American society’
Anonymous (novel’s message)
Novel ‘evokes quintessentially American themes of hard work, self-determination and reasoned dissent’
