READER'S GUIDE 
 
 INSTITUTED 
 
 MuseurriaodLibrary 
 
 SERVICES 
 
 JOHN STEINBECK'S 
 
 The Grapes 
 ofWrath 
 
"Literature is as old 
 as speech. It grew 
 out of human need 
 for it, and it has noi 
 changed except to 
 become mop 
 needed." 
 
 — JOHNSTEINB] 
 
 from his Nobel Priz 
 
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Preface 
 
 John Steinbeck's The Grapes ofWrath is not merely a great American novel. 
 It is also a significant event in our national history. Capturing the plight of 
 millions of Americans whose lives had been crushed by the Dust Bowl and 
 the Great Depression, Steinbeck awakened the nation's comprehension and 
 compassion. 
 
 Written in a style of peculiarly democratic majesty, The Grapes ofWrath 
 evokes quintessential ly American themes of hard-work, self-determination, 
 and reasoned dissent It speaks from assumptions common to most 
 Americans whether their ancestors came over on the Mayflower, in 
 steerage, or in a truck 
 
 The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts 
 designed to revitalize the role of literary reading in American popular 
 culture. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, a 2004 NEA 
 report, identified a critical decline in reading for pleasure among American 
 adults.The Big Read aims to address this issue directly by providing citizens 
 with the opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their 
 communities. 
 
 A great book combines enlightenment with enchantment. It awakens our 
 imagination and enlarges our humanity. It can even offer harrowing insights 
 that somehow console and comfort us. Whether you're a regular reader 
 already or a nonreader making up for lost time, thank you for joining 
 the Big Read. 
 
 2&ax tir^'' 
 
 Dana Gioia 
 
 Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts 
 
 John Steinbeck, c. 1 930 
 
r TPk 
 
 In the souls of the people 
 the grapes of wrath are 
 filling and growing heavy, 
 growing heavy for the 
 vintage." 
 
 — from The Grapes of Wrath 
 
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 rJiBi} Hi 
 
 2 THE BIG READ ■ National Endowment for the Arts 
 
Introduction to the Novel 
 
 Can a book top the bestseller list, 
 win a Pulitzer Prize, save lives, and 
 still be underrated? If that book is 
 The Grapes of Wrath, the answer is 
 most definitely yes. For too long, 
 Steinbeck's masterpiece has been 
 taught as social history, or dismissed 
 as an "issue novel." It's both these 
 things, of course, but before all 
 that, it's a terrific story. The 
 characters fall in love, go hungry, 
 lose faith, kill, live, and die with an 
 immediacy that makes most 
 contemporary novels look somehow 
 dated by comparison. 
 
 The novel begins with young Tom 
 Joad's return home from a prison 
 term to find his family's Oklahoma 
 farmstead in ruins and deserted. He 
 soon locates his relatives nearby, 
 preparing to leave their land for the 
 promise of a new life in California. 
 We follow their travails and partake 
 of their hopes, only to share in their 
 disappointment when California's 
 agricultural bounty makes no 
 provision for them except as 
 occasional day laborers. Under 
 the strain, the Joad family gradually 
 comes apart until only a struggling 
 remnant survives. In an 
 unforgettable conclusion, we leave 
 these few bereft of everything except 
 their imperishable humanity. 
 
 Along the way, we meet a cast of 
 characters as overstuffed as the Joad 
 family's panel truck. From the 
 indomitable matriarch Ma Joad to 
 the starving old man in the book's 
 final scene, Steinbeck gives them the 
 individuality that an unforgiving 
 economy threatens to take away. In 
 a remarkable balancing act, they 
 represent those displaced by the 
 Depression without ever subsiding 
 into mere symbols. 
 
 And that's only half the story. The 
 Grapes of Wrath is at least two books 
 in one. Roughly half the chapters 
 tell the saga of the Joads, while the 
 other half have no continuing 
 characters, hardly any named people 
 at all. These "generals," as Steinbeck 
 usually called his interchapters, 
 emphasize the point that the Joads 
 stood in for all the Depression-era 
 westward migrants. He felt a greater 
 sense of responsibility to his material 
 in this book than any other, and he 
 was determined that no reader 
 mistake the Joad's travails for an 
 isolated case. 
 
 Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath 
 in an amazing five-month burst of 
 productivity. His first marriage was 
 starting to crack, and every day 
 brought new entreaties from good 
 
 National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 3 
 
causes to chair this committee or 
 attend that benefit. In retrospect, the 
 days that birthed the novel stand 
 testament to perhaps its greatest 
 theme: the dignity of hard work, 
 done by hand and beset by doubt, 
 with all one has, and for others to 
 share. 
 
 "Highway 66 is the main 
 migrant road. 66 — the long 
 concrete path across the 
 country, waving gently up 
 and down on the map, from 
 the Mississippi to 
 Bakersfield — over the red 
 lands and the gray lands, 
 twisting up into the... rich 
 California valleys." 
 
 — from The Grapes ofWrath 
 
 Major Characters 
 in the Novel 
 
 Tom Joad 
 
 Just released from prison as the 
 novel begins, Tom is quick to fight 
 but fundamentally decent. He loves 
 his family and finds himself 
 gradually radicalized by its slow 
 disintegration. 
 
 Ma Joad 
 
 Blessed with the ability to improvise 
 a meal or a bed from the barest of 
 provisions, Mas strength and 
 resilience ultimately prove her the 
 true bulwark of the family. 
 
 Jim Casy 
 
 A defrocked preacher turned 
 itinerant philosopher, Jim gives voice 
 to much of Steinbeck's own mistrust 
 of organized religion and belief in 
 social justice. 
 
 Tehachapi 
 Los Angeles 
 
 Kingman Galjup 
 Flagstaff 
 
 i 
 
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 Barstow 
 
 Needles 
 
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 Winslov 
 
 4 THE BIG READ ■ National Endowment for the Arts 
 
Rosasharn Joad Rivers 
 
 Under Mas influence, Toms sister 
 matures from a fairly insufferable 
 expectant mother into a woman 
 capable of one of the most 
 memorable sacrifices in American 
 literature. 
 
 Uncle John Joad 
 
 Uncle John is a sometime drunk 
 who holds himself responsible for 
 his late wife's death. His most 
 memorable scene comes when he 
 sets the youngest Joad adrift in the 
 river to bear mute witness against 
 the suffering of all the Dust Bowl 
 migrants. 
 
 Aljoad 
 
 Al becomes suddenly indispensable 
 to his family, since he's the only one 
 who can keep their precious truck 
 running. Unfortunately, some things 
 are even more gripping to a teenage 
 boy like Al than an automobile — for 
 example, teenage girls. 
 
 The "man who lay on his back" 
 
 Never named, this minor but 
 indelible character shares the novel's 
 final, unforgettable tableau with 
 Rosasharn. Like the prostrate 
 underclass he represents, he needs 
 help to survive but is too proud to 
 beg. 
 
 'The family met at the most 
 important place, near the 
 truck.The house was dead, 
 and the fields were dead; 
 but this truck was the 
 active thing, the living 
 principle." 
 — from The Grapes of Wrath 
 
 Amanita 
 iuquerque 
 
 Tulsa 
 Oklahoma City 
 
 .,■■■- ■■■ - ■ ■■■■ 
 
 National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 5 
 
John Steinbeck, 1902-1968 
 
 The California farm town of Salinas 
 welcomed John Steinbeck into the 
 world on February 27, 1902, but 
 the welcome eventually wore out. 
 From an early age, his schoolteacher 
 mother imparted a love of learning 
 and language. From his bankrupt 
 father, Steinbeck acquired a 
 hypersensitivity to social nuances, a 
 profound empathy for the 
 underprivileged, and a strong work 
 ethic that rarely left him. After 
 receiving his diploma from Salinas 
 High in 1919, he alternated work as 
 a field hand with sporadic 
 attendance at Stanford University. 
 
 His fourth novel, Tortilla Flat (1935), 
 made his name as a 
 writer. Then, drawing 
 on his strengths — 
 
 deep regard for his native California, 
 and empathy for his fellow hard 
 workers — Steinbeck spent years 
 researching and a miraculous five 
 months writing The Grapes ofWrath. 
 Published in 1939, it won him both 
 the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and 
 decades of enmity from his 
 hometown, where he was viewed as a 
 traitor to his (middle) class. 
 
 In 1 940, critically and commercially 
 successful films of both The Grapes 
 of Wrath and the short novel Of 
 Mice and Men came out. During 
 World War II, The New York Herald 
 Tribune signed him on as a war 
 correspondent, and he filed 
 dispatches from England and the 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 Steinbeck, c. 1 920s 
 
 THE LIFE ANDTIMES OF JOHN STEINBECK 
 
 1910s 
 
 Gavrilo Princip 
 assassinates Archduke 
 Franz Ferdinand during 
 his visit to Sarajevo, 
 igniting World War I, 
 1914. 
 
 Armistice signed on 
 Steinbeck a November 1 1 , 1 91 8, 
 a young boy. ending World War I. 
 
 Steinbeck attends Stanford 
 University, declaring English as 
 his major. 
 
 6 THE BIG READ 
 
 1920s 
 
 Steinbeck quits Stanford to read 
 and write, leaving his roommate 
 a note reading, "Gone to China. 
 See you again sometime. Please 
 free the chipmunk." 
 
 Stock market crashes in 1929, 
 triggering the Great Depression. 
 
 1930s 
 
 Franklin Roosevelt elected 
 President, 1932. 
 
 Armed guards use tear gas 
 against striking lettuce pickers in 
 the "battle of Salinas," 1936. 
 
 Of Mice and Men becomes a hit, 
 1937. 
 
 Steinbeck writes The Grapes of 
 Wrath, published to popular 
 acclaim in April 1 939. 
 
 Breadline during the Great 
 Depression 
 
After the war, Steinbeck left 
 California for New York and cast 
 around for a subject that would 
 engage him as fully as The Grapes of 
 Wrath had. He divided his attention 
 among science writing, journalism, 
 screenplays, and shorter novels. 
 Finally, in 1952, following the 
 collapse of his second marriage and 
 the sudden death of his beloved 
 friend, marine biologist Ed "Doc" 
 Ricketts, Steinbeck wrote his way 
 imaginatively back to California for 
 East of Eden, among his strongest 
 and most enduring novels. 
 The 1962 memoir Travels With 
 Charley freshened and deepened 
 Steinbeck's already wide readership. 
 The highest honors were given to 
 him: the Nobel Prize for literature in 
 1962, the Presidential Medal of 
 
 Freedom in 1964, and 
 appointment to the 
 National Council on 
 the Arts in 1966. 
 
 Steinbeck, 1968 
 
 Steinbeck died in New York City in 
 1968 and was buried with little 
 fanfare in Salinas. Today, the 
 handsome National Steinbeck 
 Center anchors Salinas' downtown 
 revival, complete with a research 
 library and a museum featuring the 
 original camper truck from Travels 
 With Charley. Migrants still pick 
 most of the fruit in California's 
 Central Valley, but they come from 
 Central America instead of 
 Oklahoma, and agriculture has a 
 new partner driving the region's 
 economy: literary tourism. 
 
 Steinbeck wins the Pulitzer Prize 
 for The Grapes of Wrath, 1 940. 
 
 Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, 
 1941. 
 
 Steinbeck works with Alfred 
 Hitchcock on Lifeboat, 1943. 
 
 Armistice signed, ending World 
 War II, 1945. 
 
 Steinbeck's sons are born: Thorn 
 in 1944, John IV in 1946. 
 
 Sen. Joseph McCarthy brandishes 
 a list of alleged communists in the 
 State Dept, heralding the dawn of 
 the Cold War, 1950. 
 
 Steinbeck writes of biologist 
 friend Ed Ricketts in The Log from 
 tiieSeaofCortez^m. 
 
 East of Eden 
 
 published, 
 
 1952. 
 
 Steinbeck with Elia Kazan at the movie 
 premiere of East of Eden, 1 955. 
 
 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution officially 
 embroils U.S. in Vietnam, 1964. 
 
 Cesar Chavez organizes striking 
 California pickers on a march to 
 Sacramento, leading to a 5-year 
 grape boycott and the first major 
 victory for U.S. farm workers, 
 1966. 
 
 Steinbeck dies in Manhattan and 
 is buried in Salinas, 1968. 
 
 THE BIG READ 7 
 
Half a Million Joads 
 
 The Dust Bowl Migration 
 
 The roots of the Great Depression 
 are as dry and snarled as a dead 
 orchard. If you want to watch two 
 economists fight, just ask them what 
 caused the October 1929 stock 
 market crash. Easier to unearth, 
 though, are the roots of the 
 Depression-era Dust Bowl migration 
 to California. 
 
 In the mid- 19th century, migrants 
 had come to California for gold. In 
 the 20th they came to California 
 just to stay alive, and the failure rate 
 was high. The migrants came from 
 Oklahoma and the states around it. 
 They came because the post- World 
 War I recession had forced them to 
 buy new machinery to increase 
 their yield, so they bet on the easy 
 credit of the 1920s and lost. They 
 came because a seven-year drought 
 dried up their topsoil and blew it all 
 away, and the bankers foreclosed on 
 their farms. They came, too, because 
 the Depression unemployment rate 
 was pushing 30 percent, and 
 California entrepreneurs were 
 spreading rumors of better days 
 to the west. 
 
 All told, between 300,000 and 
 500,000 migrants came to 
 California during the 1930s from 
 Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and, 
 
 most typically, from Oklahoma. 
 The general name for them that fit 
 easiest into headlines was "Okies," 
 and among Oklahomans it still 
 rankles as deeply as any ethnic slur. 
 These migrants families were 
 practically invisible to the general 
 public because they followed the 
 crops from farm to farm, well 
 outside of major population centers. 
 
 The gradual end of the Dust Bowl 
 crisis in the late 1930s had as many 
 causes as its beginning. Federally run 
 Migratory Labor Camps, like the 
 one founded in Arvin by Steinbeck's 
 good friend Tom Collins, began to 
 ease the misery of some California 
 field hands. The states shipyard and 
 aerospace mobilization before and 
 during World War II lessened 
 competition for California 
 agricultural jobs. And Steinbeck's 
 own work, first in a series of articles 
 in the San Francisco News and 
 eventually transmuted into The 
 Grapes ofWrath, caught the 
 conscience of a nation and resulted 
 in somewhat improved conditions. 
 In the end, Steinbeck's novel fulfilled 
 the same mission that Uncle John 
 envisions for Rosasharn's unnamed 
 child: "Go down and tell 
 'em. . .Maybe they'll know then." 
 
 8 THE BIG READ " National Endowment for the Arts 
 
Dorothea Lange's 
 photograph, Migrant 
 Mother (1 936), has 
 become an iconic image 
 of the Great Depression,. 
 
 'Okie use' ta mean you was from Oklahoma. 
 Now it means you're a dirty son-of-a-bitch. 
 Okie means you're scum. Don't mean nothing 
 itself, it's the way they say it." 
 
 National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 9 
 
Steinbeck and His Other Works 
 
 First 
 
 edition 
 
 covers 
 
 Much of John Steinbeck's prolific 
 output falls, with a little coaxing, 
 into suites of three books apiece. 
 First comes his semi-experimental 
 trilogy, consisting of the historical 
 novel Cup of 'Gold (1929), the 
 loosely linked story collection The 
 Pastures of Heaven (1932), and the 
 myth-maddened To a God 
 Unknown (1933). All are 
 journeyman works, promising but 
 somewhat frustrating when read in 
 sequence. A reader drums his 
 fingers, waiting for the prodigious 
 leap that's coming. 
 
 Steinbeck was soon ready to 
 undertake what's come down to us 
 as his Labor Trilogy: the defiantly 
 clear-eyed, unsentimental strike 
 novel In Dubious Battle (1936), the 
 
 haunting, fable-like Of Mice and 
 Men (1937) and, of course, The 
 Grapes of Wrath (1939). Of Mice 
 and Men also pioneered a form that 
 Steinbeck more or less invented, the 
 play-novelette. In that book, and 
 also the 1 942 wartime allegory The 
 Moon Is Down and the abstruse 
 parable Burning Bright (1950), 
 Steinbeck wrote short, dialogue- 
 heavy novels whose exposition could 
 be stripped out, leaving stage dramas 
 almost ready for production. 
 
 Steinbeck's travel literature, too, sorts 
 itself into three principal texts. Sea 
 ofCortez and his reworking of it into 
 The Log from the Sea ofCortez 
 (1951) record Steinbeck's and Ed 
 'Doc' Ricketts' findings on their 
 exploration of Baja California. In 
 
 I THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 
 
Travels With Charley: In Search of 
 America (1962), Steinbeck brought 
 his prodigious observational powers 
 to bear on the country around him. 
 Finally, America and Americans 
 (1966) cannibalized six months' 
 worth of newspaper essays. 
 
 One can get carried away with this 
 sort of literary numerology, but even 
 Steinbeck's ephemera lends itself to 
 tripartite groupings. There's the 
 episodic, strongly regional, still 
 endearing black comedy of Tortilla 
 Flat (1935), Cannery Row (1945) 
 and Sweet Thursday (1954). There 
 are the late, less than successful 
 novels The Wayward Bus (1947), The 
 Short Reign of Pippin TV (1957) and 
 The Winter of Our Discontent (1961). 
 
 The major book left over after all 
 this sorting and re-sorting may be 
 East of Eden (1952). Here Steinbeck 
 captures his feel for time's toll on the 
 landscape as well as in anything he 
 ever wrote. The family dynamics 
 have an elemental quality that he 
 never approached again. The Grapes 
 ofWrath may be his best book, but 
 the rest of his corpus offers 
 intelligent, humane company at 
 almost every turning in a reader's life: 
 Of Mice and Men for friendship, 
 
 Steinbeck in California, 1 960 
 
 Cannery Row for laughter, Travels 
 With Charley for wisdom, or some 
 yet undervalued Steinbeck, just 
 waiting for the next reader to see in 
 it what no one else has. 
 
 If you want to read books that 
 influenced Steinbeck, you might 
 enjoy: 
 
 The King James Bible 
 
 Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'arthur (1485) 
 John Dos Passos' USATrilogy (1930-36) 
 The WPA Guides to America (1935-42) 
 
 If you want to read other writers 
 influenced by Steinbeck, you might 
 enjoy: 
 
 Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country (1948) 
 Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles ( 1 950) 
 Susan Straight's Highwire Moon (200 1 ) 
 Luis Alberto Urrea's The Devil's Highway (2004) 
 
 National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 
 
The Novel at the Movies 
 
 Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell in The Grapes of Wrath. Below, the movie's Joads hit the road. 
 
 BY DAVID K1PEN 
 
 Within 24 hours during December 
 of 1939, John Steinbeck had an 
 experience unsurpassed in the whole 
 long tango between 
 literature and 
 Hollywood. After 
 traveling down to 
 Los Angeles, he and 
 his wife Carol got 
 their first look at 
 not one but two 
 new masterpieces made from his 
 work: Of Mice and Men and The 
 Grapes ofWrath. 
 
 Of the latter film, John Steinbeck 
 himself claimed that, "[Producer 
 Darryl] Zanuck has a hard, straight 
 
 picture in which the actors are 
 submerged so completely that it 
 looks and feels like a documentary 
 film and certainly has a hard, 
 truthful ring. . .it is a harsher thing 
 than the book, by far. It seems 
 unbelievable but it is true." 
 
 We should take Steinbeck's claim 
 with a large grain of salt, but also 
 recognize the genuine cinematic 
 artistry that enabled him even to 
 compare the filmmakers' 
 achievement with his own. 
 Screenwriter Nunnally Johnson 
 stands as first among equals beside 
 his colleagues. Debatably, Johnson 
 reversed the Joads' stays in the two 
 migrant camps, allowing the more 
 
 | 2 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 
 
humane government-run sanitary 
 facility to come last, and blunt a bit 
 of the novel's bleakness. He also 
 bowed to the censors' expected 
 rejection of the book's final, 
 unforgettable image, transposing a 
 speech of Ma's to improvise an 
 ending hopeful enough to pass 
 muster, yet plaintive enough to 
 generate real, productive anger 
 among audiences. 
 
 Johnson's was one of seven Oscar 
 nominations for The Grapes of 
 Wrath, but only Jane Darwell's 
 performance as Ma and John Ford's 
 direction won their categories. The 
 film is director John Ford's most 
 atypical movie and, for some, still 
 his best. It's not a western, except 
 geographically. It's about survival, 
 not gallantry, and John Wayne is 
 nowhere in sight. Instead Ford relies 
 on the lantern-lit cinematography 
 of Gregg Toland and the remarkable 
 work of his actors. Besides Darwell's 
 heroic incarnation of Ma Joad, the 
 ensemble includes Henry Fonda in 
 his iconic Oscar-nominated role as 
 Tom, John Carradine as Jim Casy, 
 and the luminous Dorris Bowdon 
 as Rosasharn. Ford once said, "The 
 main thing about directing is: 
 photograph the people's eyes." 
 There's hardly a face in the picture 
 
 "Then I'll be all around in the dark. 
 I'll be everywhere — wherever you 
 look. Wherever they's a fight so 
 hungry people can eat, I'll be there. 
 Wherever they's a cop beatin' up a 
 guy, I'll be there ...I'll be in the way 
 guys yell when they're mad an* — I'll 
 be in the way kids laugh when 
 they're hungry an* they know 
 supper's ready. An* when our folks 
 eat the stuff they raise an' live in 
 the houses they build — why, I'll be 
 there." 
 — Tom Joad in The Grapes ofWrath 
 
 that doesn't stare back at the 
 audience in tacit accusation. 
 
 Some filming took place near the 
 actual sites that Steinbeck and his 
 friend, Tom Collins, visited during 
 research for the novel. Collins, 
 director of the compassionately run 
 Weedpatch Camp in Arvin, 
 California, was a consultant on the 
 film, ensuring as much accuracy as 
 possible. The result is a starkly 
 beautiful movie, suffused in every 
 scene with the intensity of 
 craftsmen working on what even 
 they must have suspected was the 
 most important picture they might 
 ever make. 
 
 Selected films from 
 the works of Steinbeck 
 
 Of Mice and Men (1 992) 
 
 Cannery Row ( 1 982, from Cannery Row 
 and Sweet Thursday) 
 
 East of Eden (1955) 
 The Moon Is Down (1943) 
 Tortilla Flat (1 942) 
 The Grapes of Wrath (1940) 
 
 Of Mice and Men (1939) 
 
 National Endo-\ 
 
 13 
 
 
Discussion Questions 
 
 Why would Steinbeck weave 
 general chapters — often called 
 "interchapters" — into the 
 Joad story? Is the alternation 
 consistent, or are there 
 deviations? 
 
 The turtle in Chapter 3 is 
 often interpreted as a parable 
 or symbol. What do you 
 think? 
 
 In prison Tom "learned 
 to write nice as hell." 
 Meanwhile, Casy leaves the 
 pulpit to "hear the poetry of 
 folks talkin'." How does 
 Steinbeck strike a balance 
 between the more 
 
 6. 
 
 metaphorical, image-laden 
 prose of "birds an stuff" and 
 "the poetry of folks talking"? 
 
 Casy says, "I ain't preachin'. 
 Preachin' is tellin' folks stuff. 
 I'm askih em'." Do you feel 
 Steinbeck is doing either in 
 The Grapes of Wrath? 
 
 At which points in the book 
 does the power in the family 
 gradually shift from Pa to 
 Ma? 
 
 Where do Grandpa and then 
 Grandma die? What might 
 this suggest about where they 
 ultimately do or don't belong? 
 
 Battle-Hymn of the Republic 
 by Julia Ward Howe 
 
 Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: 
 He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; 
 He hath loosed the fatal lightning of his terrible swift sword: 
 His truth is marching on. 
 
 lowe 
 
 popular Union song, "Batde-Hymn of the 
 Republic," in the Atlantic Monthly in 1 862. 
 Carol Steinbeck thought the first verses phrase 
 "the grapes of wrath" would be the perfect title 
 for her husband's epic novel. 
 
 I 4 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 
 
 Carol and John Steinbeck, 
 c. 1930 
 
 
 r> o 
 
 4 
 
 m 
 
7. What enduring piece of 
 American writing does Ma's 
 line — "why, we're the 
 people" — remind you of? 
 How could this be ironic? 
 
 8. What sorts of things happen 
 by rivers in the novel? Why 
 might that be? 
 
 9. As Casy goes to jail, "On his 
 lips there was a faint smile 
 and on his face a curious look 
 of conquest." And in the 
 novel's last sentence, 
 Rosasharn's "lips came 
 together and smiled 
 mysteriously." Why do both 
 characters leave the novel 
 with a smile? 
 
 Eleanor Roosevelt 
 
 10. Steinbeck is known for 
 creating some of the most 
 memorable friendships in 
 American literature. How 
 does Casy serve as a role 
 model for Tom Joad, and Ma 
 Joad for Rosasharn? 
 
 11. Steinbeck's writing was 
 influenced by the cadences 
 and themes of the Old 
 Testament. How does the 
 plight of the Joad family 
 parallel that of the Israelites in 
 Exodus? Do the Joads reach 
 their Promised Land? 
 
 12. Why do you think this novel 
 continues to have such wide, 
 popular appeal? Is its message 
 still relevant today? 
 
 "The Grapes of Wrath, by John 
 Steinbeck, both repels and 
 attracts you. The horrors of the 
 ^ jjjcture, so well drawn, make you 
 
 - oread sometimes to begin the 
 next chapter, and yet you cannot 
 lay the book down or even skip a 
 page... The book is coarse in 
 spots, but life is coarse in spots, 
 and the story is very beautiful in 
 spots just as life is... Even from 
 life's sorrows some good must 
 come. What could be a better 
 illustration than the closing 
 
 —ELEANOR ROOSEVELT 
 from her column, My Day on 
 June 28, 1939 
 
 What Steinbeck did for the Dust 
 Bowl's dispossessed in fiction, the 
 great American folksinger 
 Woody Guthrie did for 
 them in song. Guthrie saw / 
 the film of The Grapes of •-^ 
 Wrath, which strongly 
 influenced his classic 
 song cycle "Dust Bowl 
 Ballads" — sometimes 
 direcdy, as in "Tom Jo 
 Parts I and 2." 
 
 As Guthrie wrote of 
 Steinbeck, "There was a feller who 
 knew us Okies, and he knew what 
 it was like in Oklahoma, and he 
 knew about the dust and the debts 
 that covered us up." 
 
 Woody 
 
 Guthrie 
 
 National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ | 5 
 
Additional Resources 
 
 Selected Works by Steinbeck 
 
 Tortilla Flat, 1935 
 
 In Dubious Battle, 1936 
 
 Of Mice and Men, 1937 
 
 The Grapes of Wrath, 1939 
 
 The Moon Is Down, 1942 
 
 Cannery Row, 1945 
 
 The log from the Sea of Cortex 1951 
 
 East of Eden, 1952 
 
 Sweet Thursday, 1954 
 
 Travels With Charley: In Search of 
 
 America, 1962 
 Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden 
 
 letters, 1969 
 The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to 
 
 The Grapes of Wrath, 1988 
 
 Works about Steinbeck and 
 The Grapes of Wrath 
 
 Benson, Jackson J. John Steinbeck, 
 Writer: A Biography New York: 
 Viking, 1984. 
 
 Parini, Jay. John Steinbeck: A 
 Biography New York: Henry Holt, 
 1995. 
 
 Shillinglaw, Susan, ed. John 
 Steinbeck: Centennial Reflections by 
 American Writers. San Jose: Center 
 for Steinbeck Studies, 2002. 
 
 Steinbeck, Elaine, and Robert 
 Wallsten, eds. Steinbeck: A life in 
 Letters. New York: Viking, 1975. 
 
 Below, John Steinbeck 
 with his famous French 
 poodle, "Charley." Right, 
 Steinbeck in 1 962 
 
 Web sites 
 
 www.Steinbeck.org 
 
 Web site of the National 
 Steinbeck Center, a 
 museum, library, and 
 archive devoted to 
 
 exploration of Steinbeck's 
 work and themes. 
 
 www.steinbeck.sjsu.edu/ 
 home/index.jsp 
 
 Site of the Martha Heasley Cox 
 
 Center for Steinbeck Studies, a 
 
 resource for readers, students, 
 
 teachers, and scholars of Steinbeck at 
 
 San Jose State University. 
 
 | 6 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts 
 
NATIONAL 
 ENDOWMENT 
 FORTHE ARTS 
 
 ■V:» . .INSTITUTE of , ., 
 
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 Boeing is the world's leading aerospace company and the largest combined 
 manufacturer of commercial jetliners and military aircraft. As a leading contractor to 
 the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), Boeing works together with its DoD 
 customers to provide U.S. Armed Forces and U.S. allies around the world with fully 
 integrated high-performing systems solutions and support. 
 
 Additional support for the Big Read has also been provided by the WK. Kellogg 
 Foundation in partnership with Community Foundations of America. 
 
 Works Cited 
 
 Excerpts from THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck, copyright 1939, renewed © 1967 by John Steinbeck Used by 
 permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 
 
 Emblidge, David, ed. My Day: The Best of Eleanor Roosevelt's Acclaimed Newspaper Columns, 1936-1962. Cambridge, MA: 
 DaCapo Press, 2001. 
 
 Schultz, Jeffrey, and Luchen Li. Critical Companion to John Steinbeck. New York: Checkmark Books, 2005. 
 
 Shillinglaw, Susan, with photographs by Nancy Burnett. A Journey Into Steinbeck's California. Berkeley: Roaring Forties Press, 
 2006. 
 
 Steinbeck, John. Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes ofWrath, 1938-41. Ed. Robert DeMott. New York: Viking, 1989. 
 
 Acknowledgments 
 
 David Kipen, NEA Director of Literature 
 
 Writers: David Kipen, with Erika Koss and Veronique de Turenne, and a preface by Dana Gioia 
 
 Series Editor: Erika Koss for the National Endowment for the Arts 
 
 Image Editor: Liz Edgar Hernandez for the National Endowment for the Arts 
 
 Graphic Design: Fletcher Design/Washington, D.C. 
 
 Image Credits 
 
 Cover Portrait: John Sherffius for the Big Read. Inside Front Cover: © Hulton-Deutsch Collecxion/CORBIS. Page 1: Dana Gioia, image by Vance 
 Jacobs. Page 2: Book cover courtesy of University of Delaware Library, Newark, Del., Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin 
 Group (USA) Inc.; Dust storm, Library of Congress, Prints &C Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, LC-USF34- 004052. Page 4: Migrant 
 workers and power farming on the plains, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division. Pages 4-5: map, John Sherffius. Page 5: Oklahoma 
 Dust Bowl refugees, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, LC-USF34- 0026 13-C. Page 6: A young John 
 Steinbeck and Steinbeck in his twenties, Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies, San Jose State University; A Depression-era bread line: 
 Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Page 7: top, John Steinbeck photographed by Fred Stein, copyright FredStein.com; Elia 
 Kazan and John Steinbeck, © Underwood & Underwood/CORBIS; John Steinbeck and Gregory Peck, courtesy of R. Philip Hanes, Jr. Page 9: 
 Migrant mother, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, LC-USF34- 009058-C. Page 10: Book covers courtesy 
 of University of Delaware Library, Newark, Del., Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.; Page 11: Pat 
 Hathaway Collection of California Views, Monterey CA, www.caviews.com. Page 12: both images, Photofest. Page 14: Carol and John Steinbeck, 
 Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies, San Jose State University, used by permission of Sharon Brown Bacon. Page 15: Eleanor 
 Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Woody Guthrie, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, New 
 York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection. Page 16: both images © Bettmann/CORBIS. 
 
 This publication is published by: 
 
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 On the highways the 
 people moved like ants 
 and searched for work, 
 for food. And the anger 
 began to ferment." 
 
 —JOHN STEINBECK 
 from The Grapes of Wrath 
 
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