The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath: Style Analysis Essay

John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California on February 27, 1902. His mother, Olive, nourished a love of reading and writing in her son who, at age fourteen, declared his intention to become a writer. His favorite book, and a main influence on his writing, was Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, a collection of the legends of King Arthur. During high school, he had decided to become a writer like his favorite author (Gascoigne ¶ 1). He worked as a laboratory assistant and farm laborer to support himself through six years of study at Stanford University. He took only those courses that interested him without seeking a degree. He went according to his interest and his interest was love for literature.

Steinbeck's series of articles for the San Francisco Chronicle on the problems of migrant farm laborers provided him to write a book. This material gave him an opportunity to write his major and the finest working-class book which is known as The Grapes of Wrath in 1939.When John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath, our country was just starting to recover from The Great Depression. His book was evolving the time period of Great Depression which shows the people having hardships during the 1930s.1930’s was the Moderns time and when this book got published many political and social events were going on but the big one that effected everyone was The Great Depression, started in 1929(Gascoigne ¶ 2). Also at that time of period farmers had to face the Dust Bowl. The cause of Great Depression was the stock market crash of 1929,bank failures, and drought conditions. The Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s was one of the worst environmental disasters of the Twentieth Century anywhere in the world because farmers didn’t get much grown in their farms which led to hunger.

The novel’s distinctive feature is the chapters, where the odd numbered chapters that provide documentary information for the reader. These...