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The Grapes of Wrath (play)

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 This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2013)

The Grapes of Wrath
GrapesPoster.jpg
Written by
John Steinbeck (novel)
Frank Galati (play)
Date premiered
September 1988
Place premiered
Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Chicago, Illinois
Original language
English
Subject
The Joad family's journey
Genre
Drama
Setting
1938, Oklahoma/California
The Grapes of Wrath is a 1988 play adapted by Frank Galati from the classic John Steinbeck novel of the same name, with incidental music by Michael Smith. The play debuted at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, followed by a May 1989 production at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego and a June 1989 production at the Royal National Theatre in London. After eleven previews, the Broadway production, directed by Galati, opened on March 22, 1990 at the Cort Theatre, where it ran for 188 performances. The cast included Gary Sinise, Kathryn Erbe, Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, Lois Smith, Francis Guinan, and Stephen Bogardus.[1]
Awards and nominations[edit]
Awards1990 Tony Award for Best Play
2005 2nd in the Nation for High School Productions
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Rich, Frank (23 March 1990). "Review/Theater; New Era for 'Grapes of Wrath'". New York Times. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
Steinbeck, John (1939). The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Viking Press. OCLC 289946.
External links[edit]
The Grapes of Wrath at the Internet Broadway Database
The Grapes of Wrath at the Internet Broadway Database
Steppenwolf Theatre Company Grapes of Wrath production files, 1972-1990 (bulk 1988-1990), held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts


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Categories: 1988 plays
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1980s play stubs






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The Grapes of Wrath (play)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search



 This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2013)

The Grapes of Wrath
GrapesPoster.jpg
Written by
John Steinbeck (novel)
Frank Galati (play)
Date premiered
September 1988
Place premiered
Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Chicago, Illinois
Original language
English
Subject
The Joad family's journey
Genre
Drama
Setting
1938, Oklahoma/California
The Grapes of Wrath is a 1988 play adapted by Frank Galati from the classic John Steinbeck novel of the same name, with incidental music by Michael Smith. The play debuted at the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, followed by a May 1989 production at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego and a June 1989 production at the Royal National Theatre in London. After eleven previews, the Broadway production, directed by Galati, opened on March 22, 1990 at the Cort Theatre, where it ran for 188 performances. The cast included Gary Sinise, Kathryn Erbe, Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, Lois Smith, Francis Guinan, and Stephen Bogardus.[1]
Awards and nominations[edit]
Awards1990 Tony Award for Best Play
2005 2nd in the Nation for High School Productions
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Rich, Frank (23 March 1990). "Review/Theater; New Era for 'Grapes of Wrath'". New York Times. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
Steinbeck, John (1939). The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Viking Press. OCLC 289946.
External links[edit]
The Grapes of Wrath at the Internet Broadway Database
The Grapes of Wrath at the Internet Broadway Database
Steppenwolf Theatre Company Grapes of Wrath production files, 1972-1990 (bulk 1988-1990), held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts


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Categories: 1988 plays
American plays
Broadway plays
Tony Award winning plays
Dust Bowl
Plays based on novels
Plays set in Oklahoma
Plays set in California
Adaptations of works by John Steinbeck
1980s play stubs






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The Grapes of Wrath (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

For the 1990 Broadway play, see The Grapes of Wrath (play).

The Grapes of Wrath
Wrathposters141.jpg
Theatrical release poster
 
Directed by
John Ford
Produced by
Darryl F. Zanuck
Nunnally Johnson
Screenplay by
Nunnally Johnson
Based on
The Grapes of Wrath
 by John Steinbeck
Starring
Henry Fonda
Jane Darwell
John Carradine
Shirley Mills
John Qualen
Eddie Quillan
Music by
Alfred Newman
Cinematography
Gregg Toland
Edited by
Robert L. Simpson
Distributed by
20th Century Fox

Release dates

January 24, 1940 (United States)
 

Running time
 129 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$800,000[1]
Box office
$2.5 million (rentals)[2]
The Grapes of Wrath is a 1940 drama film directed by John Ford. It was based on John Steinbeck's 1939 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. The screenplay was written by Nunnally Johnson and the executive producer was Darryl F. Zanuck.[3]
The film tells the story of the Joads, an Oklahoma family, who, after losing their farm during the Great Depression in the 1930s, become migrant workers and end up in California. The motion picture details their arduous journey across the United States as they travel to California in search of work and opportunities for the family members.
In 1989, this film was one of the first 25 films to be selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Based on a landmark American novel
4 Differences from the novel
5 Soundtrack
6 Production
7 Reception 7.1 Critical response
7.2 Awards
8 Video and DVD
9 See also
10 References
11 External links

Plot[edit]
The film opens with Tom Joad (Henry Fonda), released from prison and hitchhiking his way back to his parents' family farm in Oklahoma. Tom finds an itinerant ex-preacher named Jim Casy (John Carradine) sitting under a tree by the side of the road. Casy was the preacher who baptized Tom, but now Casy has "lost the spirit" and his faith (presaging his imminent conversion to communism). Casy goes with Tom to the Joad property only to find it deserted. There, they meet Muley Graves (John Qualen) who is hiding out. In a flashback, he describes how farmers all over the area were forced from their farms by the deed holders of the land. A local boy (Irving Bacon), hired for the purpose, is shown knocking down Muley's house with a Caterpillar tractor. Following this, Tom and Casy move on to find the Joad family at Tom's Uncle John's place. His family is happy to see Tom and explain they have made plans to head for California in search of employment, as their farm has been foreclosed on by the bank. The large Joad family of twelve leaves at daybreak, along with Casy who decides to accompany them. They pack everything into a dilapidated 1926 Hudson "Super Six" sedan adapted to serve as a truck in order to make the long journey to the promised land of California.
The trip along Highway 66 is arduous, and it soon takes a toll on the Joad family. The elderly Grandpa (Charley Grapewin) dies along the way. Tom writes the circumstances surrounding the death on a page from the family Bible and places it on the body before they bury it so that if his remains were found, his death would not be investigated as a possible homicide. They park in a camp and meet a man, a migrant returning from California, who laughs at Pa's optimism about conditions in California. He speaks bitterly about his experiences in the West.
The family arrives at the first transient migrant campground for workers and finds the camp is crowded with other starving, jobless and desperate travelers. Their truck slowly makes its way through the dirt road between the shanty houses and around the camp's hungry-faced inhabitants. Tom says, "Sure don't look none too prosperous."
After some trouble with a so-called "agitator", the Joads leave the camp in a hurry. The Joads make their way to another migrant camp, the Keene Ranch. After doing some work in the fields, they discover the high food prices in the company store for meat and other products. The store is the only one in the area, by a long shot. Later they find a group of migrant workers are striking, and Tom wants to find out all about it. He goes to a secret meeting in the dark woods. When the meeting is discovered, Casy is killed by one of the camp guards. As Tom tries to defend Casy from the attack, he inadvertently kills the guard.
Tom suffers a serious wound on his cheek, and the camp guards realize it will not be difficult to identify him. That evening the family hides Tom under the mattresses of the truck just as guards arrive to question them; they are searching for the man who killed the guard. Tom avoids being spotted and the family leaves the Keene Ranch without further incident. After driving for a while, they have to stop at the top of a hill when the engine overheats due to a broken fan belt; they have little gas, but decide to try coasting down the hill to some lights. The lights are from a third type of camp: Farmworkers' Wheat Patch Camp (Weedpatch in the book), a clean camp run by the Department of Agriculture, complete with indoor toilets and showers, which the Joad children had never seen before.
Tom is moved to work for change by what he has witnessed in the various camps. He tells his family that he plans to carry on Casy's mission in the world by fighting for social reform. He leaves to seek a new world and to join the movement committed to social justice.
Tom Joad says:

I'll be all around in the dark. I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look, wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build, I'll be there, too.
As the family moves on again, they discuss the fear and difficulties they have had. Ma Joad concludes the film, saying:

I ain't never gonna be scared no more. I was, though. For a while it looked as though we was beat. Good and beat. Looked like we didn't have nobody in the whole wide world but enemies. Like nobody was friendly no more. Made me feel kinda bad and scared too, like we was lost and nobody cared.... Rich fellas come up and they die, and their kids ain't no good and they die out, but we keep a-coming. We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out, they can't lick us. We'll go on forever, Pa, cos we're the people.
Cast[edit]

 

 Henry Fonda as Tom Joad
Henry Fonda as Tom Joad
Jane Darwell as Ma Joad
John Carradine as Jim Casy
Charley Grapewin as Grandpa
Dorris Bowdon as Rosasharn
Russell Simpson as Pa Joad
O.Z. Whitehead as Al
John Qualen as Muley Graves
Eddie Quillan as Connie
Zeffie Tilbury as Grandma
Frank Sully as Noah
Frank Darien as Uncle John
Darryl Hickman as Winfield
Shirley Mills as Ruthie
Roger Imhof as Thomas
Grant Mitchell as Caretaker
Charles D. Brown as Wilkie
John Arledge as Davis
Ward Bond as Policeman
Harry Tyler as Bert
William Pawley as Bill
Charles Tannen as Joe
Selmer Jackson as Inspection Officer
Charles Middleton as Leader
Eddy Waller as Proprietor
Paul Guilfoyle as Floyd
David Hughes as Frank
Cliff Clark as City Man
Joe Sawyer as Bookkeeper
Frank Faylen as Tim
Adrian Morris as Agent
Hollis Jewell as Muley's Son
Robert Homans as Spencer
Irving Bacon as Driver
Kitty McHugh as Mae
Darryl Hickman is the last surviving cast member.
Based on a landmark American novel[edit]
According to The New York Times, Grapes of Wrath was the best-selling book of 1939 and 430,000 copies had been printed by February 1940.[4] In that month it won the National Book Award, favorite fiction book of 1939, voted by members of the American Booksellers Association.[4] Soon it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.[5]
In 1962, the Nobel Prize committee cited Grapes of Wrath as a "great work" and as one of the committee's main reasons for granting Steinbeck the Nobel Prize for Literature.[6] Time magazine included the novel in its "TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005".[7] In 2009, The Daily Telegraph also included the novel in its "100 novels everyone should read".[8] In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Grapes of Wrath tenth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
Differences from the novel[edit]
The first part of the film follows the book fairly closely. However, the second half and the ending in particular are significantly different from the book. While the book ends with the downfall and break-up of the Joad family, the film switches the order of sequences so that the family ends up in a "good" camp provided by the government, and events turn out relatively well.[9]
The novel's original ending was considered far too controversial to be included in the film.[citation needed] In the novel, Rose-of-Sharon ("Rosasharn") Rivers (played in the film by Dorris Bowdon) gives birth to a stillborn baby. Later she offers her milk-filled breasts to a starving man, dying in a barn. These scenes were not included in the film.
While the film is somewhat stark, it has a more optimistic and hopeful view than the novel, especially when the Joads land at the Department of Agriculture camp – the clean camp.[citation needed] Also, the producers decided to tone down Steinbeck's political references, such as eliminating a monologue using a land owner's description of "reds" as anybody "that wants thirty cents an hour when we're payin' twenty-five," to show that under the prevalent conditions that definition applies to every migrant worker looking for better wages.
The film emphasizes Ma Joad's pragmatic, forward-looking way of dealing with their situation despite Tom's departure, as it concludes with her spiritual "We're the people" speech.[citation needed][10]
Ivy and Sairy Wilson, who attend to Grandpa's death and travel with the Joads until they reach California, are left out of the movie. Noah's departure from the family is passed over in the movie. In the book, Floyd tells Tom about how the workers were being exploited, but in the movie he does not appear until after the deputy arrives in Hooverville. Sandry, the religious fanatic who scares Rose of Sharon, is left out of the movie.
Vivian Sobchack argued that the film uses visual imagery to focus on the Joads as a family unit, whereas the novel focuses on their journey as a part of the "family of man". She points out that their farm is never shown in detail, and that the family members are never shown working in agriculture; not a single peach is shown in the entire film. This subtly serves to focus the film on the specific family, as opposed to the novel's focus on man and land together.[11]
Soundtrack[edit]
Henry Fonda – "Red River Valley"
Eddie Quillan – "Going Down the Road Feeling Bad" (Traditional)
"A Tisket, A Tasket" (Words & music by Ella Fitzgerald & Van Alexander)
Production[edit]
According to critic Roger Ebert, both executive producer Darryl F. Zanuck and director John Ford were odd choices to make this film because both were considered politically conservative.[12] Zanuck was nervous about the left-wing political views of the novel, especially the ending. Due to the red-baiting common to the era, Daryl Zanuck sent private investigators to Oklahoma to help him legitimize the film.
When Zanuck's investigators found that the "Okies'" predicament was indeed terrible, Zanuck was confident he could defend political attacks that the film was somehow pro-Communist.[13] Ebert believes that World War II also helped sell the film's message, as Communism received a brief respite from American demonizing during that period.[12]
Production on the film began on October 4, 1939, and was completed on November 16, 1939. Some of the filming locations include: McAlester, Sayre both in Oklahoma; Gallup, Laguna Pueblo, and Santa Rosa, all in New Mexico; Lamont, Needles, San Fernando Valley, all in California; Topock, Petrified Forest National Park, all in Arizona.[14]
The film score by Alfred Newman is based on the song "Red River Valley". Additionally, the song "Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad" is sung in a nighttime scene at a labor camp.
The film premiered in New York City on January 24, 1940, and Los Angeles on January 27, 1940. The wide release date in the United States was March 15, 1940.
Originally allowed to be shown in the Soviet Union (USSR) in 1948 because of its depiction of the plight of people under capitalism, it was subsequently withdrawn because audiences were noticing that, as shown in the film, even the poorest Americans could afford a car.[15]
Reception[edit]
Critical response[edit]
Nugent wrote:

In the vast library where the celluloid literature of the screen is stored there is one small, uncrowded shelf devoted to the cinema's masterworks, to those films which by dignity of theme and excellence of treatment seem to be of enduring artistry, seem destined to be recalled not merely at the end of their particular year but whenever great motion pictures are mentioned. To that shelf of screen classics Twentieth Century-Fox yesterday added its version of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, adapted by Nunnally Johnson, directed by John Ford and performed at the Rivoli by a cast of such uniform excellence and suitability that we should be doing its other members an injustice by saying it was "headed" by Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine and Russell Simpson.[16]
When critic Bosley Crowther retired in 1967, he named The Grapes of Wrath one of the best fifty films ever made. (N.B.: 40 percent of the works Crowther named were not American-made, so he was placing this work in a large context.)[17]
In a film review written for Time magazine by its editor Whittaker Chambers, he separated his views of Steinbeck's novel from Ford's film, which he liked.
Chambers wrote:

But people who go to pictures for the sake of seeing pictures will see a great one. For The Grapes of Wrath is possibly the best picture ever made from a so-so book...Camera craft purged the picture of the editorial rash that blotched the Steinbeck book. Cleared of excrescences, the residue is a great human story which made thousands of people, who damned the novel's phony conclusions, read it. It is the saga of an authentic U.S. farming family who lose their land. They wander, they suffer, but they endure. They are never quite defeated, and their survival is itself a triumph.[18]
Awards[edit]
Academy Awards wins (1941)[19]
Best Supporting Actress, Jane Darwell as Ma Joad.
Academy Award for Directing, John Ford.
Academy Awards nominations (1941)
Best Actor in a Leading Role, Henry Fonda as Tom Joad.
Best Film Editing, Robert L. Simpson.
Best Picture, Darryl F. Zanuck and Nunnally Johnson.
Best Sound Recording, Edmund H. Hansen.
Best Writing Adapted Screenplay, Nunnally Johnson.
Other wins
National Board of Review of Motion Pictures: NBR Award; Best Picture- 1940.
New York Film Critics: NYFCC Award; Best Director, John Ford; Best Film- 1940.
Blue Ribbon Awards, Japan: Blue Ribbon Award Best Foreign Language Film, John Ford- 1963.
National Film Registry – 1989.
American Film Institute recognition
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies – #21
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains: Tom Joad – #12 Hero
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes: "Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there." – Nominated
100 Years...100 Cheers – #7
100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary) – #23
Video and DVD[edit]


File:Grapes of Wrath, The - (Original Trailer).ogv
Play media
 

 The film's trailer
A video of the film was released in 1988 by Key Video (then a division of CBS/Fox).
Later it was released in video format on March 3, 1998 by 20th Century Fox on its Studio Classic series.
A DVD was released on April 6, 2004 by 20th Century Fox Entertainment. The DVD contains a special commentary track by scholars Joseph McBride and Susan Shillinglaw. It also includes various supplements: an A&E Network biography of Daryl F. Zanuck, outtakes, a gallery, Franklin D. Roosevelt lauds motion pictures at Academy featurette, Movietone news: three drought reports from 1934, etc.

See also[edit]
List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a film review aggregator website
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Solomon, Aubrey (1989). Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, p. 240, ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1.
2.Jump up ^ Solomon, Aubrey (1989). Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, p. 218, ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1.
3.Jump up ^ The Grapes of Wrath at the Internet Movie Database.
4.^ Jump up to: a b "1939 Book Awards Given by Critics: Elgin Groseclose's 'Ararat' is Picked as Work Which Failed to Get Due Recognition", The New York Times, February 14, 1940, page 25. ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851–2007).
5.Jump up ^ "Novel" (Winners 1917–1947). The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved January 28, 2012.
6.Jump up ^ Osterling, Anders. "Nobel Prize in Literature 1962 – Presentation Speech". Retrieved February 18, 2007.
7.Jump up ^ "All Time 100 Novels". Time. October 16, 2005. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
8.Jump up ^ "100 novels everyone should read". The Daily Telegraph. January 16, 2009. Retrieved June 5, 2012.
9.Jump up ^ "The Grapes of Wrath". Movie. Retrieved 12 March 2013.
10.Jump up ^ Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath, 1939. Penguin Classics; Reissue edition October 1, 1992.
11.Jump up ^ Sobchack, Vivian C. (1979). "The Grapes of Wrath (1940): Thematic Emphasis Through Visual Style". American Quarterly (The Johns Hopkins University Press) 31 (5): 596–615. doi:10.2307/2712428. JSTOR 2712428.
12.^ Jump up to: a b Ebert, Roger. Chicago Sun-Times, film review, March 21, 2002. Last accessed: January 14, 2007.
13.Jump up ^ Levy, Emanuel. Film review. Last accessed: February 26, 2008.
14.Jump up ^ Filming locations. The Grapes of Wrath at the Internet Movie Database.
15.Jump up ^ Whitfield, Stephen J. (2009). "Projecting Politics: The Grapes of Wrath". Revue LISA/LISA e-journal VII (1): 121–147.
16.Jump up ^ Nugent, Frank S. The Grapes of Wrath (1940). The New York TimesJanuary 25, 1940. Last accessed: February 26, 2008.
17.Jump up ^ Crowther, Bosley. "The 50 Best Films of All Time" at the Wayback Machine (archived November 2, 2007). The New York Times, archived at Northern Essex Community College.
18.Jump up ^ Chambers, Whittaker (February 12, 1940). "Cinema: The New Pictures". Time. Retrieved July 31, 2010.
19.Jump up ^ "The 13th Academy Awards (1941) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-08-13.
External links[edit]
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Grapes of Wrath (film).
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Grapes of Wrath (film)
The Grapes of Wrath at the American Film Institute Catalog
The Grapes of Wrath at the Internet Movie Database
The Grapes of Wrath at AllMovie
The Grapes of Wrath at the TCM Movie Database
The Grapes of Wrath at Rotten Tomatoes
The Grapes of Wrath at Film Site by Tim Dirks
The Grapes of Wrath video film review on YouTube by A. O. Scott (The New York Times)


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Categories: 1940 films
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The Grapes of Wrath (film)

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For the 1990 Broadway play, see The Grapes of Wrath (play).

The Grapes of Wrath
Wrathposters141.jpg
Theatrical release poster
 
Directed by
John Ford
Produced by
Darryl F. Zanuck
Nunnally Johnson
Screenplay by
Nunnally Johnson
Based on
The Grapes of Wrath
 by John Steinbeck
Starring
Henry Fonda
Jane Darwell
John Carradine
Shirley Mills
John Qualen
Eddie Quillan
Music by
Alfred Newman
Cinematography
Gregg Toland
Edited by
Robert L. Simpson
Distributed by
20th Century Fox

Release dates

January 24, 1940 (United States)
 

Running time
 129 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$800,000[1]
Box office
$2.5 million (rentals)[2]
The Grapes of Wrath is a 1940 drama film directed by John Ford. It was based on John Steinbeck's 1939 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. The screenplay was written by Nunnally Johnson and the executive producer was Darryl F. Zanuck.[3]
The film tells the story of the Joads, an Oklahoma family, who, after losing their farm during the Great Depression in the 1930s, become migrant workers and end up in California. The motion picture details their arduous journey across the United States as they travel to California in search of work and opportunities for the family members.
In 1989, this film was one of the first 25 films to be selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Based on a landmark American novel
4 Differences from the novel
5 Soundtrack
6 Production
7 Reception 7.1 Critical response
7.2 Awards
8 Video and DVD
9 See also
10 References
11 External links

Plot[edit]
The film opens with Tom Joad (Henry Fonda), released from prison and hitchhiking his way back to his parents' family farm in Oklahoma. Tom finds an itinerant ex-preacher named Jim Casy (John Carradine) sitting under a tree by the side of the road. Casy was the preacher who baptized Tom, but now Casy has "lost the spirit" and his faith (presaging his imminent conversion to communism). Casy goes with Tom to the Joad property only to find it deserted. There, they meet Muley Graves (John Qualen) who is hiding out. In a flashback, he describes how farmers all over the area were forced from their farms by the deed holders of the land. A local boy (Irving Bacon), hired for the purpose, is shown knocking down Muley's house with a Caterpillar tractor. Following this, Tom and Casy move on to find the Joad family at Tom's Uncle John's place. His family is happy to see Tom and explain they have made plans to head for California in search of employment, as their farm has been foreclosed on by the bank. The large Joad family of twelve leaves at daybreak, along with Casy who decides to accompany them. They pack everything into a dilapidated 1926 Hudson "Super Six" sedan adapted to serve as a truck in order to make the long journey to the promised land of California.
The trip along Highway 66 is arduous, and it soon takes a toll on the Joad family. The elderly Grandpa (Charley Grapewin) dies along the way. Tom writes the circumstances surrounding the death on a page from the family Bible and places it on the body before they bury it so that if his remains were found, his death would not be investigated as a possible homicide. They park in a camp and meet a man, a migrant returning from California, who laughs at Pa's optimism about conditions in California. He speaks bitterly about his experiences in the West.
The family arrives at the first transient migrant campground for workers and finds the camp is crowded with other starving, jobless and desperate travelers. Their truck slowly makes its way through the dirt road between the shanty houses and around the camp's hungry-faced inhabitants. Tom says, "Sure don't look none too prosperous."
After some trouble with a so-called "agitator", the Joads leave the camp in a hurry. The Joads make their way to another migrant camp, the Keene Ranch. After doing some work in the fields, they discover the high food prices in the company store for meat and other products. The store is the only one in the area, by a long shot. Later they find a group of migrant workers are striking, and Tom wants to find out all about it. He goes to a secret meeting in the dark woods. When the meeting is discovered, Casy is killed by one of the camp guards. As Tom tries to defend Casy from the attack, he inadvertently kills the guard.
Tom suffers a serious wound on his cheek, and the camp guards realize it will not be difficult to identify him. That evening the family hides Tom under the mattresses of the truck just as guards arrive to question them; they are searching for the man who killed the guard. Tom avoids being spotted and the family leaves the Keene Ranch without further incident. After driving for a while, they have to stop at the top of a hill when the engine overheats due to a broken fan belt; they have little gas, but decide to try coasting down the hill to some lights. The lights are from a third type of camp: Farmworkers' Wheat Patch Camp (Weedpatch in the book), a clean camp run by the Department of Agriculture, complete with indoor toilets and showers, which the Joad children had never seen before.
Tom is moved to work for change by what he has witnessed in the various camps. He tells his family that he plans to carry on Casy's mission in the world by fighting for social reform. He leaves to seek a new world and to join the movement committed to social justice.
Tom Joad says:

I'll be all around in the dark. I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look, wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build, I'll be there, too.
As the family moves on again, they discuss the fear and difficulties they have had. Ma Joad concludes the film, saying:

I ain't never gonna be scared no more. I was, though. For a while it looked as though we was beat. Good and beat. Looked like we didn't have nobody in the whole wide world but enemies. Like nobody was friendly no more. Made me feel kinda bad and scared too, like we was lost and nobody cared.... Rich fellas come up and they die, and their kids ain't no good and they die out, but we keep a-coming. We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out, they can't lick us. We'll go on forever, Pa, cos we're the people.
Cast[edit]

 

 Henry Fonda as Tom Joad
Henry Fonda as Tom Joad
Jane Darwell as Ma Joad
John Carradine as Jim Casy
Charley Grapewin as Grandpa
Dorris Bowdon as Rosasharn
Russell Simpson as Pa Joad
O.Z. Whitehead as Al
John Qualen as Muley Graves
Eddie Quillan as Connie
Zeffie Tilbury as Grandma
Frank Sully as Noah
Frank Darien as Uncle John
Darryl Hickman as Winfield
Shirley Mills as Ruthie
Roger Imhof as Thomas
Grant Mitchell as Caretaker
Charles D. Brown as Wilkie
John Arledge as Davis
Ward Bond as Policeman
Harry Tyler as Bert
William Pawley as Bill
Charles Tannen as Joe
Selmer Jackson as Inspection Officer
Charles Middleton as Leader
Eddy Waller as Proprietor
Paul Guilfoyle as Floyd
David Hughes as Frank
Cliff Clark as City Man
Joe Sawyer as Bookkeeper
Frank Faylen as Tim
Adrian Morris as Agent
Hollis Jewell as Muley's Son
Robert Homans as Spencer
Irving Bacon as Driver
Kitty McHugh as Mae
Darryl Hickman is the last surviving cast member.
Based on a landmark American novel[edit]
According to The New York Times, Grapes of Wrath was the best-selling book of 1939 and 430,000 copies had been printed by February 1940.[4] In that month it won the National Book Award, favorite fiction book of 1939, voted by members of the American Booksellers Association.[4] Soon it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.[5]
In 1962, the Nobel Prize committee cited Grapes of Wrath as a "great work" and as one of the committee's main reasons for granting Steinbeck the Nobel Prize for Literature.[6] Time magazine included the novel in its "TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005".[7] In 2009, The Daily Telegraph also included the novel in its "100 novels everyone should read".[8] In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Grapes of Wrath tenth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
Differences from the novel[edit]
The first part of the film follows the book fairly closely. However, the second half and the ending in particular are significantly different from the book. While the book ends with the downfall and break-up of the Joad family, the film switches the order of sequences so that the family ends up in a "good" camp provided by the government, and events turn out relatively well.[9]
The novel's original ending was considered far too controversial to be included in the film.[citation needed] In the novel, Rose-of-Sharon ("Rosasharn") Rivers (played in the film by Dorris Bowdon) gives birth to a stillborn baby. Later she offers her milk-filled breasts to a starving man, dying in a barn. These scenes were not included in the film.
While the film is somewhat stark, it has a more optimistic and hopeful view than the novel, especially when the Joads land at the Department of Agriculture camp – the clean camp.[citation needed] Also, the producers decided to tone down Steinbeck's political references, such as eliminating a monologue using a land owner's description of "reds" as anybody "that wants thirty cents an hour when we're payin' twenty-five," to show that under the prevalent conditions that definition applies to every migrant worker looking for better wages.
The film emphasizes Ma Joad's pragmatic, forward-looking way of dealing with their situation despite Tom's departure, as it concludes with her spiritual "We're the people" speech.[citation needed][10]
Ivy and Sairy Wilson, who attend to Grandpa's death and travel with the Joads until they reach California, are left out of the movie. Noah's departure from the family is passed over in the movie. In the book, Floyd tells Tom about how the workers were being exploited, but in the movie he does not appear until after the deputy arrives in Hooverville. Sandry, the religious fanatic who scares Rose of Sharon, is left out of the movie.
Vivian Sobchack argued that the film uses visual imagery to focus on the Joads as a family unit, whereas the novel focuses on their journey as a part of the "family of man". She points out that their farm is never shown in detail, and that the family members are never shown working in agriculture; not a single peach is shown in the entire film. This subtly serves to focus the film on the specific family, as opposed to the novel's focus on man and land together.[11]
Soundtrack[edit]
Henry Fonda – "Red River Valley"
Eddie Quillan – "Going Down the Road Feeling Bad" (Traditional)
"A Tisket, A Tasket" (Words & music by Ella Fitzgerald & Van Alexander)
Production[edit]
According to critic Roger Ebert, both executive producer Darryl F. Zanuck and director John Ford were odd choices to make this film because both were considered politically conservative.[12] Zanuck was nervous about the left-wing political views of the novel, especially the ending. Due to the red-baiting common to the era, Daryl Zanuck sent private investigators to Oklahoma to help him legitimize the film.
When Zanuck's investigators found that the "Okies'" predicament was indeed terrible, Zanuck was confident he could defend political attacks that the film was somehow pro-Communist.[13] Ebert believes that World War II also helped sell the film's message, as Communism received a brief respite from American demonizing during that period.[12]
Production on the film began on October 4, 1939, and was completed on November 16, 1939. Some of the filming locations include: McAlester, Sayre both in Oklahoma; Gallup, Laguna Pueblo, and Santa Rosa, all in New Mexico; Lamont, Needles, San Fernando Valley, all in California; Topock, Petrified Forest National Park, all in Arizona.[14]
The film score by Alfred Newman is based on the song "Red River Valley". Additionally, the song "Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad" is sung in a nighttime scene at a labor camp.
The film premiered in New York City on January 24, 1940, and Los Angeles on January 27, 1940. The wide release date in the United States was March 15, 1940.
Originally allowed to be shown in the Soviet Union (USSR) in 1948 because of its depiction of the plight of people under capitalism, it was subsequently withdrawn because audiences were noticing that, as shown in the film, even the poorest Americans could afford a car.[15]
Reception[edit]
Critical response[edit]
Nugent wrote:

In the vast library where the celluloid literature of the screen is stored there is one small, uncrowded shelf devoted to the cinema's masterworks, to those films which by dignity of theme and excellence of treatment seem to be of enduring artistry, seem destined to be recalled not merely at the end of their particular year but whenever great motion pictures are mentioned. To that shelf of screen classics Twentieth Century-Fox yesterday added its version of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, adapted by Nunnally Johnson, directed by John Ford and performed at the Rivoli by a cast of such uniform excellence and suitability that we should be doing its other members an injustice by saying it was "headed" by Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine and Russell Simpson.[16]
When critic Bosley Crowther retired in 1967, he named The Grapes of Wrath one of the best fifty films ever made. (N.B.: 40 percent of the works Crowther named were not American-made, so he was placing this work in a large context.)[17]
In a film review written for Time magazine by its editor Whittaker Chambers, he separated his views of Steinbeck's novel from Ford's film, which he liked.
Chambers wrote:

But people who go to pictures for the sake of seeing pictures will see a great one. For The Grapes of Wrath is possibly the best picture ever made from a so-so book...Camera craft purged the picture of the editorial rash that blotched the Steinbeck book. Cleared of excrescences, the residue is a great human story which made thousands of people, who damned the novel's phony conclusions, read it. It is the saga of an authentic U.S. farming family who lose their land. They wander, they suffer, but they endure. They are never quite defeated, and their survival is itself a triumph.[18]
Awards[edit]
Academy Awards wins (1941)[19]
Best Supporting Actress, Jane Darwell as Ma Joad.
Academy Award for Directing, John Ford.
Academy Awards nominations (1941)
Best Actor in a Leading Role, Henry Fonda as Tom Joad.
Best Film Editing, Robert L. Simpson.
Best Picture, Darryl F. Zanuck and Nunnally Johnson.
Best Sound Recording, Edmund H. Hansen.
Best Writing Adapted Screenplay, Nunnally Johnson.
Other wins
National Board of Review of Motion Pictures: NBR Award; Best Picture- 1940.
New York Film Critics: NYFCC Award; Best Director, John Ford; Best Film- 1940.
Blue Ribbon Awards, Japan: Blue Ribbon Award Best Foreign Language Film, John Ford- 1963.
National Film Registry – 1989.
American Film Institute recognition
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies – #21
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains: Tom Joad – #12 Hero
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes: "Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there." – Nominated
100 Years...100 Cheers – #7
100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary) – #23
Video and DVD[edit]


File:Grapes of Wrath, The - (Original Trailer).ogv
Play media
 

 The film's trailer
A video of the film was released in 1988 by Key Video (then a division of CBS/Fox).
Later it was released in video format on March 3, 1998 by 20th Century Fox on its Studio Classic series.
A DVD was released on April 6, 2004 by 20th Century Fox Entertainment. The DVD contains a special commentary track by scholars Joseph McBride and Susan Shillinglaw. It also includes various supplements: an A&E Network biography of Daryl F. Zanuck, outtakes, a gallery, Franklin D. Roosevelt lauds motion pictures at Academy featurette, Movietone news: three drought reports from 1934, etc.

See also[edit]
List of films with a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a film review aggregator website
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Solomon, Aubrey (1989). Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, p. 240, ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1.
2.Jump up ^ Solomon, Aubrey (1989). Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, p. 218, ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1.
3.Jump up ^ The Grapes of Wrath at the Internet Movie Database.
4.^ Jump up to: a b "1939 Book Awards Given by Critics: Elgin Groseclose's 'Ararat' is Picked as Work Which Failed to Get Due Recognition", The New York Times, February 14, 1940, page 25. ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851–2007).
5.Jump up ^ "Novel" (Winners 1917–1947). The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved January 28, 2012.
6.Jump up ^ Osterling, Anders. "Nobel Prize in Literature 1962 – Presentation Speech". Retrieved February 18, 2007.
7.Jump up ^ "All Time 100 Novels". Time. October 16, 2005. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
8.Jump up ^ "100 novels everyone should read". The Daily Telegraph. January 16, 2009. Retrieved June 5, 2012.
9.Jump up ^ "The Grapes of Wrath". Movie. Retrieved 12 March 2013.
10.Jump up ^ Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath, 1939. Penguin Classics; Reissue edition October 1, 1992.
11.Jump up ^ Sobchack, Vivian C. (1979). "The Grapes of Wrath (1940): Thematic Emphasis Through Visual Style". American Quarterly (The Johns Hopkins University Press) 31 (5): 596–615. doi:10.2307/2712428. JSTOR 2712428.
12.^ Jump up to: a b Ebert, Roger. Chicago Sun-Times, film review, March 21, 2002. Last accessed: January 14, 2007.
13.Jump up ^ Levy, Emanuel. Film review. Last accessed: February 26, 2008.
14.Jump up ^ Filming locations. The Grapes of Wrath at the Internet Movie Database.
15.Jump up ^ Whitfield, Stephen J. (2009). "Projecting Politics: The Grapes of Wrath". Revue LISA/LISA e-journal VII (1): 121–147.
16.Jump up ^ Nugent, Frank S. The Grapes of Wrath (1940). The New York TimesJanuary 25, 1940. Last accessed: February 26, 2008.
17.Jump up ^ Crowther, Bosley. "The 50 Best Films of All Time" at the Wayback Machine (archived November 2, 2007). The New York Times, archived at Northern Essex Community College.
18.Jump up ^ Chambers, Whittaker (February 12, 1940). "Cinema: The New Pictures". Time. Retrieved July 31, 2010.
19.Jump up ^ "The 13th Academy Awards (1941) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-08-13.
External links[edit]
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Grapes of Wrath (film).
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Grapes of Wrath (film)
The Grapes of Wrath at the American Film Institute Catalog
The Grapes of Wrath at the Internet Movie Database
The Grapes of Wrath at AllMovie
The Grapes of Wrath at the TCM Movie Database
The Grapes of Wrath at Rotten Tomatoes
The Grapes of Wrath at Film Site by Tim Dirks
The Grapes of Wrath video film review on YouTube by A. O. Scott (The New York Times)


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Categories: 1940 films
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The Grapes of Wrath

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

This article is about the novel. For other uses, see Grapes of Wrath (disambiguation).
The Grapes of Wrath
JohnSteinbeck TheGrapesOfWrath.jpg
First edition cover
 
Author
John Steinbeck
Cover artist
Elmer Hader
Country
United States
Genre
Novel
Publisher
The Viking Press-James Lloyd

Publication date
 April 14, 1939[1]
OCLC
289946
The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award[2] and Pulitzer Prize[3] for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962.[4]
Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other "Okies", they seek jobs, land, dignity, and a future.
The Grapes of Wrath is frequently read in American high school and college literature classes due to its historical context and enduring legacy.[5][6] A celebrated Hollywood film version, starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford, was made in 1940.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Characters
3 Development 3.1 Title
4 Author's note
5 Critical reception
6 Adaptations 6.1 In film
6.2 In music
6.3 In theatre
7 See also
8 References 8.1 Notes
8.2 Bibliography
9 External links

Plot[edit]
The narrative begins just after Tom Joad is paroled from McAlester prison for homicide. On his return to his home near Sallisaw, Oklahoma, Tom meets former preacher Jim Casy, whom he remembers from his childhood, and the two travel together. When they arrive at Tom's childhood farm home, they find it deserted. Disconcerted and confused, Tom and Casy meet their old neighbor, Muley Graves, who tells them the family has gone to stay at Uncle John Joad's home nearby. Graves tells them that the banks have evicted all the farmers, but he refuses to leave the area.
The next morning, Tom and Casy go to Uncle John's. Tom finds his family loading a Hudson saloon converted to a truck with the remains of their possessions; with their crops destroyed by the Dust Bowl, the family defaulted on their bank loans. As their farm is repossessed, the Joads have no option but to seek work in California, described in handbills as fruitful and offering high pay. The Joads put everything they have into making the journey. Although leaving Oklahoma would be breaking parole, Tom decides it is worth the risk, and invites Casy to join him and his family.
Traveling west on Route 66, the Joad family find the road crowded with other migrants. In makeshift camps, they hear many stories from others, some returning from California, and worry about lessening prospects. Along the road, Granpa dies and they bury him in a field; Granma dies close to the California state line; and both Noah (the eldest Joad son) and Connie Rivers (the husband of the pregnant Joad daughter, Rose of Sharon) split from the family. Led by Ma, the remaining members realize they can only continue, as nothing is left for them in Oklahoma.
Reaching California, they find the state oversupplied with labor, so wages are low and workers are taken advantage of. The big corporate farmers are in collusion, and smaller farmers suffer from collapsing prices. Weedpatch Camp, one of the clean, utility-supplied camps operated by the Resettlement Administration, a New Deal agency, offers better conditions, but does not have enough resources to care for all the needy families. As a Federal facility, the camp protects the migrants from harassment by California deputies.
“ How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him – he has known a fear beyond every other. ”
—  Chapter 19
 
In response to the exploitation, Casy becomes a labor organizer and tries to recruit for a labor union. The remaining Joads work as strikebreakers in a peach orchard where Casy is involved in a strike that eventually turns violent. When Tom Joad witnesses Casy's fatal beating, he kills the attacker and flees as a fugitive. The Joads later leave the orchard for a cotton farm, where Tom is at risk of arrest for the homicide.
He bids farewell to his mother, promising to work for the oppressed. Rose of Sharon's baby is stillborn. Ma Joad remains steadfast and forces the family through the bereavement. With rain, the Joads' dwelling is flooded, and they move to higher ground. In the final chapter of the book, the family takes shelter from the flood in an old barn. Inside they find a young boy and his father, who is dying of starvation. Rose of Sharon takes pity on the man and offers him her breast, so that he can be saved from starvation.
Characters[edit]
Tom JoadProtagonist of the story; the Joad family's second son, named after his father. Later on, Tom takes leadership of the family even though he is young.Ma JoadMatriarch. Practical and warm-spirited, she tries to hold the family together. Her given name is never learned; it is suggested that her maiden name was Hazlett.Pa JoadPatriarch, also named Tom, age 50. Hardworking sharecropper and family man. Pa becomes a broken man upon losing his livelihood and means of supporting his family, forcing Ma to assume leadership.Uncle John JoadOlder brother of Pa Joad (Tom describes him as "a fella about 60", but in narrative he is described as 50). He felt guilty about the death of his young wife years before, and has been prone to binges involving alcohol and prostitutes, but is generous with his goods.Jim CasyA former preacher who lost his faith. He is a Christ-like figure and is based on Ed Ricketts.Al JoadThe second youngest son, a "smart-aleck sixteen-year-older" who cares mainly for cars and girls; looks up to Tom, but begins to find his own way.Rose of Sharon Joad RiversChildish and dreamy teenage daughter (18) who develops into a mature woman. She symbolizes regrowth when she helps the starving stranger (see also Roman Charity, works of art based on the legend of a daughter as wet nurse to her dying father). Pregnant in the beginning of the novel, she delivers a stillborn baby, suggested as due to malnutrition.Connie RiversRose of Sharon's husband. Nineteen years old and naïve, he is overwhelmed by marriage and impending fatherhood; he abandons her shortly after they arrive in California.Noah JoadThe oldest son, he is the first to leave the family, planning to live off fishing on the Colorado River. Injured at birth, described as "strange", he may have slight learning difficulties.Grampa JoadTom's grandfather, who expresses his strong desire to stay in Oklahoma. His full name is given as William James Joad. Grampa is drugged by his family with "soothin' syrup" to force him to leave, but dies in the evening of the first day on the road. Casy attributes his death to a stroke, but says that Grampa is "jus' stayin' with the lan'. He couldn' leave it."Granma JoadThe religious wife of Grampa Joad, she loses her will to live after his death. She dies while the family is crossing the Mojave Desert.Ruthie JoadThe youngest daughter, age twelve. She is shown to be reckless and childish. Quarreling with another child, she reveals Tom in hiding.Winfield JoadThe youngest male in the family, age ten, "kid-wild and calfish".Jim RawleyManages the camp at Weedpatch, he shows the Joads surprising favor.Muley GravesA neighbor of the Joads, he is invited to come along to California with them but refuses. The family leave two of their dogs with him; a third they take but it is killed by a car during their travels. .Ivy and Sairy WilsonMigrants from Kansas, they attend the death of Grampa and share the journey as far as the California state line.Mr. WainwrightThe father of Aggie Wainwright and husband of Mrs. Wainwright. Worries over his daughter Aggie.Mrs. WainwrightMother to Aggie Wainwright and wife to Mr. Wainwright. She helps deliver Rose of Sharon's baby with Ma.Aggie WainwrightSixteen years of age. Daughter to Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright. Intends to marry Al.Floyd KnowlesThe man at the Hooverville who urges Tom and Casy to join labor organizations. His agitation results in Casy's being jailed.
Development[edit]

This is the beginning—from "I" to "we". If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I", and cuts you off forever from the "we".
— Chapter 14
Steinbeck was known to have borrowed from field notes taken during 1938 by Farm Security Administration worker and author Sanora Babb. While Babb collected personal stories about the lives of the displaced migrants for a novel she was developing, her supervisor, Tom Collins, shared her reports with Steinbeck, then working at the San Francisco News.[7] Babb's own as-yet unpublished novel, Whose Names Are Unknown, was eclipsed in 1939 by the success of The Grapes of Wrath, and was shelved until it was finally published in 2004, a year before Babb's death.
The Grapes of Wrath developed from The Harvest Gypsies, a series of seven articles that ran in the San Francisco News, from October 5 to 12, 1936. The newspaper commissioned that work on migrant workers from the Midwest in California's agriculture industry. (It was later compiled and published separately.[8])[9]
Title[edit]
While writing the novel at his home, 16250 Greenwood Lane, in what is now Monte Sereno, California, Steinbeck had unusual difficulty devising a title. The Grapes of Wrath, suggested by his wife Carol Steinbeck,[10] was deemed more suitable than anything by the author. The title is a reference to lyrics from "The 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 fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
 His truth is marching on.
These lyrics refer, in turn, to the biblical passage Revelation 14:19–20, an apocalyptic appeal to divine justice and deliverance from oppression in the final judgment. This and other biblical passages had inspired a long tradition of imagery of Christ in the winepress in various media.

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. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.
The phrase also appears at the end of chapter 25 in The Grapes of Wrath which describes the purposeful destruction of food to keep the price high:

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.
The image invoked by the title serves as a crucial symbol in the development of both the plot and the novel's greater thematic concerns: from the terrible winepress of Dust Bowl oppression will come terrible wrath but also the deliverance of workers through their cooperation. This is suggested but not realized within the novel.
Author's note[edit]
When preparing to write the novel, Steinbeck wrote: "I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this [the Great Depression and its effects]." He famously said, "I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags." This work won a large following among the working class due to Steinbeck's sympathy to the migrants and workers' movement, and his accessible prose style.[11]
Critical reception[edit]
Steinbeck scholar John Timmerman sums up the book's influence: "The Grapes of Wrath may well be the most thoroughly discussed novel – in criticism, reviews, and college classrooms – of 20th century American literature."[9] The Grapes of Wrath is referred to as a Great American Novel.[12]
At the time of publication, Steinbeck's novel "was a phenomenon on the scale of a national event. It was publicly banned and burned by citizens, it was debated on national talk radio; but above all, it was read."[13] According to The New York Times, it was the best-selling book of 1939 and 430,000 copies had been printed by February 1940.[2] In that month it won the National Book Award, favorite fiction book of 1939, voted by members of the American Booksellers Association.[2] Soon it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.[3]
The book was noted for Steinbeck's passionate depiction of the plight of the poor, and many of his contemporaries attacked his social and political views. Bryan Cordyack writes, "Steinbeck was attacked as a propagandist and a socialist from both the left and the right of the political spectrum. The most fervent of these attacks came from the Associated Farmers of California; they were displeased with the book's depiction of California farmers' attitudes and conduct toward the migrants. They denounced the book as a 'pack of lies' and labeled it 'communist propaganda'".[9] Some accused Steinbeck of exaggerating camp conditions to make a political point. Steinbeck had visited the camps well before publication of the novel[14] and argued their inhumane nature destroyed the settlers' spirit.
In 1962, the Nobel Prize committee cited Grapes of Wrath as a "great work" and as one of the committee's main reasons for granting Steinbeck the Nobel Prize for Literature.[4]
In 2005 Time magazine included the novel in its "TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005".[15] In 2009, The Daily Telegraph of the United Kingdom included the novel in its "100 novels everyone should read".[16] In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Grapes of Wrath tenth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 1999, French newspaper Le Monde of Paris ranked The Grapes of Wrath as seventh on its list of the 100 best books of the 20th century. In the UK, it was listed at number 29 of the "nation's best loved novel" on the BBC's 2003 survey The Big Read.[17]
Adaptations[edit]
In film[edit]
The book was quickly made into a famed, 1940 Hollywood movie of the same name directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda as Tom Joad. The first part of the film version follows the book fairly accurately. However, the second half and the ending in particular are significantly different from the book. John Springer, author of The Fondas (Citadel, 1973), said of Henry Fonda and his role in film version of The Grapes of Wrath: "The Great American Novel made one of the few enduring Great American Motion Pictures."[18]
The 2009 documentary American: The Bill Hicks Story revealed that The Grapes of Wrath was the favorite novel of the comedian Bill Hicks. He based his famous last words on Tom Joad's final speech: "I left in love, in laughter, and in truth, and wherever truth, love and laughter abide, I am there in spirit."[citation needed]
In July 2013 Steven Spielberg announced his plans to direct a remake of The Grapes of Wrath for DreamWorks.[19][20]
In music[edit]
Woody Guthrie's two-part song—"Tom Joad - Parts 1 & 2"—from the album Dust Bowl Ballads (1940), explores the protagonist's life after being paroled from prison, later covered by Dick Gaughan.[21] In 1988, Andy Irvine recorded both parts as a single song—"Tom Joad"—on Patrick Street's second album, No. 2 Patrick Street.[22]
The band The Mission UK included a song titled "The Grapes of Wrath" in their 1990 album Carved in Sand.
The progressive rock band Camel released in 1991 an album titled Dust and Dreams inspired by the novel.
American rock singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen named his eleventh studio album, The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995), after the character. The first track on the album is also called "The Ghost of Tom Joad". The song – and to a lesser extent, the other songs on the album – draws comparisons between the Dust Bowl and modern times.[23]
Rage Against the Machine recorded a version of The Ghost of Tom Joad in 1997.
An opera based on the novel was co-produced by the Minnesota Opera and Utah Symphony and Opera, with music by Ricky Ian Gordon and libretto by Michael Korie. The world premiere performance of the opera was given in February 2007, to favorable local reviews.[24]
Bad Religion have a song entitled "Grains of Wraith" on their 2007 album, New Maps of Hell. Bad Religion lead vocalist, Greg Graffin is a fan of Steinbeck's.[25][better source needed][not in citation given]
The song "Dust Bowl Dance" on the 2009 album Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons is based on the novel.
In theatre[edit]
The Steppenwolf Theatre Company produced a stage version of the book, adapted by Frank Galati. Gary Sinise played Tom Joad for its entire run of 188 performances on Broadway in 1990. One of these performances was filmed and shown on PBS the following year.
In 1990, the Illegitimate Players theater company in Chicago produced Of Grapes and Nuts, an original, satirical mash-up of The Grapes of Wrath and Steinbeck's acclaimed novella Of Mice and Men.[26]
See also[edit]

Portal icon Novels portal
Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
References[edit]
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "Grapes of Wrath, a classic for today?". BBC News. April 14, 2009. Retrieved August 26, 2013.
2.^ Jump up to: a b c "1939 Book Awards Given by Critics: Elgin Groseclose's 'Ararat' is Picked as Work Which Failed to Get Due Recognition", The New York Times, February 14, 1940, page 25. ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851–2007).
3.^ Jump up to: a b "Novel" (Winners 1917–1947). The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved January 28, 2012.
4.^ Jump up to: a b Osterling, Anders. "Nobel Prize in Literature 1962 – Presentation Speech". Retrieved February 18, 2007.
5.Jump up ^ "AP: English Literature". CollegeBoard. Retrieved May 9, 2012.
6.Jump up ^ "The Big Read | The Grapes of Wrath". National Endowment for the Arts. Retrieved May 9, 2012.
7.Jump up ^ Sanora Babb (Ken Burns)
8.Jump up ^ Published by the Simon S. Lubin Society of California as a pamphlet entitled "Their Blood is Strong." Republished 1988 by Heyday as "The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to the Grapes of Wrath." Source: Cordyack.
9.^ Jump up to: a b c Cordyack, Brian. "20th-Century American Bestsellers: John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath". Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Retrieved February 18, 2007.
10.Jump up ^ DeMott, Robert (1992). Robert DeMott's Introduction to The Grapes of Wrath. Viking Penguin, a Division of Penguin Books USA, Inc. pp. xviii. ISBN 0-14-018640-9.
11.Jump up ^ http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/8555
12.Jump up ^ Dana, Gioia. "The Grapes of Wrath Radio Show - Transcript". The Big Read. The National Endowment for the Arts. Retrieved 2010-09-22. Writer Richard Rodriguez discussed The Grapes of Wrath as The Great American Novel: "There hasn't been anything like this novel since it was written. And this is the great American novel that everyone keeps waiting for but it has been written now."
13.Jump up ^ Lisca, Peter (1958). "The Wide World of John Steinbeck". Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
14.Jump up ^ Shillinglaw, Susan; Benson, Jackson J (February 2, 2002). "Of Men and Their Making: The Non-Fiction Of John Steinbeck". London: Penguin. Retrieved December 17, 2008.
15.Jump up ^ "All Time 100 Novels". Time. October 16, 2005. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
16.Jump up ^ "100 novels everyone should read". The Daily Telegraph. January 16, 2009. Retrieved June 5, 2012.
17.Jump up ^ "The Big Read", BBC, April 2003. Retrieved January 12, 2014
18.Jump up ^ Nixon, Rob. "The Grapes of Wrath". This Month Spotlight. Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 2010-09-22.
19.Jump up ^ "Steven Spielberg eyes Grapes of Wrath". guardian.co.uk. 4 July 2013. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
20.Jump up ^ "Steven Spielberg in talks to remake 'The Grapes Of Wrath'". nme.com. 4 July 2013. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
21.Jump up ^ "Dick Gaughan Discography Outlaws & Dreamers (2001)", Retrieved 8th October 2015
22.Jump up ^ Sleeve notes from No. 2 Patrick Street, Green Linnet SIF 1088, 1988.
23.Jump up ^ Symynkywicz, Jeffery B. (2008). The Gospel According to Bruce Springsteen: Rock and Redemption, from Asbury Park to Magic. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 0-664-23169-1. p. 122.
24.Jump up ^ Michael Anthony, "'Grapes' is a sweet, juicy production", Minneapolis Star Tribune, 2/12/2007
25.Jump up ^ Books | The Answer | The Bad Religion Page - Since 1995
26.Jump up ^ Lawrence Bommer, "Sending Up Steinbeck," Chicago Reader, 11/8/1990
Bibliography[edit]
Garcia, Reloy. "The Rocky Road to Eldorado: The Journey Motif in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath." Steinbeck Quarterly 14.03-04 (Summer/Fall 1981): 83-93
Gregory, James N. "Dust Bowl Legacies: the Okie Impact on California, 1939–1989". California History 1989 68(3): 74–85. Issn: 0162-2897
Henkel, Scott. "A Seditious Proposal." The Grapes of Wrath: A Reconsideration' Vol. 1. Ed. Michael J. Meyer. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009. 219-42.
Saxton, Alexander. "In Dubious Battle: Looking Backward". Pacific Historical Review 2004 73(2): 249–262. Issn: 0030-8684 Fulltext: online at Swetswise, Ingenta, Ebsco
Sobchack, Vivian C. "The Grapes of Wrath (1940): Thematic Emphasis Through Visual Style". American Quarterly 1979 31(5): 596–615. Issn: 0003-0678 Fulltext: in Jstor. Discusses the visual style of John Ford's cinematic adaptation of the novel. Usually the movie is examined in terms of its literary roots or its social protest. But the imagery of the film reveals the important theme of the Joad family's coherence. The movie shows the family in closeups, cramped in small spaces on a cluttered screen, isolated from the land and their surroundings. Dim lighting helps abstract the Joad family from the reality of Dust Bowl migrants. The film's emotional and aesthetic power comes from its generalized quality attained through this visual style.
Windschuttle, Keith. "Steinbeck's Myth of the Okies". The New Criterion, Vol. 20, No. 10, June 2002.
Zirakzadeh, Cyrus Ernesto. "John Steinbeck on the Political Capacities of Everyday Folk: Moms, Reds, and Ma Joad's Revolt". Polity 2004 36(4): 595–618. Issn: 0032-3497
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck in the Santa Cruz Mountains – A history of Steinbeck's life living in the Santa Cruz Mountain's while writing The Grapes of Wrath
2 short radio episodes "Spring in California" and "Route 66" from The Grapes of Wrath, California Legacy Project.
"The Grapes of Wrath revisited," (videos) The Guardian [Chris McGreal journeys along Route 66 – following the path of the Joads, of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, to compare that account of the Great Depression with today's United States under President Barack Obama.
Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture – Grapes of Wrath
National Public Radio: Grapes of Wrath, Present at the Creation
Oklahoma Digital Maps: Digital Collections of Oklahoma and Indian Territory
The Grapes of Wrath on Open Library at the Internet Archive
"National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, CA". steinbeck.org. National Steinbeck Center.


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The Grapes of Wrath

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This article is about the novel. For other uses, see Grapes of Wrath (disambiguation).
The Grapes of Wrath
JohnSteinbeck TheGrapesOfWrath.jpg
First edition cover
 
Author
John Steinbeck
Cover artist
Elmer Hader
Country
United States
Genre
Novel
Publisher
The Viking Press-James Lloyd

Publication date
 April 14, 1939[1]
OCLC
289946
The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award[2] and Pulitzer Prize[3] for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962.[4]
Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other "Okies", they seek jobs, land, dignity, and a future.
The Grapes of Wrath is frequently read in American high school and college literature classes due to its historical context and enduring legacy.[5][6] A celebrated Hollywood film version, starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford, was made in 1940.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Characters
3 Development 3.1 Title
4 Author's note
5 Critical reception
6 Adaptations 6.1 In film
6.2 In music
6.3 In theatre
7 See also
8 References 8.1 Notes
8.2 Bibliography
9 External links

Plot[edit]
The narrative begins just after Tom Joad is paroled from McAlester prison for homicide. On his return to his home near Sallisaw, Oklahoma, Tom meets former preacher Jim Casy, whom he remembers from his childhood, and the two travel together. When they arrive at Tom's childhood farm home, they find it deserted. Disconcerted and confused, Tom and Casy meet their old neighbor, Muley Graves, who tells them the family has gone to stay at Uncle John Joad's home nearby. Graves tells them that the banks have evicted all the farmers, but he refuses to leave the area.
The next morning, Tom and Casy go to Uncle John's. Tom finds his family loading a Hudson saloon converted to a truck with the remains of their possessions; with their crops destroyed by the Dust Bowl, the family defaulted on their bank loans. As their farm is repossessed, the Joads have no option but to seek work in California, described in handbills as fruitful and offering high pay. The Joads put everything they have into making the journey. Although leaving Oklahoma would be breaking parole, Tom decides it is worth the risk, and invites Casy to join him and his family.
Traveling west on Route 66, the Joad family find the road crowded with other migrants. In makeshift camps, they hear many stories from others, some returning from California, and worry about lessening prospects. Along the road, Granpa dies and they bury him in a field; Granma dies close to the California state line; and both Noah (the eldest Joad son) and Connie Rivers (the husband of the pregnant Joad daughter, Rose of Sharon) split from the family. Led by Ma, the remaining members realize they can only continue, as nothing is left for them in Oklahoma.
Reaching California, they find the state oversupplied with labor, so wages are low and workers are taken advantage of. The big corporate farmers are in collusion, and smaller farmers suffer from collapsing prices. Weedpatch Camp, one of the clean, utility-supplied camps operated by the Resettlement Administration, a New Deal agency, offers better conditions, but does not have enough resources to care for all the needy families. As a Federal facility, the camp protects the migrants from harassment by California deputies.
“ How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him – he has known a fear beyond every other. ”
—  Chapter 19
 
In response to the exploitation, Casy becomes a labor organizer and tries to recruit for a labor union. The remaining Joads work as strikebreakers in a peach orchard where Casy is involved in a strike that eventually turns violent. When Tom Joad witnesses Casy's fatal beating, he kills the attacker and flees as a fugitive. The Joads later leave the orchard for a cotton farm, where Tom is at risk of arrest for the homicide.
He bids farewell to his mother, promising to work for the oppressed. Rose of Sharon's baby is stillborn. Ma Joad remains steadfast and forces the family through the bereavement. With rain, the Joads' dwelling is flooded, and they move to higher ground. In the final chapter of the book, the family takes shelter from the flood in an old barn. Inside they find a young boy and his father, who is dying of starvation. Rose of Sharon takes pity on the man and offers him her breast, so that he can be saved from starvation.
Characters[edit]
Tom JoadProtagonist of the story; the Joad family's second son, named after his father. Later on, Tom takes leadership of the family even though he is young.Ma JoadMatriarch. Practical and warm-spirited, she tries to hold the family together. Her given name is never learned; it is suggested that her maiden name was Hazlett.Pa JoadPatriarch, also named Tom, age 50. Hardworking sharecropper and family man. Pa becomes a broken man upon losing his livelihood and means of supporting his family, forcing Ma to assume leadership.Uncle John JoadOlder brother of Pa Joad (Tom describes him as "a fella about 60", but in narrative he is described as 50). He felt guilty about the death of his young wife years before, and has been prone to binges involving alcohol and prostitutes, but is generous with his goods.Jim CasyA former preacher who lost his faith. He is a Christ-like figure and is based on Ed Ricketts.Al JoadThe second youngest son, a "smart-aleck sixteen-year-older" who cares mainly for cars and girls; looks up to Tom, but begins to find his own way.Rose of Sharon Joad RiversChildish and dreamy teenage daughter (18) who develops into a mature woman. She symbolizes regrowth when she helps the starving stranger (see also Roman Charity, works of art based on the legend of a daughter as wet nurse to her dying father). Pregnant in the beginning of the novel, she delivers a stillborn baby, suggested as due to malnutrition.Connie RiversRose of Sharon's husband. Nineteen years old and naïve, he is overwhelmed by marriage and impending fatherhood; he abandons her shortly after they arrive in California.Noah JoadThe oldest son, he is the first to leave the family, planning to live off fishing on the Colorado River. Injured at birth, described as "strange", he may have slight learning difficulties.Grampa JoadTom's grandfather, who expresses his strong desire to stay in Oklahoma. His full name is given as William James Joad. Grampa is drugged by his family with "soothin' syrup" to force him to leave, but dies in the evening of the first day on the road. Casy attributes his death to a stroke, but says that Grampa is "jus' stayin' with the lan'. He couldn' leave it."Granma JoadThe religious wife of Grampa Joad, she loses her will to live after his death. She dies while the family is crossing the Mojave Desert.Ruthie JoadThe youngest daughter, age twelve. She is shown to be reckless and childish. Quarreling with another child, she reveals Tom in hiding.Winfield JoadThe youngest male in the family, age ten, "kid-wild and calfish".Jim RawleyManages the camp at Weedpatch, he shows the Joads surprising favor.Muley GravesA neighbor of the Joads, he is invited to come along to California with them but refuses. The family leave two of their dogs with him; a third they take but it is killed by a car during their travels. .Ivy and Sairy WilsonMigrants from Kansas, they attend the death of Grampa and share the journey as far as the California state line.Mr. WainwrightThe father of Aggie Wainwright and husband of Mrs. Wainwright. Worries over his daughter Aggie.Mrs. WainwrightMother to Aggie Wainwright and wife to Mr. Wainwright. She helps deliver Rose of Sharon's baby with Ma.Aggie WainwrightSixteen years of age. Daughter to Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright. Intends to marry Al.Floyd KnowlesThe man at the Hooverville who urges Tom and Casy to join labor organizations. His agitation results in Casy's being jailed.
Development[edit]

This is the beginning—from "I" to "we". If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I", and cuts you off forever from the "we".
— Chapter 14
Steinbeck was known to have borrowed from field notes taken during 1938 by Farm Security Administration worker and author Sanora Babb. While Babb collected personal stories about the lives of the displaced migrants for a novel she was developing, her supervisor, Tom Collins, shared her reports with Steinbeck, then working at the San Francisco News.[7] Babb's own as-yet unpublished novel, Whose Names Are Unknown, was eclipsed in 1939 by the success of The Grapes of Wrath, and was shelved until it was finally published in 2004, a year before Babb's death.
The Grapes of Wrath developed from The Harvest Gypsies, a series of seven articles that ran in the San Francisco News, from October 5 to 12, 1936. The newspaper commissioned that work on migrant workers from the Midwest in California's agriculture industry. (It was later compiled and published separately.[8])[9]
Title[edit]
While writing the novel at his home, 16250 Greenwood Lane, in what is now Monte Sereno, California, Steinbeck had unusual difficulty devising a title. The Grapes of Wrath, suggested by his wife Carol Steinbeck,[10] was deemed more suitable than anything by the author. The title is a reference to lyrics from "The 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 fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
 His truth is marching on.
These lyrics refer, in turn, to the biblical passage Revelation 14:19–20, an apocalyptic appeal to divine justice and deliverance from oppression in the final judgment. This and other biblical passages had inspired a long tradition of imagery of Christ in the winepress in various media.

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. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.
The phrase also appears at the end of chapter 25 in The Grapes of Wrath which describes the purposeful destruction of food to keep the price high:

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.
The image invoked by the title serves as a crucial symbol in the development of both the plot and the novel's greater thematic concerns: from the terrible winepress of Dust Bowl oppression will come terrible wrath but also the deliverance of workers through their cooperation. This is suggested but not realized within the novel.
Author's note[edit]
When preparing to write the novel, Steinbeck wrote: "I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this [the Great Depression and its effects]." He famously said, "I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags." This work won a large following among the working class due to Steinbeck's sympathy to the migrants and workers' movement, and his accessible prose style.[11]
Critical reception[edit]
Steinbeck scholar John Timmerman sums up the book's influence: "The Grapes of Wrath may well be the most thoroughly discussed novel – in criticism, reviews, and college classrooms – of 20th century American literature."[9] The Grapes of Wrath is referred to as a Great American Novel.[12]
At the time of publication, Steinbeck's novel "was a phenomenon on the scale of a national event. It was publicly banned and burned by citizens, it was debated on national talk radio; but above all, it was read."[13] According to The New York Times, it was the best-selling book of 1939 and 430,000 copies had been printed by February 1940.[2] In that month it won the National Book Award, favorite fiction book of 1939, voted by members of the American Booksellers Association.[2] Soon it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.[3]
The book was noted for Steinbeck's passionate depiction of the plight of the poor, and many of his contemporaries attacked his social and political views. Bryan Cordyack writes, "Steinbeck was attacked as a propagandist and a socialist from both the left and the right of the political spectrum. The most fervent of these attacks came from the Associated Farmers of California; they were displeased with the book's depiction of California farmers' attitudes and conduct toward the migrants. They denounced the book as a 'pack of lies' and labeled it 'communist propaganda'".[9] Some accused Steinbeck of exaggerating camp conditions to make a political point. Steinbeck had visited the camps well before publication of the novel[14] and argued their inhumane nature destroyed the settlers' spirit.
In 1962, the Nobel Prize committee cited Grapes of Wrath as a "great work" and as one of the committee's main reasons for granting Steinbeck the Nobel Prize for Literature.[4]
In 2005 Time magazine included the novel in its "TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005".[15] In 2009, The Daily Telegraph of the United Kingdom included the novel in its "100 novels everyone should read".[16] In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Grapes of Wrath tenth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 1999, French newspaper Le Monde of Paris ranked The Grapes of Wrath as seventh on its list of the 100 best books of the 20th century. In the UK, it was listed at number 29 of the "nation's best loved novel" on the BBC's 2003 survey The Big Read.[17]
Adaptations[edit]
In film[edit]
The book was quickly made into a famed, 1940 Hollywood movie of the same name directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda as Tom Joad. The first part of the film version follows the book fairly accurately. However, the second half and the ending in particular are significantly different from the book. John Springer, author of The Fondas (Citadel, 1973), said of Henry Fonda and his role in film version of The Grapes of Wrath: "The Great American Novel made one of the few enduring Great American Motion Pictures."[18]
The 2009 documentary American: The Bill Hicks Story revealed that The Grapes of Wrath was the favorite novel of the comedian Bill Hicks. He based his famous last words on Tom Joad's final speech: "I left in love, in laughter, and in truth, and wherever truth, love and laughter abide, I am there in spirit."[citation needed]
In July 2013 Steven Spielberg announced his plans to direct a remake of The Grapes of Wrath for DreamWorks.[19][20]
In music[edit]
Woody Guthrie's two-part song—"Tom Joad - Parts 1 & 2"—from the album Dust Bowl Ballads (1940), explores the protagonist's life after being paroled from prison, later covered by Dick Gaughan.[21] In 1988, Andy Irvine recorded both parts as a single song—"Tom Joad"—on Patrick Street's second album, No. 2 Patrick Street.[22]
The band The Mission UK included a song titled "The Grapes of Wrath" in their 1990 album Carved in Sand.
The progressive rock band Camel released in 1991 an album titled Dust and Dreams inspired by the novel.
American rock singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen named his eleventh studio album, The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995), after the character. The first track on the album is also called "The Ghost of Tom Joad". The song – and to a lesser extent, the other songs on the album – draws comparisons between the Dust Bowl and modern times.[23]
Rage Against the Machine recorded a version of The Ghost of Tom Joad in 1997.
An opera based on the novel was co-produced by the Minnesota Opera and Utah Symphony and Opera, with music by Ricky Ian Gordon and libretto by Michael Korie. The world premiere performance of the opera was given in February 2007, to favorable local reviews.[24]
Bad Religion have a song entitled "Grains of Wraith" on their 2007 album, New Maps of Hell. Bad Religion lead vocalist, Greg Graffin is a fan of Steinbeck's.[25][better source needed][not in citation given]
The song "Dust Bowl Dance" on the 2009 album Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons is based on the novel.
In theatre[edit]
The Steppenwolf Theatre Company produced a stage version of the book, adapted by Frank Galati. Gary Sinise played Tom Joad for its entire run of 188 performances on Broadway in 1990. One of these performances was filmed and shown on PBS the following year.
In 1990, the Illegitimate Players theater company in Chicago produced Of Grapes and Nuts, an original, satirical mash-up of The Grapes of Wrath and Steinbeck's acclaimed novella Of Mice and Men.[26]
See also[edit]

Portal icon Novels portal
Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
References[edit]
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "Grapes of Wrath, a classic for today?". BBC News. April 14, 2009. Retrieved August 26, 2013.
2.^ Jump up to: a b c "1939 Book Awards Given by Critics: Elgin Groseclose's 'Ararat' is Picked as Work Which Failed to Get Due Recognition", The New York Times, February 14, 1940, page 25. ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851–2007).
3.^ Jump up to: a b "Novel" (Winners 1917–1947). The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved January 28, 2012.
4.^ Jump up to: a b Osterling, Anders. "Nobel Prize in Literature 1962 – Presentation Speech". Retrieved February 18, 2007.
5.Jump up ^ "AP: English Literature". CollegeBoard. Retrieved May 9, 2012.
6.Jump up ^ "The Big Read | The Grapes of Wrath". National Endowment for the Arts. Retrieved May 9, 2012.
7.Jump up ^ Sanora Babb (Ken Burns)
8.Jump up ^ Published by the Simon S. Lubin Society of California as a pamphlet entitled "Their Blood is Strong." Republished 1988 by Heyday as "The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to the Grapes of Wrath." Source: Cordyack.
9.^ Jump up to: a b c Cordyack, Brian. "20th-Century American Bestsellers: John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath". Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Retrieved February 18, 2007.
10.Jump up ^ DeMott, Robert (1992). Robert DeMott's Introduction to The Grapes of Wrath. Viking Penguin, a Division of Penguin Books USA, Inc. pp. xviii. ISBN 0-14-018640-9.
11.Jump up ^ http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/8555
12.Jump up ^ Dana, Gioia. "The Grapes of Wrath Radio Show - Transcript". The Big Read. The National Endowment for the Arts. Retrieved 2010-09-22. Writer Richard Rodriguez discussed The Grapes of Wrath as The Great American Novel: "There hasn't been anything like this novel since it was written. And this is the great American novel that everyone keeps waiting for but it has been written now."
13.Jump up ^ Lisca, Peter (1958). "The Wide World of John Steinbeck". Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
14.Jump up ^ Shillinglaw, Susan; Benson, Jackson J (February 2, 2002). "Of Men and Their Making: The Non-Fiction Of John Steinbeck". London: Penguin. Retrieved December 17, 2008.
15.Jump up ^ "All Time 100 Novels". Time. October 16, 2005. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
16.Jump up ^ "100 novels everyone should read". The Daily Telegraph. January 16, 2009. Retrieved June 5, 2012.
17.Jump up ^ "The Big Read", BBC, April 2003. Retrieved January 12, 2014
18.Jump up ^ Nixon, Rob. "The Grapes of Wrath". This Month Spotlight. Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 2010-09-22.
19.Jump up ^ "Steven Spielberg eyes Grapes of Wrath". guardian.co.uk. 4 July 2013. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
20.Jump up ^ "Steven Spielberg in talks to remake 'The Grapes Of Wrath'". nme.com. 4 July 2013. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
21.Jump up ^ "Dick Gaughan Discography Outlaws & Dreamers (2001)", Retrieved 8th October 2015
22.Jump up ^ Sleeve notes from No. 2 Patrick Street, Green Linnet SIF 1088, 1988.
23.Jump up ^ Symynkywicz, Jeffery B. (2008). The Gospel According to Bruce Springsteen: Rock and Redemption, from Asbury Park to Magic. Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 0-664-23169-1. p. 122.
24.Jump up ^ Michael Anthony, "'Grapes' is a sweet, juicy production", Minneapolis Star Tribune, 2/12/2007
25.Jump up ^ Books | The Answer | The Bad Religion Page - Since 1995
26.Jump up ^ Lawrence Bommer, "Sending Up Steinbeck," Chicago Reader, 11/8/1990
Bibliography[edit]
Garcia, Reloy. "The Rocky Road to Eldorado: The Journey Motif in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath." Steinbeck Quarterly 14.03-04 (Summer/Fall 1981): 83-93
Gregory, James N. "Dust Bowl Legacies: the Okie Impact on California, 1939–1989". California History 1989 68(3): 74–85. Issn: 0162-2897
Henkel, Scott. "A Seditious Proposal." The Grapes of Wrath: A Reconsideration' Vol. 1. Ed. Michael J. Meyer. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009. 219-42.
Saxton, Alexander. "In Dubious Battle: Looking Backward". Pacific Historical Review 2004 73(2): 249–262. Issn: 0030-8684 Fulltext: online at Swetswise, Ingenta, Ebsco
Sobchack, Vivian C. "The Grapes of Wrath (1940): Thematic Emphasis Through Visual Style". American Quarterly 1979 31(5): 596–615. Issn: 0003-0678 Fulltext: in Jstor. Discusses the visual style of John Ford's cinematic adaptation of the novel. Usually the movie is examined in terms of its literary roots or its social protest. But the imagery of the film reveals the important theme of the Joad family's coherence. The movie shows the family in closeups, cramped in small spaces on a cluttered screen, isolated from the land and their surroundings. Dim lighting helps abstract the Joad family from the reality of Dust Bowl migrants. The film's emotional and aesthetic power comes from its generalized quality attained through this visual style.
Windschuttle, Keith. "Steinbeck's Myth of the Okies". The New Criterion, Vol. 20, No. 10, June 2002.
Zirakzadeh, Cyrus Ernesto. "John Steinbeck on the Political Capacities of Everyday Folk: Moms, Reds, and Ma Joad's Revolt". Polity 2004 36(4): 595–618. Issn: 0032-3497
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck in the Santa Cruz Mountains – A history of Steinbeck's life living in the Santa Cruz Mountain's while writing The Grapes of Wrath
2 short radio episodes "Spring in California" and "Route 66" from The Grapes of Wrath, California Legacy Project.
"The Grapes of Wrath revisited," (videos) The Guardian [Chris McGreal journeys along Route 66 – following the path of the Joads, of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, to compare that account of the Great Depression with today's United States under President Barack Obama.
Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture – Grapes of Wrath
National Public Radio: Grapes of Wrath, Present at the Creation
Oklahoma Digital Maps: Digital Collections of Oklahoma and Indian Territory
The Grapes of Wrath on Open Library at the Internet Archive
"National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, CA". steinbeck.org. National Steinbeck Center.


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Categories: 1939 novels
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U.S. Route 66
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