Essay/Term paper: Grapes of wrath synopsis

Essay, term paper, research paper:  The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath

Synopsis:

The Grapes of Wrath is a story about the Joad family and their 1800 mile journey to the supposedly job plentiful California. The family in the beginning of the book were sharecroppers in Oklahoma and were soon thrown off their land by the bank. There had been a long drought and the family were not making enough profit to keep the land. The trip to California begins the Joad family which includes: Grandpa, Pa, Tom, Noah, Rose of Sharon, Ruthie and Winfield, Uncle John, Al, Ma, and Tom who has just got out of jail brings along a former preacher Jim Casey. They buy a used truck and pile their belongings on to it. At the last minute Grandpa Joad refuses to go, the family proceeds to numb him with medicine and load him onto the truck against his will. Soon after they began Grandpa dies and the family buries him alongside Route 66. While coming into the last leg of the trip to California, Grandma dies.
The family reaches California with two family members less than when it did when they started. They soon discover that the jobs in California are not plentiful at all and they are not welcome because they are migrants. They do eventually find work but at wages which are so low it is hard for them to even pay for food. Because of the current financial state of the family they have to settle for living in squalid camps which are called Hoovervilles. Tom gets into a fight at one of the camps with an abusive deputy. The sheriff soon comes to arrest Tom, but Casey offers to go in his place. The family soon finds a nice camp which is government run, but they cannot find jobs that are nearby. Sine they can"t find jobs the move to a peach-growing area where pickers are needed. When they drive into the Hooper Ranch to get a job, they see an angry group of people at the gate. Tim finds out that night that the people are a group of workers who are on strike and that his friend Casey is the strike leader. Casey convinces Tom that the working class people must all stick together. Casey doesn"t stick together to long, a group of thugs hired murderers. Tom has an identifying mark, a gashed face from trying to kill the thugs. The family must leave the Hooper Ranch, they hide Tom between mattresses on their truck so he won"t be seen. The family finds a new camp made up of abandoned railroad boxcars. Tom"s little sister brags about how her brother Tom is a fugitive in public, this forces Tom to hide in a cave. Tom decides he has to go off on his own and carry on Casey"s work. The book comes to a close with Rose of Sharon giving birth to her baby which was never developed enough to live, a very sad ending.