The Grapes of Wrath: Beauty in the Midst of DespairThe Grapes of Wrath portrays life at its darkest form. It is the story of migrant workers and the hardships and pains they experience as they are driven from their land - the land they have lived on for generations - so that banks can make a profit. Sure, the tenants shouted, but that's how our land is. We measured it and broke it down. We were born into it, and we killed ourselves, we died into it. This is what makes it ours: born on it, worked on it, died on it. This constitutes ownership, not a sheet of paper with numbers on it (p.45). Steinbeck follows the Joad family as they leave the farm to forge a new life in the land of opportunity - California - where life is golden and jobs abound. . . or at least that's what they think. They encounter distrust and antipathy from residents of the cities they pass through and have little success finding jobs with a salary they can survive on. Once the Joads reach California, they find that the situation is much the same; jobs are scarce and wages low. People starve while fruit rots on the trees. Again, this is so others can profit. And children who die of pellagra have to die because you can't profit from an orange. And coroners have to fill out the certificates - deaths of malnutrition - because the food must rot, must be forced to rot (p.477). Steinbeck masterfully weaves a powerful and compelling story of hope, heartbreak, and survival, alternating the narrative of Joads' Journey with chapters that step back and show the struggle of the United States as a whole. This gives the book a depth that is rarely achieved in literature - at least...... middle of paper ...... error behind - strange things happen to them, some bitterly cruel and others so beautiful that faith is fired for always" (p.166). Sources Cited and Consulted Cunningham, Charles D. "Solidarity, Sympathy, Contempt: The Mythology of Rural Poverty in Depression-era America." Diss. Carnegie Mellon U, 2001. French, Warren. "John Steinbeck" Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 1, Gale Research Co.: Book Tower: Detroit 1973. Lechteihn, Yuri "The Awakening of Tom Joad". ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Steinbeck/grapes.html.Steinbeck, John The Grapes of Wrath New York: Penguin Books USA Inc, 1993. Timmerman, John Steinbeck's Fiction: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986. Wilson, Edmund. "Contemporary Literary Criticism Vol. 13, Gale Research Co. Book Tower: Detroit 1973.