Literature Analysis #3 ( Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck)

• The novel is about the Joad family and their pillage to California in search of better opportunities. They leave Oklahoma and have so many encounters with people and obstacles that make everything so tough on them. The main reason they left was the Dust Bowl that forced many "Okies" to flee the Midwest and head West. The sudden rush of people saturated all of the workforce making a job nearly impossible to obtain. The family endures many separations and deaths buy ultimately the next generation survives. John Steinbeck fulfills his purpose of describing the hardships by the way he intricately paint the characters and their situations. If you read the novel you feel like you're traveling with the Joad's and are experiencing every drop of sorrow along with the family.  
• "It's not how hard you can punch, it's how hard you can get punched and still keep going." -Rocky Balboa. This fictional quate to me sums up the theme of the novel. The Joad's experience so much trouble and hardships but they still kept pushing on. People sometimes lose hope but these people didn't and this just reflects the warrior mentality the Joad's had. 
• Tom Joad ,the protagonist, is characterized indirectly. Steinbeck describes what Tom has been through ,such as his experience in prison, and the way his parents welcome him home. His is looked at as the sort of Golden child in a way. I thought of Tom as a man who has been is shitty situations but always found a way to turn the negative into a positive, or at least try to. 
• Tom Joad is a very dynamic character. He is everything that you don't expect from a murderer; kind,caring, and compassionate. Tom gets out of prison and his first thought is for his family. He emerges as the head of the household later in the novel and does what ever is possible for the sake of his family. Tom also uses his guidance from Jim Casey, the Joad's former pastor, to seek God's help though all of the muck. 
• At the end of the novel I felt a strange sensation at the pit of my stomach. I don't know whether it was because I've been sick or the emotional rollercoaster that I just endure. I honestly felt like the Joad's were in front of me and I was just like a straggler, watching their every move. Tom is now a new friend it seems to me. I learned a lot from these characters and I feel reluctant to call them fictional because of what "we" went through. At the end when Rose of Sharon breast feeds the starving man I felt this shiver up my spine and I could not comprehend it. I must have read that excerpt three times because I was in awe, how could someone feel such a obligation to a stranger?