Thursday, October 18, 2012
Why Did Steinbeck choose the title, "The Grapes of Wrath"?
When I began reading this story the title really bugged me. I kept thinking, "What do Tom Joad, a turtle crossing a road, or dust have to do with grapes or wrath?" Granpa finally mentions the fruit in chapter ten when he dreams of the abundance of grapevines that exist in California. I immediately thought, "Granpa's dream has everything to do with the title!" I should have known that Steinbeck is much more clever then that. I finally did a Google search and read the complex reason behind Steinbeck's title decision.
It turns out that the title was pulled directly from, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." The Hymn goes like this...
"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.
(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on."
"The grapes of wrath" stand for the selfish ways of the landowners and banks which lead to the suffering of the angry migrant population. I was not able to understand this interpretation of the title until I had read the majority of the novel because the ending is where the reader can finally understand just how selfish the landowners could be. For example, in chapter twenty-five it is revealed that the landowners produced an abundance of oranges; instead of giving the extra fruit to the starving migrants, they sprayed kerosene on them so they could die and not be stolen.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I saw the title tied to the idea of lack of prosperity within the population itself. It was a sort of famine in my opinion, which also ties to the selfishness of the owners. With my interpretation however, the title not also ties to the selfish owners and their "sin", but to the migrant families and capitalism in a way to where God, or the system falling on itself per say, is taking the pride and other immoral ideals of people away, intentional or not. This is seen towards the end where it is revealed that not only were the Oakies taken away their land, and with it their American Dream, but also the California farmers were on the verge of losing that security as well. Meaning that The wrath was not only within the California farmers, the Eastern farmers had faced similar turmoil. This is why the lack of prosperity comes about, because the farmer's system or even capitalism is the grapes of wrath the hymn mentions. That is what I saw of Steinbeck's reasoning behind the title. It wasn't just the selfishness of the California farmers, it had to do more with the capitalist system itself, displacing homes for profit.
ReplyDelete