Talk:The Grapes of Wrath

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Contents 1 Joad vehicle 2 Links 3 Cover 4 Title 5 True or False 6 e-book? 7 Themes 8 Some clean-up 9 "Explanation of the novel's title" 10 Bias 11 The Dreaded "In my opinion...." 12 Popular Culture 13 Allusions 14 Criticism 15 Bibliography 16 Banned?

[edit] Joad vehicle

Two points, the article should have information about the vehicles. One detail in the book, that it has a 12v electrical system, seems erroneous. 6v systems were the norm of vehicles up to 1955, 30 years later. In 1956 the thunderbird, a luxury sports car made the change from 6 to 12v, its seems unlikely an old vehicle would have superior technology. can anyone speak to whether there was indeed 12v systems then? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.16.15.150 (talk • contribs) September 27, 2006.

[edit] Links

We need an actual external link for the "California Pastoral" article to balance out the Keith Windschuttle "Myth of the Okies."

-NStearns

Actually that's not true, "Myth of the Okies." is full of useless facts that has little things to do with such article —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.86.99.33 (talk • contribs) September 25, 2005.

This is the greatest american novel ever written. its very an interesting book to read/

[edit] Cover

Can't we get a cover of the first edition of the book? Or at least one that dates from the first couple of years? Nobody wants to see some 1997 Penguin cover or whatever that is. --Priceyeah 00:38, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

• You find one then......Cls14 21:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Title

In the section on "Explanation of the novel's title," the sentence:

"The Grapes of Wrath", suggested by his wife, Carol, deemed more suitable than any of the names John himself could come up with.

...doesn't parse. It should be either "seemed" or "was deemed." I don't want to edit it because I'm not sure what the original writer intended. And, of course, if it's changed to "was deemed," that raises the question, was deemed by whom? By Steinbeck, or perhaps by his editor or publisher? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MylesCallum (talk • contribs) May 26, 2006.

[edit] True or False

My high school teacher told me that TGOW was written in 30 days. Any truth to it? Can anyone find a source to back it up? Leonida August 27 2006

Though I don't have an answer, I would say that that's unlikely. Possibly an early revision of the work took a month, but I find it improbable that the book was written wholesale in a month, it being about five hundred pages, depending on the edition. I'd press your English teacher on that one. Ourai ^т _с 03:43, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Your teacher may have got confused with On the Road which was written in a few days ("not writing typing") - and it shows. Dr Spam (MD) 07:54, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

It depends on what you mean by "written in thirty days". One could easily type out a masterpiece novel in that time span, but that really only accounts for a very small fraction of the work. The actual "writing" is the thinking through of the material that the author wants to include: some people take their whole lives to do that. Given the quality of The Grapes of Wrath, I think we can safely rule out the thirty-day hypothesis. --Todeswalzer|Talk 00:22, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] e-book?

anybody know where I can find the text of this book on-line?

there is a text document of the book at [1] S-man64 13:24, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

If there is it's not legal, since this book is still under copyright in the US. Cactus Wren 22:22, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Themes

This novel has some very important themes and comments on mankind as a whole. A section relating to themes should be added. (For basic ideas see the SparkNotes entry.) I hope to contribute to this article in the near future. It might be good to establish a to-do list as well. – Heaven's Wrath   ^Talk  05:55, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some clean-up

I've made a number of changes to the structure (but not so much to the content) of this article. To begin with, I've removed the following sentence,

The family's name, "Joad", is similar to the first name of the Biblical figure Job (pronounced "Jobe"), who suffered greatly when tested by God, but nevertheless maintained his faith.

from the article for the moment, not because it isn't important or relevant (quite the contrary, in fact), but because there simply is not a place for it at the moment. We can put this back in once a proper section has been established to detail the themes of the novel. I've also removed

Woody Guthrie wrote The Ballad of Tom Joad the night he saw the film. He described the film in a column: "Shows the damn bankers' men that broke us and the dust that choked us, and comes right out in plain old English and says what to do about it. It says you got to get together and have some meetins, and stick together, and raise old billy hell till you get your job, and get your farm back, and your house and your chickens and your groceries and your clothes, and your money back" (reprinted in Woody Sez [New York, 1975], p. 133).

because this belongs more on the page discussing the film than it does here. I've also removed the section dealing exclusively with awards and nominations, since this merely reproduces information already found elsewhere in the article.

Finally, there were too many unnecessary sections. I've combined the numerous sections at the end of the article into one main section dealing with the novel's appearance in popular culture (adaptations, music, etc.). I also combined most of the elements of the plot summary into a second lead paragraph, and moved -- for the time being, anyway -- the discussion of the article's title to the end of the plot summary section. This might also be further developed and then moved to a future section about thematic concerns. --Todeswalzer|Talk 22:42, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Explanation of the novel's title"

In the section on "Explanation of the novel's title," I thought it was also because the first flyer that they got was saying they could pick grapes, but when they got there, there weren't any jobs. So that made them angry. Anger is wrath, so you get "Grapes Of Wrath" but please correct if I'm wrong. We're studying the Great Depression in school and our exam will have things about The Grapes Of Wrath, so I'd really like to know if I'm correct! Thanks! Kschechter 03:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

The reference to "grapes of wrath" comes from the Book of Revelations, chapter 14 which is where the hymnist took it from. ("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." etc etc) Dr Spam (MD) 07:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The article's explanation is correct. It was in The Battle Hymn of the Republic. I would go with this explanation. – Heaven's Wrath   ^Talk  04:14, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

It's also a quotation from the end of Chapter 25: "The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; 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." Cactus Wren 01:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bias

"One should note that this novel is a fictional characterization of the plight of tenant farmers. Two-thirds of farmers in the dust bowl, primarily farmers who actually owned the land, actually stayed in Oklahoma and survived these storms. Many of these families held on and actually prospered in later years. One should avoid the tendancy of extrapolating the plight of the Joads into the fate of all residents of the dust bowl era. In many ways, this novel has contributed to a false characterization of the peoples in the affected midwest U.S. areas." That section seems awfully npov...it implies that people didn't suffer during the great depression, though i have read that many farmers actually suffered more than the Joads did. If no complaints, I'm going to remove that section...maybe it can go under criticism or something, though i think it would need support from a credible source. 66.41.62.136 02:38, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, and it still stinks. "Two-thirds of farmers... actually stayed in Oklahoma..." Two-thirds. That's a lot. You know what else is a lot? One-third. --Tysto 23:30, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Dreaded "In my opinion...."

In the plot summary the dreaded "In my opinion....." phrase comes up. I shall remove it, lol.

[edit] Popular Culture

There is a reference to this book on a simpsons episode, I don't know which one but it's the episode where Lisa meets a rival/ --203.97.127.185 06:06, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

haha, I don't know if you were trying to be funny with that statement, but the episode is called "Lisa's Rival". The students are making diaramas for "Diarama-rama", and Nelson's is just a pile of grapes. When Skinner inquires, Nelson says "Here's the grapes, and" -- pulling out a hammer -- "here's the wrath." --Todeswalzer|Talk 16:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Allusions

The new allusions section either needs to be removed, or a lot of work done to it. The novel doesn't 'allude' to Virgil's Aeneid, it just has some parallels that I'm not sure are worth mentioning. Also, its fairly poorly written ("The novel can be a reference to anything."). I propose a complete rewrite or deletion, but I have not read the book in years, so I'm hesitant myself. Lebroyl 14:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

"Some people feel that the real Oklahoma and its people don't fit the description in the book and that this novel has contributed to a supposed false characterization of the peoples in the affected midwest U.S. areas."

This seems to have been here for a while, but I'm not sure why.

I'm sure 'some people' think that, however in the interests of fairness I think we should have an 'Anti-criticism' section, for which I propose:

'Some people feel that noted revisionist Keith Windschuttle is simply trying to promote his own right-wing agenda.'

Seriously, if no one feels this adds anything of note, I'll delete it. Roman Candle 01:44, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

For literary criticism, rather than citing one critic, or a generic "some people," it's far better to go for a professional librarian's summary of the criticism. I've provided one, with URL source; he references over thirty sources. 3Tigers07:14, 18 February 2007 (PST)

Upon further consideration, the whole criticism section of this article was totally inadequate. It's one of the most famous novels in human history, with vast amounts of critical literature dedicated to it. I've reworked the whole thing with critical summaries from Steinbeck scholars and librarians, with sources. Needs a lot more work, but I'm short on time. I'll get back to it. 3Tigers09:30, 18 February 2007(PST)

I'm with both Roman Candle and 3Tigers here. The "some people" who think that this novel doesn't represent -- at least generally -- what life was like for Oklahoma's poor during the Depression have obviously not picked up either a history book or the novel itself (or both). I don't think we can find a reputable source advocating such nonsense: so please remove the phrase. Better commentary can be found. (And although it's a relatively minor issue, just to help keep things in perspective I feel bound to point out that while the novel is inarguably one of the most important in American literature, I think it falls short of world fame.) --Todeswalzer|Talk 20:07, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bibliography

Considering the huge number of articles available on this book, the current bibliography is functionally useless - it only cites a few highly specific articles, some of them slipshod and inept. Suggest deletion, or else refer to the Library of Congress or UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library. 3Tigers09:40, 18 February 2007 (PST)

[edit] Banned?

I've removed the following from the article to this talk page:

The Grapes of Wrath was banned upon its publication in 1939 in Kern County, California, where a great part of the novel is set. The official reason given was the coarse language it contained, and the "nudity" (breast feeding) scene at the end of the book. However, the driving force behind the banning was the Associated Farmers of Kern County. Criticism was also often leveled at the novel's depiction of a minister as an open sexual predator. The book is frequently banned in schools across the United States, and in 1986, in Graves County, Kentucky, an adult was almost arrested for possession of a copy. In Austin, Texas if you even speak about it you could be in big trouble.

I've never heard of the book being banned and, although a number of books were blacklisted in the United States around the time the novel was first published (such as Joyce's Ulysses), this still needs to be cited. Furthermore, the paragraph just seems to get worse as it goes on. Someone "almost arrested" in 1986 for owning a copy? This seems completely ludicrous to me and I would certainly not accept that as fact without proper documentation. Lastly, there's an obvious POV/clarity issue with the final sentence.

I first tagged the section five months ago as lacking sources, so whoever added this information has had ample time to include their references. The section belongs here until the facts can be properly attributed to their sources. --Todeswalzer|Talk 02:41, 5 March 2007 (UTC)