Grapes of Wrath-Q. 1

Throughout the coarse of the book I noticed different particular things that I could tell meant something to the author. The biggest one that I noticed though was how much the author cared about the family staying together through everything.

No matter what the problem or struggle was they made sure that they didn't get separated. Even when Grampa Joad wanted to stay behind and it would have been a lot more easier for the family if he did Ma insisted that they don't leave anyone behind. I could tell that this was coming straight from Steinbeck and that he definitely cared about his family and he made it a point in the story to make sure that his family represented as the Joad's, never get separated because it would be a disaster and they are all stronger when together. I couldn't quite tell if he had gone through a separation in his life or if he wanted to show that families weren't meant for that to happen. At first I thought his parents had gone through a divorce and it had played a big role in his life growing up and impacted his outlook on families because of that.

While reading this book it is obvious what point of view the book was written from, but I wanted to know why. It was written in third person and it flowed good that way, but I kept thinking if there was a reason that Steinbeck didn't write it from Tom's point of view or Ma's. I think that he wrote it from third person so that when someone thought about the book they would notice, like I did, that he found it important for the family to stay together and from a third person view he could dictate that. When you write from a first person view, you struggle with the dictation of others and being able to control their character and make the book flow easily and smoothly.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.