Grapes Of Wrath Research Paper

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The Grapes of Wrath & The Glass Castle: Families “In the evening a strange thing happened: the twenty families became one family, the children were the children of all. The loss of home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream” (Steinbeck, 193). Throughout Jeanette Walls’ memoir, The Glass Castle, and John Steinbeck’s, The Grapes of Wrath, the qualities of two families are exposed as they suffer through hardship. With her negligent mother and father, Jeannette and her brothers and sister move around the country in search of jobs and a place to live. After being removed from their farm, the Joads journey across the country in search for jobs in California. Although both families are similar in the sense of tenacity in a search for jobs and their love for…show more content…
For example, the Joads were stable and grounded throughout the text, while the Walls were very unstable when life became tough, and ultimately separated as a family. When the Joads want to separate in Chapter 16 Ma Joad does not allow them to do so. “Ma watched the structure grow and followed it. ‘We don’ want you to go ‘way from us,’ she said. ‘It ain’t good for folks to break up” (Steinbeck, 165). Ma’s persisting in staying together highlights the idea that the Joads are more unified, ultimately helping them in the end. In contrast, the Walls split up as a family, helping their mother, Rose Mary, achieve what she wants, which is to let her children live on their own. Rose Mary resents having children, and selfishly cares more of her art career than her children. “Why spend the afternoon making a meal that will be gone in an hour," she'd ask us, "when in the same amount of time, I can do a painting that will last forever?” (Walls, 34). Rose Mary’s attitude toward her children reveals that as a family, the Walls, unlike the Joads, did not have a healthy
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