The Banning Of John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

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Grapes of Wrath has been on the top charts of the best books of all time, and it’s also been banned and burned all around the world. In 1939 Steinbeck wanted to portray the struggles of the middle class who were migrating towards California, little did he know the controversies that would arise due to this riveting novel. Grapes of Wrath was banned for it’s “indecent” content including it’s vulgar language and sexual themes. However, it was actually banned because the wealthy farmers were angered on how they were portrayed in this novel. Banning a book may remove it from the shelves, but it does not remove the ideas from the minds of the people. Grapes of Wrath should not be banned because not only does is it a virtuous book, the banning of…show more content…
Some have even called it “obscene in the extreme”. However, this novel attempts to portray life then honestly. Steinbeck doesn’t sugar coat what was going on. The book ends with Rose of Sharon breast feeding a starving man, “Rose of Sharon loosened one side of the blanket and bared her breast. ‘You got to,’ she said” (619). While at first glance the context of this passage may seem like it is obscene, it represents more than a man and woman. It shows how the lower class has been deprived of the most basic needs, and depend on each other to survive. In a sense all of these families traveling West are part of a family. Steinbeck truly feels that all these families have a family like bond as he says, “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 on dream... the twenty were one” (264). Steinbeck is showing the reader the connection that one has with those who struggles the same struggles. While larger corporations and libraries don’t want empathy towards the lower classes, the author is just trying to show how they suffer
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    However, many classic pieces of literature have been banned during their time of existence. John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath is one example. The Grapes of Wrath was not only burned, but it was banned in many American states and in Ireland. Characters such as Mae, Casy, Connie, Rose of Sharon, Ruthie, Pa, Al, Tom, and Joe Davis’ boy are unique and flawed, so some readers of The Grapes of Wrath are going to express their anger they received from reading unconventional material. Books are

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