John Steinbeck’s novel the Grapes of Wrath goes in and out of focusing on the Joad family and migrant families in the Dust Bowl. Steinbeck sets up the novel’s chapters with the “zoomed out” version of the Dust Bowl migrant workers, and then proceeds to the next chapter with an updated Joad story.
Personally, the odd paragraphs with the more broad descriptions were slightly boring to me. It seemed like the paragraphs just went on and on and had no real purpose in the beginning. Toward the end about 3 chapters foreshadowed something happening in the end, but even then, 3 out of 15 chapters is not a great deal of literary sufficiency. The zoomed out paragraphs did however create a more approachable character and helped the reader feel more in touch with each character in the book.
The specific stories about the Joad family keep you mostly on track with the book and what it’s trying to communicate for the most part. The good thing about Steinbeck’s writing is that it’s mostly free to interpret. Although the story doesn’t have a clear ending, the beginning and middle do show the unfortunate endeavors and problems that a common migrant family would come across on their commute to California. The zoomed out paragraphs really just are used to accentuate what is happening, and they all link at least to one thing happening in a chapter previously or in the near future.
The novel as a whole really can make you feel like you can relate to the migrants, or on the other side, it can make you feel like you could never relate to it at all. The story truly would be a completely different thing if you took out the broader descriptive chapters that didn’t focus on the Joad family. It would be your common run of the mill Great Depression story. With the way Steinbeck structured Grapes of Wrath and chose his topics, it makes this book a classic American novel.
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