John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath "And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in all the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual." In 1939, as the United States was nearing the end of the Great …

…lose their dignity. This notion receives particular reinforcement in Steinbeck's images of the festering grapes of wrath (chapter twenty-five), and in the last of the short, expository chapters (chapter twenty-nine), in which the worker women, watching their husbands and brothers and sons, know that these men will remain strong "as long as fear [can] turn to wrath." The women's certainty is based on their understanding that the men's wrath bespeaks their healthy sense of self-respect.