The Grapes of Wrath. John Steinbeck.

Essay Topic: "Writers often highlight the values of a culture of a society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. Choose a play or novel [the Grapes of Wrath] in which such a character plays a significant role and show how that character's alienation reveals the surrounding society's assumptions and moral values." In the novel, The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, the alienation …

…values of the government surrounding Weedpatch are very low, because they go to extreme lengths to undermine the camp's quality of life. The alienation of Tom Joad and his family in the society of California reflects the society's assumptions that migrants are no more than vagrants. This is showed throughout the novel while many people treat Tom Joad unfairly just because they assume that "Okies" are poor people that would rather steal than be honest.