Honors Novel #2: The Wrapes of Grath

The Great Depression was a bleak era, as one could glean from the title. The economy was in the toilet, the people were left penniless, and everything was just terrible in general. Even the ones who made an effort to escape the fate of dying poor and depressed ended up in worse situations than the ones they left behind. Migrant farmers had their houses foreclosed and were forced to move cross-country to live in conditions that were more horrendous than living on the streets. Enter the life of the Joad family, main protagonists of John Steinbeck’s classic The Grapes of Wrath. In the novel, Steinbeck tries to convey the pure agony migrant farmers in the 1930’s had to endure, and uses quite a bit of metaphors to do so.

Now, many people in many humanities classes around the world have criticized the novel for having too much description of little, seemingly pointless things that come in the form of anecdotes and are sandwiched between chapters of the “story” (certain people debate whether this book actually contains any story at all). However, these little anecdotes advance the plot in a way no other simple narration could. Instead of simply having one follow the Joad family around for 400 pages, Steinbeck allows the reader to see a bigger picture by giving us a zoomed-out look at the 1930’s. It’s an effective way to lay out a story and make the pure, unadulterated struggle of the migrants come fully into light.

Then there’s the story aspect. Some have said that the story is unbelievable and overly exaggerated, and while this may be true, it serves merely as a way to get the full message across. This book is almost satirical in the sense that absolutely nothing goes right. At one moment, the family experiences joy and the reader thinks things are finally looking up. But, turn the page and then all of those high hopes are dashed to the ground like plates on a table that’s been tipped on its side. The Grapes of Wrath is not a happy novel; in fact it’s just the opposite. It seems as though the reader could not fully know the true plight of the characers in the novel if there was hope and joy. The Great Depression was, as stated above, a bleak era, nearly devoid of these small pleasures.

That’s where the connection lies. Where the story is very much exaggerated and seems to repel—no, entirely reject the reader, there are small pockets of air where one can catch his breath. These are the anecdotes. In the great sea of depression that is this novel, the moments that bring it back down to earth are located between the sections of story. Without those, the novel would be almost too much to bear, as tidal waves of struggle and pain continuously bowl the reader over, allowing him no time to recover. The anecdotes provide the figurative lifejacket, even if it is small. They keep the story grounded and allow the reader to understand what was truly happening in the era, before going on to read about the exaggerated life of the Joads.

Yes, the Great Depression was an incredibly bleak era, and this novel captures the very essence of that bleakness. But, without its small, easily forgotten unsung heroes, this novel would not contain as much power as it currently does. The connection between the anecdotes and the story is, at times, unclear, but the anecdotes are definitely necessary. Without them the story would simply be a string of terrible situations that just continued on and on until one very strange and beautiful (or repulsive) ending.

Honors Novel #1

A world without souls is not a world at all. This sentiment is one that many people agree with and strive to avoid in our coming age of convenience. Yet, there are those who are quite happy with the thought of devolving into completely soulless beings, living simply for no other reason than to live. These people do absolutely nothing. They feed off of society, parasites who expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter. Freeloaders who simply consume consume consume without ever repaying their massive debts to those of the working world. This description of lazy, pleasure-seeking individuals is a description of the World State in a nutshell.

Aldous Huxley gives us a terrible glimpse into a future that may be nothing more than what I have just described. In his novel, Brave New World, the humans that inhabit Earth in the time after their “God”, Ford, they are bred to consume, to seek superficial fulfillment and to discriminate more harshly than ever once experienced in reality. However, as our society gets bigger and bigger and the emphasis is placed more and more on making oneself feel good, Huxley’s grim depiction of the future doesn’t seem too far off.

Many parallels can be drawn between the characters of Huxley’s World State and the people of today’s Earth. In the first chapter, the novel depicts the entire process of “decantation”, which is the new process that has replaced birthing and is essentially the creation of humans from scratch. The created humans are “conditioned” to like certain things and are even divided into five castes that set in stone the way their futures will play out. These humans are trained since their fetal days to remain unquestioning of their caste, and are expected to simply uncaringly consume. While Earth humans of today aren’t decanted, and aren’t required by law to use up every resource provided for them, they are certainly pressured into it by television ads and the government.

Many American citizens are leaning towards the new, more comfortable country that is slowly coming to fruition. Everywhere you look there’s something out there to increase the amount of comfort in your life. Be it a chair that moves for you so that your precious legs don’t get (god forbid) exercised, or a really nice car that allows you to get from point A to point B with a twentieth of the effort it takes to walk, comfort is invading every aspect of the American culture. This idea is taken to new extremes in Brave New World. In the novel, World State citizens are required to take part in the comfort of the new era, and even participate in drug use to facilitate it.

Huxley uses a lot of satire to get his point across. Obviously, it is incredibly unlikely that the government would provide drugs for its inhabitants to use on a regular basis, but the point Huxley makes is that if we continue down this path of follower thinking and never branch out from the crowd, the whole world could turn into a homogenized mass of flesh—a homogenized mass that barely even constitutes a country (or planet as the case may be). This novel is the embodiment of what every nation should strive not to be, but strikingly resembles what the world is becoming. Aldous Huxley paints a grotesque and amazing picture in his novel—one that certainly won’t leave my mind for a while.

Blog Assignment #11

Reposted from this.

Blog Assignment #10

Yes, I think that the Grapes of Wrath accurately portrays what all of the farmers had to endure back in the Great Depression era. It talks about all of the pain and suffering that was commonplace for farmers back then, and how they were perceived by the city folk.

Honors History Blog #1: Presidential Advising

Dear President Obama,

The recession is definitely overwhelming, and I completely understand your struggle as you try to keep the peace among the people. But allow me to facilitate this daunting task. Why not take a step back to your history class and think about how Franklin Delano Roosevelt handled things when America’s economy tanked back in the 30’s?

There are some things that you’re doing that are very beneficial, like extending the unemployment benefits to more people and allowing those who are unemployed to collect a small amount of money while they look for a job. This is very similar to what FDR did in his first term. The way that you are trying to find a way out by putting aside the petty labels of ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ could prove to be very rewarding as well. One suggestion I will offer is to continue to stay unbiased in your approach to writing an economic proposal for our country. Keeping a neutral outlook on the situation will go a long way in doing what’s right for everyone

One of the things FDR did to appease the public was create agencies like the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation). This organization, as you surely know, keeps peoples’ money safe if anything like the Great Depression ever happens again. Founding such an organization certainly went a long way to keeping people from rioting in the streets over their lost bank accounts. Now I know that starting any large foundation like that is very difficult in our current state, but one possible thing for you to do could be to review the policies of the FDIC and other organizations like it and adjust them to meet the needs of our current society.

Social security was one thing that FDR implemented that could be tweaked a tad. You seem to be doing a great job of supplying people with enough social security money to last, but it has to be improved. People can’t just keep getting a hand-out or no one will ever go back to a real job. Certainly they need some help, but for my final suggestion I advise that you put more money into finding a way out of the recession instead of padding peoples’ pockets. A little bit is fine, definitely, but there needs to be a limit. FDR didn’t throw money at people when the times got tough—he used what money he could to establish order and stabilize the nation.

I don’t expect you to take my ideas as the word of the Lord or anything, but as your advisor I feel it is my place to do the very thing I am named for: advise. I hope you will take my ideas into consideration and that I have been of some help.

Thank you.

Sincerely

-Kyle Bray, Presidential Advisor.

Sources:

"The New Yorker" New Liberalism, George Packer; November 17th 2008

http://www.teachablemoment.org/high/fdr-bho.html, Leading the Nation through Hard Times

Blog Assignment #9

I think that I have performed well considering the freedom that Ampersand has given us. I am able to write about anything I want. By that same token, I feel that I have worked very well within all of the restrictions of Ampersand. In my draft, I will explore how my internship relates to school and life. It really gives me a chance to learn about myself.