Selected Awards, Cast and Director

LEARNING GUIDE TO:

THE GRAPES OF WRATH

One of the Best! This movie is on TWM's short list of the best movies to supplement classes in United States History, High School Level.
SUBJECTS — U.S./1929 - 1941, Oklahoma & California; Literature/U.S.;
SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING — Families in Crisis; Female Role Model;
MORAL-ETHICAL EMPHASIS — Fairness.

Age: 12+; No MPAA Rating; Drama; 1940, 128 minutes; B & W. Available from Amazon.com.
Description: Driven off their Oklahoma farm during the Dust Bowl days of the Great Depression, the members of the Joad family load their belongings into a truck. Like millions of other dispossessed farmers they head to California in search of work. The screenplay is based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by John Steinbeck.
Benefits of the Movie: "The Grapes of Wrath" is a classic film of the Great Depression. It describes the plight of the "Oakies" and explores the stress of hard times on a family.
Possible Problems:None.
Parenting Points: Your child may be asked to read John Steinbeck's classic novel, from which this film has been adapted, in either an English or a history class. Try to see that the film is viewed only after the book has been read. The information in the Helpful Background section may offer assistance to your child in his or her study of the book. S

Selected Awards, Cast and Director:

Selected Awards:1940 Academy Awards: Best Director (Ford); Best Supporting Actress (Darwell); 1940 Academy Awards Nominations: Best Picture; Best Actor (Fonda); Best Film Editing; Best Sound; Best Writing. "The Grapes of Wrath" is listed in the National Film Registry of the U.S. Library of Congress as a "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" film. This film is ranked #21 on the American Film Institute's List of the 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time (2006).
Featured Actors:Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charlie Grapewin, Dorris Bowdon, Russell Simpson.
Director:John Ford.

Helpful Background:
Helpful Background:

During the 1920s and 1930s farmers plowed up millions of acres of the Southern Great Plains to plant wheat, filling an expanding demand that meant profit to those working the land. With no environmental awareness of the fragility of the grasslands, these famers, some of whom were brought from foreign countries, over 300,000 from Germany alone, ignored the warnings that the soil was becoming depleted. Government policies encouraged more planting as the prices of wheat dropped and the farmers had to bring in bigger crops in order to maintain the profits to which they had grown accustomed. The land, which had been illegally taken from the Cherokee Indians, had sustained millions of buffalo and had weathered droughts with minimal change for over 30,000 years. Within one decade, greed and ignorance virtually destroyed this delicate biosphere.

Adding to the problem, a severe drought began in 1934 and lasted seven years. Droughts had been common over centuries in this part of the continent but the deep rooted grass that covered the plains was well adapted to dry periods. The wheat plants, however, were killed, along with gardens, trees and the many animals that sustained the farmer’s lives. Winds blew countless tons of topsoil off of the land. It formed dunes, buried homes and made roads impassible. Dust so fine that it could pass through the handkerchiefs used to cover mouths, filled the lungs of animals as well as people and created serious health problems. As far away as New York City, skies were darkened by the winds that blew from the Midwest. Few people in the government or in the agricultural industry had any ideas regarding what to do about the total destruction of over 150 million square miles of once rich land that became known as the Dust Bowl. The problems stemmed from human policy rather than nature.

Because of these conditions, farmers were unable to make their mortgage payments and the banks took the land. Many small farms were consolidated into large holdings, owned by corporations and farmed by employees, thus beginning a process which has come to be known as factory farming. Hundreds of thousands of once independent and self-sufficient farmers were run off their land. Many emigrated west to California where they became migrant farm workers taking low paid temporary jobs. They were called "Oakies" since many came from Oklahoma, one of the states hardest hit by the drought and soil erosion. They lived in their cars or in camps, usually in miserable conditions. They worked when they could but since the California farmers needed them only at certain times of the year, such as harvest time, they spent many months without work.
When people lose their jobs and homes, families come under stress. Some break up, others get stronger, but adversity changes most families. Some family members will die earlier than they would normally, others will leave home, and some may get into trouble with the law. The relative positions of the various people in the family may also change. The father of the Joad family had been the head of the household on the farm in Oklahoma. By the time the family reached California, he admitted that he didn't feel useful any more and that he kept thinking of the way it was before the family was forced off their land. By the end of the story, the mother is the strongest member of the family. It is she to whom Tom says goodbye when he leaves. The character of the mother acknowledges this by saying, "A woman can change better than a man."

The "Reds" referred to in the film are the Communists. The movie shows how at times Red Scare tactics were used to prejudice people against Americans who protested oppressive conditions or tried to form labor unions. For other films in which Red Scare tactics play a role, see Matewan, Native Son, Fat Man and Little Boy and, by analogy, The Crucible and High Noon.
John Steinbeck (1902 - 1968) received the Pulitzer Prize for the novel The Grapes of Wrath. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. Some of his other works are: Cannery Row, Tortilla Flat, and Of Mice and Men. These books are appropriate for 14 and 15 year olds.

I do not think Roosevelt’s speech is appropriate here. The Oakie’s problem was not fear. Credit or no credit would not rebuild a destroyed ecosystem. The farmers were busy cashing in and in many ways they were just as responsible for to collapse of the farm system as the bankers.

Suggested changes to sidebar questions:

1. The farmers in Steinbeck’s novel have run into difficulties because of land erosion and falling prices. Government programs encouraged the kind of farming that helped erode the land and the depression led to falling prices. Do you believe that it is the duty of the government, and therefore the taxpayers, to give the farmers relief from their hardship? What kind of relief could be provided? Consider the fact that the farmers were fiercely independent and did not want welfare or government control over the choices they would make in their lives.

Suggested Response: Answers will vary; however, it is important that the humanity of the individual farmers be considered as well as the responsibilities a society may have in regards to members who are suffering through no fault of their own. Values will a key element in the responses.

2. Once the farmers became migrant workers, what could have been done to ease the burden of men, women and children who were displaced.

Suggested Response: Answers will vary. The individuals who became migrant workers and their children were in need of the kinds of social services that did not become a part of society until some of the changes implemented by the Roosevelt Administration and years later by the farm workers movement. Students may be aware of these changes and will list such assistance as minimum wage, worker’s compensation, adequate housing, etc.

Discussion Questions:

1. See Discussion Questions for Use With any Film that is a Work of Fiction.

2. At the beginning of the film Tom Joad and the preacher, Jim Casy, the audience learns that Tom had been in jail for killing someone in a dance hall and that the preacher has lost his faith. The preacher says: “Ain’t no sin; ain’t no virtue. Its just what people does.” Grammar aside, how does this line reflect the character of both Casy and Joad?

Suggested Response: Both men have fallen from what can be seen as social expectations. One is an ex-convict, one is a drunk. Yet both men take actions that seem to reflect the values that are an important part of society and by the film’s end they have behaved in sync with these values. Some of these values are equality, fair play, compassion and tolerance.

3. The “dusters” had been blowing the land away and now seemed to be blowing the people away from the land. How is this an accurate portrayal of what has happened to the farmers?

Suggested Response: The loss of the top soil due to the destruction of the grasslands, over planting and the drought, resulted in the inability of the land to support the barest possible crop production. As the land could no longer give life, the farmers could no longer sustain life from the land and thus, metaphorically, were blown to other parts of the country.

4. When it is determined that the corporations now own the land, the question is asked, “who do we shoot”? What is the answer to this question?
Suggested Response: A corporation is not an individual. A drought is not an individual. The decision to continue farming and the refusal to give up, made by individuals, does not make them culpable given the information available to them and the ethos of the times. There is no one to blame.

5. Which images best show despair and which images best show hope as the family prepares to head to California?

Suggested Response: Answers will vary. Some will see despair in the faces of the family or in the look of the dead land and the broken down homes. Some will see hope in the comments about how there is plenty of work in California where there are “washtubs full of grapes.” Some can see a combination of these two feelings in the earrings, the souvenirs and the postcard that Mother Joad looks over as she prepares to leave.

6. When Grandpa Joad dies, Tom says that the government has more interest in a dead man than in a live one. What does he mean by this?

Suggested Response: The government will tend to a dead body and see that it is buried. The government has no program to tend to a living person who may be desperate or hungry or even so sick that he or she may soon die. However, should someone die, the government will be quick to dispose of the body. The line is a note about the heartlessness of the government.

7. What irony lies in the fact that as soon as the Joads pass the California state line they are in a desert?

Suggested Response: California had been the dream, the land of milk and honey. The section of the state bordering Arizona, however, is dismal and dashes hopes. It foreshadows that all will not be well as the family moves into cultivated farmland further west.

8. Agitators are people who, according to the dictionary, stir up public feeling on controversial issues. Many people in the film can be described as agitators. List them and determine what it they are seeking to achieve.

Suggested Response: Answers will vary. The film shows strikers and strike breakers, authorities from the land owners and from the police department, communists and people of all opinions. Some of these people want the Oakies to go away. Some fight for fairness in the treatment of the displaced persons from the Dust Bowl. Some agitate for living wages for farm workers while others resist in the name of fair profits for land owners. Issues involve justice, profits and fear.

9. At the story’s end Tom Joad recites lines that make him the personification of justice. What does he say that is clearly shows his position as an egalitarian?

Suggested Response: Tom says that he will be, in spirit, wherever there is a fight so that hungry people can eat; he will be wherever a cop is beating up a guy; he says that he will be heard in the angry voice of men yelling when they are mad and in the laughter of hungry kids who know a meal is ready.

10. Mother Joad tells Tom that a woman can change easier than a man. What may be behind her opinion and what do you think about the matter?

Suggested Response:Answers will vary. Students should consider the fact that throughout her life, Mother Joad has seen that men earn their status through hard work and when the work is not available, such as is the case with the tens of thousands of farmers who lost their land, men feel they have failed to support their families. This is true when it comes to unemployment in general. Mother Joad believes, however that women must endure. They must keep going because the survival of their families is at stake and they earn their status through family.

Assignments for Assessment:

Whether or not Should have read John Steinbeck’s novel, the following essays and projects will require them to look deeper into the issues addressed in both the novel and the film.

1. In the style of a newspaper editorial,write an opinion piece that would be published in a newspaper back in the time of the Bust Bowl addressing the facts and the attitudes that shaped the history. Be sure to end with suggestions about what should be done to offer relief to the various injured parties. End with a clear call for action.

2. Research the true causes of the Dust Bowl in terms of ecological factors. Prepare and deliver a power point presentation what includes charts and photographs. Discuss information that is currently available on soil depletion and posit what may have been done, using current technology, to avoid the loss of millions of tons of topsoil.

3. Research the economic causes of the Depression and investigate changes in legislation that came about that served to relieve the burden carried by the citizens.. Specifically note changes dealing with banks as well as poverty. Write an expository essay on the information you gather.

4. Research studies on the ecological collapse of various ecosystems now occurring. Write an expository essay on where environmental problems are occurring, the causes and who is suffering. Posit suggestions about what can be done to mitigate the damage.

5. Investigate which of Roosevelt’s programs designed to lessen the suffering of the populace during the Depression are still operable today. Which programs have lapsed. Include in your essay an opinion about whether any of his ideas may be of service in today’s economic hard times.

6. Students who have read the book will notice the changes made in the ending of the film. Write an essay in which you specify these differences. Evaluate the adequacy of the changes in terms of reader satisfaction as well as communication of theme.

7. Characterization is an important element in Steinbeck’s work. Select three important characters and show how they are brought to life through description, action and dialogue in the novel and in the film. Evaluate which medium best reveals a clear picture of each character.

8. Setting is important to Steinbeck and to the film’s director, John Ford. Write an opinion essay in which you support your claim about which medium best makes the reader feel the bleak conditions of the farms, the journey west and the camps. Cite specific scenes to support your opinion.

9. Steinbeck is known as an author who focuses on social issues more than story. In an essay, evaluate whether or not this opinion is justified with reference to both the novel and the film.

10. Hope exists undiminished in both the novel and the film. Show how hope is portrayed through action, dialogue, description or visuals in each medium. Share your opinion with members of your class until consensus is reached for both the novel and the film. Argue it out in a class discussion.

Social-Emotional Learning Discussion Questions:

FAMILIES IN CRISIS - FEMALE ROLE MODEL

1. What traits of character enabled Mother Joad to keep the family together through the difficulties?

Suggested Response: After both the grandfather and the father of the family die, Mother Joad uses the characteristics of patience, forbearance, forgiveness, compassion and flexibility. She maintains hope throughout the troubled times. She is understanding and generous.