Intercalary Chapters of The Grapes of Wrath
Intercalary Chapters to Add Perspective to The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath stands as a symbol of the economical, social, and emotional impact of The Great Depression on migrant farmers. Published in 1939, this American realist novel won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction; it was also prominently cited when Steinbeck won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. The novel's main focus was the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes and bank foreclosures forcing tenant famers out of work. The Joads, being stuck in the dust bowl and a very hopeless situation, set out for California along with thousands of other "Okies" who sought jobs, land, dignity and a future. Although some argue that the unconventional structure of The Grapes of Wrath confuses and distracts from the plot of the novel, the unification of the intercalary and narrative chapters enhances social and humanist themes of the novel. Steinbeck uses the plot-narrative chapters to evoke sympathy in individuals while supplementing this emotional attachment with a broader view of society in the intercalary chapters which also provide historical information the novel would otherwise lack. The unification of these two types of chapters is hoped to contribute to the overall purpose of the novel: to enlighten individuals of the Great Depression and its affect on the migrants. Steinbeck uses the plot-narrative chapters to evoke sympathy in individuals so that they may be able to understand the Great Depression and its affect on migrant workers easier. Overall, it is hard for someone who has not personally experienced the Great Depression to feel sympathy for it so, to reach the goal of enlightening readers, Steinbeck first had to catch and keep individuals' attention and create a newfound sympathy for the migrants of the Great Depression. In the small setting that these individuals are