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The Grapes of Wrath pretty much has a V.I.P. pass to each "Top 100 Books of All Time" list in the world. It is a massive deal. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and aided John Steinbeck nab the Nobel Prize in 1962--they gave Steinbeck the Nobel for (among other things) that his "keen social perception." This comprehension of society's ills is razor sharp, and cuts deep.

And lots of this has to do with the fact that this novel is brutally honest.

In the time of the Dust Bowl, when tens of thousands of Americans migrated to California in search of a better life, Steinbeck was writing a collection of seven articles about migrant worker communities to the San Francisco Chronicle. He spent a great deal of time getting to know families that dwelt in several migrant worker camps in towns such as Bakersfield and Visalia, also was infuriated and disgusted by the quantity of heartbreak and suffering that he witnessed, and he steered that fury as he composed The Grapes of Wrath.

Released in 1939, The Grapes of Wrath vividly portrays life through the Great Depression along with the Dust Bowl at America as it follows a family of Oklahoma tenant farmers traveling westward. It investigates the power and goodness of the human soul in the face of gruesome, genuinely dismal conditions.

When first released, Americans had a love/hate relationship to this novel. Some folks applauded Steinbeck for shooting thus honestly the lives of migrant farm workers during the Depression. Other (jerks) accused him of being a socialist as well as championing literary beliefs (i.e., share the wealth, buddies). In a nutshell, this novel sent America into a small frenzy.

Labour legislation have been changed.

The Grapes of Wrath has been banned, burnedoff, and purchased over and over again. And that is why we enjoy it. That is why it's still around. It angry people profoundly. It literally changed the face of American labour.

Replies to the novel continue to be made in films, music, artwork, and TV. Allusions to this epic narrative have surfaced in the South Park and The Simpsons.

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