Interchapters In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

Every novel contains a distinct feature within its pages that distinguishes it from other books. Whether it be a variation in tone, writing style, format or theme, this component impacts the audience and the novel itself in a special way. One of the stand out features in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath are the descriptive, sometimes political, interchapters where the reader is given a snapshot of life in the Great Depression. Due to the context and realism the interchapters bring to the novel, they are crucial for the reader’s understanding of the time setting and storyline of the novel.

Chapter five brings the most heartbreak of all interchapters, because it illustrates the poignant moment when farmers are told to leave their land. The

Some of the forms of entertainment listed include listening to storytellers, drinking alcohol, dancing to music and going to the movies. The foreigners find happiness in these activities and seem to forget their troubles, if not for a brief moment. For example, when a man gets drunk “failures [dull] and the future [is] no threat… and hunger [does] not skulk about” (327). And at dances, when the music starts to play, there are “feet on the bare ground… hands ‘round and swing… hair [falling] down and panting breaths” (329). Sometimes migrants just need a break from the many suffocating issues that choke them daily, and these activities provide a good diversion of thought. This interchapter emerges as one of the more lighthearted parts in the novel and with it, comes a different perspective to the seemly harrowing migrant experience. Throughout The Grapes of Wrath, it is stressed that reality as an unemployed foreigner in California is harsh and brutal. However, chapter twenty-three helps display a more pleasant side of the migrant journey, contrasting effectively with the other chapters to form a multi-dimensional