Grapes of Wrath

My least favorite part about the novel Grapes of Wrath was how the plot with kind of boring. There was no rising action, climax, or falling action. The only thing that was looked forward to was getting to California, but that happened in the middle of the book. I felt like I was asking myself, "What now?" I guess I could see if the authors wanted to make miniature climax's throughout the story. An example of this could have been when Tom Joad was coming home from prison and he did not know how or where his family had been. It all leads up to when he finds the house, and then finding his family at his uncle's house. The plot just kinda of piddles on while they slowly make their way from Oklahoma to California to look for work. When I think of a climax in a plot, I usually think of some sort of problem that needs solved or a big event that changes everything about the story. What was the problem in Grapes of Wrath? Problem: the Joad family, along with hundrreds of thousands of other families, were getting kicked off of their land because their crops failed, thus leading them with no money. Solution: the Joads move themselves off of their farm and go to California in search of work. Well, they make it to California. Every once in a while one of them finds work, but it is definitely not what the Joads, nor the reader were expecting. Is that supposed to be the climax? The book goes on a lot longer than that! First it is the struggles of pre-California, and turns into the struggles after California. I completely understand that this is historical fiction, so it is mostly based on facts, but I feel like it could have been more exciting. I loved everything about this book besides that fact that after you were finished reading it, it almost felt pointless.

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006.