America was going through political and social issues. The Great Depression took a toll on everyone and everything in the country. Crops were being wasted, people were being laid off, and it was getting worse. In the book “The Grapes of Wrath”, from the 1930’s, John Steinbeck used ‘rising action’, ‘crisis’, and ‘foreshadowing’ to show the struggle the poor went through to survive.
Crisis is usually what makes the story more intense, where the conflict reaches a turning point. Steinbeck shows the poor getting kicked off the land, the only land they’ve known for generations. When the Joads get to California in hope of more jobs and better opportunities, he shows their struggle to find good wages, and fair landowners. They couldn’t find a stable job for a long time while in California, and they had no home to go back to. They were stuck in a country that didn’t want them, and couldn’t necessarily afford them, struggling to survive.
The rising action in the book is the series of events that build from the conflict. A big conflict was the disrespect and discrimination from the ‘law-holders’, the deputies and policemen. If a migrant worker had a problem with the wages and wanted to take a stand, the deputy was quick to arrest and ‘handle’ him. The migrant workers soon revolted and went on strike. With the law against them, lowering the wages and forcing them to hold their opinions, the migrant workers began begging and stealing from food stores. The rising action
The foreshadowing in “The Grapes of Wrath” served two purposes. “It builds suspense by raising questions that encourage the reader to go on and find out more about the event that is being foreshadowed. Foreshadowing is also a means of making a narrative more believable by partially preparing the reader for events which are to follow.” The foreshadowing in the book gave a background over cap of what was to happen in the following chapters. A few chapters told about the crops, how it rotted and was thrown away, but never given to the poor migrant workers. The migrant workers weren’t even given the freebies, unless it produced a profit for the landowners and bank. Work was the only way out, if they could find any.
Crisis, rising action, and foreshadowing were three of the main techniques John Steinbeck used to present the poors’ struggle for survival. The poor went through a lot, and while the government took care of the rich, the poor were in the struggle on their own.--
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