Grapes of Wrath Blog Reflection

                 Comparing and Contrasting:

The Grapes of Wrath book    vs.   The Grapes  of Wrath movie.




We have just finished reading and watching The Grapes of Wrath. I have read this story twice and I understand the physical and emotional suffering on  this journey to find work and shelter. After reading this, I understood more about the Dust Bowls during the Great Depression, and the hardship and abuse these farming families endured to survive. I like reading John Steinbeck novels because he writes his books from his perspective on significant historical periods and by doing that he makes it personal so that it is easier for us to understand and feel what the characters had to go through. The thing about movies and books is that there is a distinct difference between the two.

The movie begins  the same as the book does with the owner's telling the tenant farmers to leave the property, for it is owned by the bank, and they can do whatever they want with the land.  I would like to point out the distinct difference in the movie, which is that the events do not take place in the correct chronological order. There were a few examples such as the government camp and Tom getting into trouble with the law, and the fact that the movie skipped so many of the truly emotional parts of the story. In the book, the Joads find out about the government camp first and travel there where they find that they are actually being treated like normal individuals, before Tom finds Casy, witnesses his death, and supposedly kills Casy's murderer. The emotional parts that were missing from the movie were like when Ma Joad had to throw away some of her memorable possessions, when the kids who are mostly all grown up reminiscent about the good times on the farm,  when the dog was run over by a car and when grandfather was really sick and Mr. Wilson and his wife Sairy let him lay in their tent, as he peacefully died from a stroke.It also talks about in the book how the Wilson's and the Joads carpooled to various places before they went their separate ways.   And the last scene, with the unfortunate death of Rose of Sharon's baby and the inevitable flood. By the way, here is  some more  things they didn't show Rosaharn being pregnant, but then again it was the forties and a woman couldn't be shown on TV with a pregnant belly. These emotional scenes in the book represented the circle of life and death due to their unfortunate losses of their farm, their family members, and the connection they used to have as a family. I don't know why they had to switch up the movie and take out the important scenes, but sometimes they have to do that so that the movie isn't like four hours long. Today, they split movies that are based off books that have important events and plots.

I would say that they book was way better than the movie. I don't know if it was the time period or what in which it was filmed, but I just prefer the book because all the events that I felt were the most important were not included in the movie.