"The Grapes of Wrath" is an American made epic that chronicles the Joad Family as they set their sights out west towards the land of opportunity. As one of John Steinbeck's most well-known, and debatably best works of fiction, "The Grapes of Wrath" stands on it's own as a masterpiece that depicts not only the lives of those awe-struck citizens that paved the way into the Great Depression, but also the culture and imminent peril that had swept across our Great Nation during those times.
After reading any work of fiction, once that last page has been turned and the narrative has come to some sort of conclusion, the reader should be left with something. It's not necessarily anything quantifiable, and it certainly has nothing to do with an absence of anything (time, energy, brain-cells, etc.), but it leaves you with something like a scar. Certain readings leave the skinned-knees scar, a little redness but for the most part it will subside, other books however, like "The Grapes of Wrath," leave you physically altered. This sounds terrible at first, but I assure you just the opposite. When I finished this book I was introduced to what it means to be hungry, to be desperate, and to cling onto nothing but hope, because no matter what you own or who you answer to, no one can take away your hope for a better life.
If you have not done so, I urge you to pick up "The Grapes of Wrath," (can be found at your local bookstore, online, or in every high-school and secondary education facility across the nation). Here's an interesting tidbit for your next trivia night: "The Grapes of Wrath" gets it title from the "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," and the title itself is mentioned in text in a later chapter:
"And in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." - John Steinbeck
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