Essays on Joad

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Woody Guthrie is a musician who has a deep influence on American music. Guthrie’s upbringing and early life had a great influence on the lyrical content of his songs in later life. His father was a democrat and a racist; also rumored to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Woody experienced the Great Depression in his early twenties and witnessed “drought, disease, crop failures and farm foreclosures” (Billet) in the farmlands of America. Guthrie and his songs represent ...

The film shows the plight of ordinary American people in the events of America’s Great Depression. They become migrant workers when they end up in a ranch in California. They are in search of work and opportunities for their family, but the best of opportunities are not given to them by the people they work for and live under. Food prices are ridiculously high on purpose such that they cannot afford good food; bottom line the ranch owners they work for oppress them. The camp in which they live in is crowded; the immigrants are starving and desperate. ...

Question one.

Joad recalls his interest in religious matters when he got involved in discussions of the region back in the Oxford University where he was a student. Joad indicated that the debates about religion left him an agnostic Christian, who became suspicious of all dogmatic creeds. Other than the wake of world war two and return of Nazis, Joad did recall that obtrusiveness of evil was yet another reason for a renewed interest in religious matters.

Question two.

Joad meant evil to be cruelty, oppression, savagery, violence, egotism, aggrandizement and lust for power. In his view, evil was becoming powerful in his ...

Introduction

Much of the human suffering and economic disadvantages that occurred during the Great Depression (1929-1933) were a result of the boom mentality and unregulated business practices of the 1920s. People with a corrupt kind of business acumen exploited the weakest segments of society in the poorest regions. Praying on a naïve boom psychology, businessmen led a devastating attack on the Midwest that ultimately was not curbed by politicians or financial institutions until the middle 1930s. New businesses exploited weak government controls and took on many of the same exploitative practices as the Robber Baron businessmen of the 19th ...