Structure of the Chapters in The Grapes of Wrath essay

I would like to discuss structure of the chapters in the Grapes of Wrath written by Steinbeck and explain how the two kinds of chapters reinforce each other.
The Grapes of Wrath – is a national epic. In the novel Steinbeck tells the story of the fate of the Joad family, one of many thousands, caught between the millstones crisis mechanism on a broad background of socio-political life during the crisis. The Joad family immerse their simple belongings in an old car and make their way to the West. Half of the chapters in the novel focus our attention on the dramatic westward journey of the Joad family, because they were taken as the main characters of the story and author used them as an example of how people passed their way of disappointments. The author provides a more general picture of the migration of thousands of Dust Bowl farmers with an aim to give the full picture of those days situation. The Joad’s problems, as problems of concrete family contrasted to the problems of the whole nation. Reading the novel we see that in the minds of yesterday’s farmer is still firmly seated proprietary “I”, they do not care about the fate of a neighbour’s family. But on the roads of America their minds are beginning to change. Unity and solidarity have born in the crucible of misery and hardships.
Thus, taking into account all above stated information we could come to the conclusion that all that is happening with the Joad family – birth, death, losses, odd jobs, clashes with the authorities, are summarized and typified in “general” chapters that reinforce a single storyline. Accounting for sixteen of the thirty chapters of the book, they stress the social significance of particular events. In this “interludes” the idea of unity in its diversity of life is embodied in the stylistic heterogeneity of the text, which has different thematic, philosophical content and direction of various genres. I like the structure of the chapters in the Grapes of Wrath and in my opinion exactly in “general” chapters the influence of socialist ideas is manifested in emphasizing the class stratification of society, with a clear preference for the lower classes, who, from the standpoint of the author, are real American people, the bearer of the national spirit.

Work cited
Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath, 1939.