Other Themes

While 'change' is a huge theme in the novel The Grapes of Wrath, there are a lot of smaller but still important themes as well. These include family, lying, deceit, and even the issue of gender is found as a theme in the novel.

Family is another big theme in the book. It is a means of survival. If they did not have each other, the Joad family would have no way to cope with all of the loss and change they experience on the way to California, nor everything they encounter after reaching their destination in California. As the novel progresses, the Joads and other families in their same situation, have to learn that they will be stronger and safer if they keep together as a family and reach out to other families as well and build a community based on the things they all have in common.

The entire novel is centered on one lie that is told to thousands of people: California is a land of plenty, there are jobs and places full of opportunity. After being torn apart by the Dust Bowl and poverty, people are eager to believe that there could be better life waiting for them all the way out in California. So many families, like the Joad family, put together the things they still have and make their way to California to claim the opportunities that were promised. However, they quickly find out that it is all a lie. The families that fell for these lies thought that their worries could be forgotten after they finally reached California, but they were extremely wrong.

Gender is an issue that has been debated for a long time before us and will probably be for a long time after us. And in The Grapes of Wrath, gender is brought up as a theme. While the men lose their lands and their jobs and their hope, the women look on and look to their husbands for what their reactions should be. While this seems a little degrading, it is simply how things were historically. Men worried about the money and the women trusted their fathers and then their husbands to take care of them. While gender is not exactly an issue in the novel, it is a theme that reminds the reader of the time period and of how things worker with gender roles.