What images does Steinbeck use to portray of America during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression?I am writing a piece on the following and am looking...

Interestingly, the images of desperation, desolation, and determination that are prevalent in John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" are portrayed both in the narrative and in the intercalary chapters that provide documentary information.

The first of the intercalary chapters, Chapter One presents a tableaux of the "red...and gray country of Oklahoma" where the "last rains...did not cut the scarred earth."  Thus, the tone is set for the desperate departure of the Joad family from their 40 acre farm that has been devastated by the dust storms.  Another reason for the desperation of the Joad family is the fact that technology has replaced their way of life since tractors could plow and seed the land quicker than they.  Bereft, they sell what they can, slaughter their pigs, buy a second-hand car, and set out for the "promised land" of California where they hope to find work as migrant fruit pickers.  The Joad's son Tom and his preacher friend JIm Casy, a Christ-figure, set out for this land of hope.

However, along the way, the Joads encounter death and hardship. The grandfather, who cannot bear to leave his land, dies in his desolation.  Jim Casy, sacrifices himself in a fight against scabs who come to break the strike of workers. Yet, in their suffering the Okies are aided by other people, who represent the community of man.  With the aid of others, the Joads continue their journey.  In Chapter 3, Steinbeck describes an indomitable turtle who crosses a road.  Although he is struck by a vehicle and deterred in his efforts, his fierce will to survive serves him well.  With the determination of the symbolic turtle, the Joads survive rejections, treachery, and natural disasters.  Steinbeck's narrative ends with Rose of Sharon, who has given birth to a stillborn child, nursing a deathly ill man.  This image is symbolic again of the community of man, one human helping another because they all are part of society:

He shook his head slowly from side to side...'You got to,' she said....She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously.