SOURCE: "Growth of the Family in The Grapes of Wrath," in Critical Essays on Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, edited by John Ditsky, G. K. Hall, 1989, pp. 97-108.

In the following essay, Britch and Lewis examine the solidarity and self-preservation of the Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath. According to Britch and Lewis, "if ever the mettle of the American spirit has been tested and found strong, it has been so with the Joads."

Resistance to innovation indicates, in the eye of nature, senility and senility is doomed to be discarded…. That nation thrives best which is most flexible, and which has fewer prejudices to hamper adaption.

—Brooks Adams

Although it addresses issues of great sociological change, The Grapes of Wrath is at its core about the family and the struggle of its members to assert their separate identities without breaking up as a family. In his...