60 Fun Facts About The Grapes of Wrath

In which year was The Grapes of Wrath published?

It was the best-selling book of that year in the US, with 430,000 copies printed by February 1940.

The Joads' home farm is near which small Oklahoma town?

Drought, the Dust Bowl and bank foreclosures push the family west.

At the start of the novel, Tom Joad has just been paroled from which prison?

He had been convicted of homicide but insisted he acted in self-defence; leaving the state breaks his parole.

What was Jim Casy's former occupation before he lost his faith?

Steinbeck based this Christ-like figure on his friend, the marine biologist Ed Ricketts.

The Joads make the journey west in what kind of vehicle?

They load their remaining possessions onto it at Uncle John's place.

Which highway do the Joads travel on to California, a road the novel helped christen the "Mother Road"?

It ran 2,448 miles from Chicago to Santa Monica.

Which member of the family dies on the first evening on the road?

The family had drugged him with soothing syrup to make him leave; Casy says he was really "just stayin' with the lan'".

Granma Joad dies while the family is crossing which desert?

She had lost her will to live after her husband's death.

Which eldest son leaves the family near Needles, planning to live off fishing on the Colorado River?

Injured at birth and described as "strange", he is the first to drift away.

Rose of Sharon's husband, who abandons her soon after they reach California, is named what?

He is nineteen and overwhelmed by marriage and impending fatherhood.

How is Rose of Sharon's name pronounced in the family?

She is eighteen, pregnant at the start, and grows into a mature woman by the end.

The family patriarch's full name, given in the novel, is what?

Pa Joad is also named Tom, which is why the protagonist is named after his father.

What is suggested to have been Ma Joad's maiden name?

Her given name is never learned in the novel.

What is Uncle John's private torment?

He is prone to binges with alcohol and prostitutes but generous with his goods.

The Joads' neighbour who refuses to leave the land even after everyone else is evicted is called what?

The family leave two of their dogs with him.

The clean, government-run camp where the Joads find respite is named what?

Run by the New Deal Resettlement Administration, it protected migrants from local deputies but offered no work or food.

The real federal migrant facility south of Bakersfield that inspired the novel's clean, well-run haven was officially named after which nearby town?

It became the prototype for the entire federal migrant labour camp programme.

The Joads work as strikebreakers picking which fruit when Casy is killed?

The morning after his death, the plantation halves the pay rate.

With what weapon is Jim Casy killed?

Tom kills one of the attackers, is injured by the other and goes into hiding.

Which child accidentally reveals that Tom is in hiding after killing a man?

The twelve-year-old lets it slip while quarrelling with another child.

What happens to Rose of Sharon's baby?

Malnutrition is implied; Ma forces the family through the bereavement.

In the novel's final scene, Rose of Sharon does what for a starving stranger in a barn?

A silent understanding passes between her and Ma before she goes to him.

Which animal, in one of the interchapters, struggles across a dusty road as a symbol of the migrants' persistence?

The interchapters are short vignettes describing the wider setting, not the Joads directly.

Who suggested the title The Grapes of Wrath?

Steinbeck had unusual difficulty finding a title while writing at his home in what is now Monte Sereno.

The title comes from a line in which song?

Julia Ward Howe's lyric in turn refers to Revelation 14:19-20 and the winepress of the wrath of God.

The hymn behind the title was written by Julia Ward Howe, adapting which soldiers' song, and sold to The Atlantic Monthly for $4?

Her husband Samuel Gridley Howe was one of the Secret Six who funded John Brown.

The phrase "grapes of wrath" appears in the novel itself at the end of which of its 30 chapters, describing the destruction of food to keep prices high?

"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage."

The novel grew out of The Harvest Gypsies, a series of seven articles Steinbeck wrote in 1936 for which newspaper?

The articles were republished in 1938 as the pamphlet Their Blood Is Strong, with Dorothea Lange's photographs.

Steinbeck is known to have drawn on the 1938 field notes of which writer, whose own migrant novel was shelved until 2004?

Her supervisor Tom Collins shared her reports; Whose Names Are Unknown finally appeared a year before her death.

Steinbeck told his editor the book had how many "layers", of which a reader "won't find more than he has in himself"?

The letter went to Pascal Covici at Viking Press three months before publication.

Which two prizes did the novel win in 1940?

It was later cited prominently when Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Which California county's Board of Supervisors banned the book from schools and libraries in August 1939, calling it obscene?

The ban lasted until January 1941; the book was also burned twice in Steinbeck's home town.

Which growers' group denounced the novel as "a pack of lies" and "communist propaganda"?

Steinbeck received so many threats that he bought a handgun.

Early attempts to suppress the book directly inspired American librarians' professional body to issue what?

The novel has been challenged on political and religious grounds ever since.

Because of its leftist themes, the novel sold 300,000 copies in 1941 in which country?

Its Armed Services Edition for US troops went through two printings.

Roughly how many copies had The Grapes of Wrath sold by the 75th anniversary of its publication?

Steinbeck scholar John Timmerman calls it perhaps the most thoroughly discussed novel of 20th-century American literature.

Where did French newspaper Le Monde rank the novel on its 1999 list of the 100 best books of the 20th century?

The BBC's Big Read placed it 29th among Britain's best-loved novels in 2003.

Who directed the 1940 film version?

He won the Best Director Oscar for it, one of his record four.

Who played Tom Joad in the 1940 film?

He was Oscar-nominated for the role and finally won Best Actor for On Golden Pond in 1981.

Jane Darwell won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar as Ma Joad, a role she got at whose insistence?

She appeared in more than 100 films over half a century.

Who wrote the screenplay for the 1940 film?

Darryl F. Zanuck was executive producer and Gregg Toland shot it, on loan from Samuel Goldwyn.

How does the film's ending differ from the book?

Zanuck was nervous about the novel's politics and even sent private investigators to Oklahoma to legitimise the film.

In 1989 the movie was among the first 25 titles chosen by the Library of Congress for what?

The Library of Congress chose it as culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.

Which folk singer's two-part song "Tom Joad" on Dust Bowl Ballads (1940) retells the character's story?

Andy Irvine and Dick Gaughan later covered it.

Bruce Springsteen named which 1995 album after the novel's protagonist?

Rage Against the Machine recorded a version of the title track in 1997.

Which actor played Tom Joad for all 188 Broadway performances of the Steppenwolf stage adaptation in 1990?

Frank Galati adapted it; one performance was filmed and shown on PBS.

An opera of The Grapes of Wrath, with music by Ricky Ian Gordon, premiered in 2007 in which city?

Minnesota Opera co-produced it with Utah Symphony and Opera; the libretto is by Michael Korie.

Which comedian, whose favourite novel it was, based his last words on Tom Joad's farewell speech?

"I left in love, in laughter, and in truth, and wherever truth, love and laughter abide, I am there in spirit."

Steinbeck was born in 1902 in which California town, where the novel was later burned on two occasions?

He studied English at Stanford but left without a degree in 1925.

Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in Literature in which year, with The Grapes of Wrath cited as a main reason?

He was praised for realistic writing combining sympathetic humour and keen social perception.

Kris Kristofferson's 1981 song "Here Comes That Rainbow Again" is based on which scene from the novel?

Mumford & Sons' "Dust Bowl Dance" and Pink Floyd's "Sorrow" also draw on the book.

Which cinematographer, on loan from Samuel Goldwyn, shot the 1940 film of The Grapes of Wrath?

Darryl F. Zanuck was executive producer, and the screenplay came from Nunnally Johnson.

Alfred Newman's score for the 1940 film is based on which traditional song?

Henry Fonda performs it in the film, and 'Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad' is sung at a New Mexico roadside camp.

What did Zanuck do to defend the film against accusations that it was pro-Communist?

They confirmed the Okies' plight was indeed terrible, and Roger Ebert argued the wartime thaw toward Communism also helped the film's message.

Why did the Soviet Union withdraw the film in 1948 after first allowing it to be shown?

It had initially been approved for depicting the plight of people under capitalism.

How long did production of the 1940 film take, starting on October 4, 1939?

Shooting wrapped on November 16 after locations in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona and California, including the Petrified Forest.

Where does the 1940 film rank on the AFI's original 100 Years... 100 Movies list?

It also holds a rare 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 48 critics' reviews.

Which man at the Hooverville urges Tom and Casy to join labour organisations, leading to Casy's arrest?

The Hooverville is the Joads' first stop in California before they reach the government camp.

Where did the novel place in the BBC's 2003 Big Read survey of the nation's best-loved novels?

Time magazine later included it among the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005.

Which band's song 'Dust Bowl Dance', from the album Sigh No More, is based on the novel?

Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen had already drawn on Tom Joad's story decades earlier.