John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath "And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in all the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual." In 1939, as the United States was nearing the end of the Great …showed first 75 words of 1925 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1925 total…lose their dignity. This notion receives particular reinforcement in Steinbeck's images of the festering grapes of wrath (chapter twenty-five), and in the last of the short, expository chapters (chapter twenty-nine), in which the worker women, watching their husbands and brothers and sons, know that these men will remain strong "as long as fear [can] turn to wrath." The women's certainty is based on their understanding that the men's wrath bespeaks their healthy sense of self-respect.