Open Prompt Oct 9th

Palestinian American literary theorist and cultural critic Edward Said has written that “Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted.” Yet Said has also said that exile can become “a potent, even enriching” experience. Select a novel, play, or epic in which a character experiences such a rift and becomes cut off from “home,” whether that home is the character’s birthplace, family, homeland, or other special place. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the character’s experience with exile is both alienating and enriching, and how this experience illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot. 




     Exile is a unique force in literature, able to not only destroy characters, but also able to reforge them into an almost entirely new being.  One of the most famous stories of exile in American Literature is that of The Grapes Of Wrath, in which the Joad family are forced to leave their home in the dust bowl and travel to California to try to make a living.  Tom feels the effects of exile more than anyone else in the novel, both from his home and his family.  The exile that Tom Joad experiences destroys his sense of belonging and worth in his family, but out from this comes a sense of purpose for his life, reinforcing the theme of rebirth in a new land. 
     From the beginning it is obvious that Tom Joad has lost ties to his family.  His time spent in prison has left him lost and lacking sense of direction.  His initial insecurity about returning home and worries about his acceptance back into the family leave him truly lost.  Steinbeck's use of prison as a tool to alienate Tom from his family is very effective in creating the lost and damaged character that Tom is.  Tom's first interaction as a free man with a truck driver taking him home shows that he has lost much of his ability to interact normally with people.  His uneasiness about returning home is also directly tied to the fact that he has been isolated from them in prison.  Though he is able to successfully rejoin his family, he encounters his second source of exile, literally being forced from his newly found home.  Tom is forced to travel on a perilous journey with his family to California, in which he is forced to witness the family quite literally fall apart as death and despair leave them hopeless.  Again this exile breaks down Tom into the generic man who is fleeing the dust bowl trying to save his family.  
     Arising from his alienation through prison and his physical exile with his family is a new man however.  Tom is forced to completely rebuild relationships among his family members, especially with his mother and brother.  Since he was forced to start with nearly a clean slate, he was able to rebuild these relationships into something far more meaningful than they were prior to his time in prison.  The exodus also adds to his reformation as a character and solidifies his position in the family.  Tom quickly becomes vital to the family's survival with his hard work and eagerness to earn his families respect.  He is thrown into a difficult situation in which is mother and father are constantly in a struggle for power, and out of this he takes on a powerful dynamic in the family.  Through his experiences in trying to help his family to survive he learns the philosophy of Jim Casey, and becomes an avid supporter of worker's rights and at the end of the book sacrifices all of what he has worked to rebuild after his imprisonment to fight for the workers of California.  His exile is what allowed for this creation of a self-sacrificing leader that wasn't present in the beginning of the novel.
     The main idea behind the Grapes of Wrath is the promise that California presents, the jobs, the land, the bountiful farmland, turns out to be false.  Though this is certainly true for the vast majority of those who travel there, and the trip, especially for the Joad family, takes much more away than it grants, the new land does yield some benefits.  Tom Joad benefits most from his exile to the new land, and he perfectly embodies the idea that a new land can bring about a rebirth.  His transformation from a misunderstood criminal to a self-sacrificing labor organizer perfectly embodies the rebirth that a new land can promise.  Though many of the hopes of the exiled are unable to materialize, Tom Joad is able to experience quite literally a rebirth, nearly an entire recreation of his character, proving the idea that some hope can be found in the land of false hopes. 
    The Grapes of Wrath's story of exile is tragic and depressing, and goes to show how powerful exile is in literature.  It is able to nearly destroy the entire Joad family.  However arising from this near destruction are people completely transformed, and Tom Joad embodies this idea more than anyone.  His characterization at the end of the book has completely changed, and the idea that California can be fruitful for him is shown to be more than just a unfounded hope.