What I Read That Mattered

Nearly all high school seniors have read a number of works throughout their high school careers, and each student often has that one novel that is more significant than all others because of the personal impact it had on the student.  For me, that novel ended up being John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

I’ll be the first to admit that when I learned we had to read this novel for Mr. Weidman’s Sophomore Honors English class, I was not too excited.  I allowed my immature preconceptions and assumptions of old, “critically-acclaimed”, and seemingly-endless novels take over; when I began reading, these misassumptions soon disappeared.

I was actually quite surprised that I was enjoying The Grapes of Wrath, that novel that nearly every sophomore supposedly hated in the graduation class before mine.  This is the first reason why this novel mattered to me: It taught me that I shouldn’t allow others to tell me if I would like a work of literature.  Before this, if my upperclassman friends would advise me to not read a certain book, and it was of my liberty to pick which book I could read, then I would quickly swap books.  However, my appreciation for this book extends much further than the reason listed above.

When I read, I like to read for a purpose.  As opposed to other novels that I had to read, which typically seemed to try to entertain rather than teach me, I learned so much history from this book and was able to gather so many values from it.  As cheesy as it seems, I think the novel actually taught me to be a more charitable person.  The struggles that the Joads encountered in that short amount of time affected me.  Admittedly and immaturely, I was a “fend for yourself” type of person before reading this novel.  After reading this novel, and after realizing that some people are placed into certain unfavorable situations by fate rather than by choice, I felt guilty for having such a selfish value system.  When each person is stripped of his economic status, social status, color, culture, religion, or any other classifying factor, he is simply a human.  Just like you, and just like me.  As humans, it is our responsibility to assist humans in their times of need.  If every human lived independently from each other, there is no possible way humanity could have advanced as far as it has today.  So why do we allow ourselves to discriminate against those humans who are clearly in adverse situations that are not self-imposed? It’s purely illogical. 

These are the critical thoughts and questions that arose for me after reading this novel.  I can genuinely say that it has had an enormous impact on the way I perceive those in need, and even those who aren’t in such great need, but still discriminated because of some classification which they are forced to live with.  Of all the novels I read in high school, this one truly is the one that mattered to me most.

-Christopher Lee