The book won Steinbeck the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It was also cited prominently in 1962 when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes, and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work.

Tom Joad begins the story as an ex-convict who was sent to prison for killing a man who attacked him. He was released early for good behavior.

Due to their nearly hopeless situation, the Joads see no option but to seek work in California, described in handbills as fruitful and offering high pay.

Rose of Sharon eventually delivers a stillborn baby, probably due to malnutrition.

Slow and quiet, Noah leaves his family behind at a stream near the California border, telling Tom that he feels his parents do not love him as much as they love the other children.

The family leaves two of their dogs with him; a third they take, but it is killed by a car during their travels.

Despite her protests that salting is women's work, Casy insists that the amount of work facing them renders such concerns invalid.

The title is taken from The Battle Hymn of the Republic: "Mine eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord, He is trampling on the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored."

Traveling west on Route 66, the Joad family finds the road crowded with other migrants dreaming of a better life in California.