The 1930s of the United States had numerous historic events: The New Deal, The Great Depression, and The Dust Bowl. None of these events would be erased from people’s minds. People’s life is altered, nothing left. “How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past?” In Steinbeck’s mind, this was the worst decade of the twentieth century. Why the novel The Grapes of Wrath is considered the best book of American history? Here are some memorable scenes.
First of all, after the roaring 20s, people in the Great Plain enjoyed their life with abundant fruits, vegetables, and wheat. They did not realize that the biggest challenge was imminent, The Dust Bowl. In April 1935, the extreme drought stimulated the onset of the dust storms, the dust engulfed everything including people’s hope. People are forced to immigrate to the other states for survival as well as the Joads family. Pa Joads, the leader of the family, was moved out. “I’m scared of stuff so nice. I ain’t got faith. I’m scared somepin ain’t so nice about it.” In Chapter 10, Steinbeck depicted the scenario of people suffering under the starvation, they have no money to afford even an acre of farm to cultivate because they already perceived that the storms are violent enough to destroy everything here. Ma was suffered under double fear: the risk of losing Granpa, Granma, and Rose of Sharon’s baby and the future of her family. Staying here instead of evacuating will end up with nothing. Farming was the only source for people in the countryside to earn money, once people lose the sole way to survive, they would gradually become crazy. Their minds are completely severed.
Then, the environment was deteriorating in the last half of the 1930s, the anxiety and anger made people pursuing the money insanely. “They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money. If they don’t get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-meat.” under Steinbeck’s narration, the quote reveals the seriousness of the situation. They cannot make any profits, they desire work, constant work, with a stable wage. Nothing exists in their home state is dependable. “The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.” At that time, in Steinbeck’s mind, the bank could not operate normally, which the farmers have faced the consequence of not get paid. Once the bank shut, farmers’ life ends.
Furthermore, most of the farmers would never forget that their home is horrible as hell, therefore they decide to escape, but the reality harshly beat them up. The assumption of once moving to California, more opportunities will be available, are not true. In Chapter 16, the Joads found out the first experience of a man who has already immigrated to California but made a poor transaction––use more effort to pay for a worse life. His wife and children were endangered of dying due to the scarcity of food and wealth. This makes the others consider how tough it might be to feed their own families, once they arrive in California. He is a man who is dragged down by life and has decided to give up and may end up returning his home. “They were not farm men anymore, but migrant men.” this quote from Chapter 17 vividly described the impacts of capitalism and social discrimination. Under capitalism, people with the highest social status always have the priority for anything but the farmworkers, the bottom of the social status pyramid, have none of the privileges. Once the migrant workers arrived in California, they faced a new set of obstacles. They were labeled as “migrant workers”, which means their social status had been lowered. They never imagined that even finding regular work can be uphill. Instead, they found the local people hated them because they are afraid of the migrants would steal their jobs. The store owners also hated them, because they didn’t have any money to spend. The landowners, whose forefathers stole the land from its original owners, feared the migrants would try to do the same to them. They knew if people were hungry enough and determined enough they could achieve anything. All the owners, people who stand on the top of the social pyramid, would never realize that what the migrant works are asked for is the most basic level of the physical and mental needs.
The owners dominated the government. Finally, in this period, the U.S. government also passed a series of labor laws to protect workers, but that excluded farmworkers and domestic laborers, the jobs that were historically held by African Americans and immigrants. These laws specifically exclude farmworkers from basic labor protections such as overtime pay, workers’ compensation, protection for unionizing and collective bargaining, workers’ compensation, and child labor laws. The natural disaster is unavoidable but the social inequality can be stopped. If we don’t have the farmers to cultivate the food for us, how we can survive? Why would we treat them differently? The worst thing is not the dust storms, is the blindness to adjust the mind of excluding people in the lower class. Martin Luther King Jr. can bravely fight for racial discrimination, but who else has that courage now?
When I’m reading The Grapes of Wrath, my tears start to drain.
Works Cited
“Timeline of Agricultural Labor.” NFWM, nfwm.org/farm-workers/farm-worker-issues/timeline-of-agricultural-labor/.
Great American Novels 2020 