Rethinking the Politics of The Grapes of Wrath - Essay Example

Sora… John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath harshly criticizes American culture during the dustbowl years of the 1930s. Steinbeck argues that American society is driven by the capitalistic ‘monster’ of economic profit, much to the detriment of all but the very rich, although Steinbeck also argues that even those who profited actually lost something valuable in the process. While it is frequently believed that the problems faced by the individual farmers of the 1930s were caused primarily by the droughts and subsequent dust storms, Steinbeck and others were attempting to prove that this was only a small portion of the problem. “The drought of the mid-thirties – the worst in a century – only worsened conditions for the working people of the region, an area where unemployment was higher than the already soaring national average” (Gregory, 1989: 14). Instead, the driving force of this collapse, Steinbeck’s story, and the problems faced by the Joad family in the story are the result of the capitalistic system itself – the banks, the landowners and the incessant need for profit to be gained by all. This is what Steinbeck means when he makes reference to the ‘monster’. To understand how this was so, it is necessary to understand how the system affected Tom Joad and his family, the impact and purpose of the corporate handbills scattered throughout the dry country, how the land itself became a driving force and how this contributed to the further exploitation of the migrant worker as well as some of the allusions Steinbeck makes as to how to beat the system. The monster is first described in chapter five. Steinbeck presents a hypothetical exchange taking place between a tenant about to lose his land and the landowner who is evicting him. In this exchange, Steinbeck highlights the changing values of the country as it plunges full steam into pure capitalism. The tenant farmers tell the owners, “It’s our land. We measured it and broke it up. We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it’s no good, it’s still ours. That’s what makes it ours – being born on it, working it, dying on it. That makes ownership, not paper with numbers on it.” (Steinbeck, 1961: 33). But the owners answer (truthfully) that it isn’t up to them whether or not to evict but instead it’s up to the banks, which are not run by men but are themselves controlled by bigger companies off in the east that “has to have profits all the time … When the monster stops growing, it dies” (35). Without men at its head, there is no one to strike against and therefore no means of controlling its power. Like so many other tenants, the Joads found themselves without a home, without a hope and without a livelihood thanks to its incessant demands. They feel flight is the only option remaining open to them, yet each member of the family approaches the impending flight in their own way. “Connie’s individualist solution to the mass displacement and impoverishment of his people is a hope falsely held out for all, but available only to a few mercenaries. We also see the same impulses working in Al, suggesting that the younger generation is being lured into self-destruction” (Cunningham, 2002). Without this force of capitalism working on them, the Joads would likely never have left the farm, Connie perhaps would never have considered leaving his family and the family unit would not have been so broken by the forces of change and oppression that they encountered within the timeline of the novel. Despite his best efforts to reform himself, Tom finds himself thwarted again and again by the corporate monster that continues to suck the land dry. With his family having been evicted off of their land with no new jobs or opportunities available, Tom first finds it necessary to violate parole in order to survive. Yet even in their new homeland of California, the Joad family continues to find themselves in opposition to the powers that be. According to Cletus Daniel (1981), California agriculture had been run for decades by corporate cooperatives much like those just starting to take over the land in Oklahoma by the time real-life families similar to the fictional Joads arrived. As is factually noted in Steinbeck’s novel, these corporate giants, in an effort to squeeze out the smaller farms, deliberately drove up the prices of fruit, forcing many to destroy it when the market prices weren’t high enough to justify the cost of harvesting (Rothbard, 1995: 85). (These sentences are paraphrased – not quotes – from the information presented by Rothbard). This concept is presented in heartbreaking detail as the characters of the novel are forced to stand by, starving, as they watch the fruit being destroyed. “There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trucks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange” (Steinbeck, 1961: 348-9). Seeing this injustice, Tom is not only incapable of finding stability and joy for his own family, but is unable to exist under the present system of exploitation and wanton destruction, not only of the fruit of the land, but of the children of the people as well. For the argument that the drought was the driving force behind the novel to hold water, it has to be proven that it was the land itself that controlled the characters. This seems to be somewhat corroborated by the fact that the people are driven off the land when they abuse it by growing too much cotton, denuding it and leaving it open to the winds. (Did you draw these ideas from an external source? No, this is general common knowledge). However, it is refuted when one of the characters tells a truck driver, “The property is the man, stronger than he is. And he is small, not big. Only his possessions are big – and he’s the servant of his property” (51). Ironically, the more one holds in Steinbeck’s story, the more one has to lose and the more of a slave one is made to possessions. In the description of the fat man with mean eyes who owns millions of acres in California (205), the migrant workers come to the realization that while he has material comfort, he nevertheless lives in persistent fear of others and of death, alienating himself from the rest of the world and destroying his own peace of mind. In similar fashion, the middle class, the shopkeepers and vigilante troops, are seen in a similar battle with themselves, on one hand recognizing that their own property is at risk to the migrant workers, who might be willing to perform a service at a lower cost than themselves, yet also unable to side with the migrants against the forces that can bring ruin upon the middle class as easily (DeMott, 1997). (Are any portions of these sentences directly quoted? No, again this is paraphrased from a much longer work by DeMott as well as concepts drawn from the narrative of the novel). In order to retain their positions in society, men, especially those in the middle and upper classes, find themselves serving as slaves to those above them. According to Cletus Daniel (1981), this attempt to protect their property was one of the fundamental reasons why California growers courted the Mexican workers who preceded the Okies like the Joads. They were attractive because illegal migrant workers could be easily deported if they proved to be troublesome and those who were American citizens, because of their color, could also be ‘accidentally’ deported should they make a fuss. This vulnerability was expected to keep them controllable, but when they began forming themselves into labor unions and initiating strikes, the growers began looking elsewhere for less troublesome workers (Ruiz, 1987). They were able to lure the displaced tenant farmers of the Plains and the Midwest to California by distributing handbills that promised hope for a better future and the fulfillment of the modest dreams including home, health, work and happiness. However, only the landowners benefited in this situation as the migrants found themselves not only homeless and helpless but the middle class found itself threatened with the incoming flux of workers willing to do the same work for less pay. Because of their enforced acceptance of below subsistence level income, migrant workers were exploited tremendously throughout the novel and in reality. However, Steinbeck does not go so far as to indicate that this was done out of any malicious drive to harm others, but instead out of a mistaken belief that violence and control was the only means by which personal property could be protected. This is the message carried through by Jim Casey. He continuously attempts to convince Tom and others that breaking the pickers’ strikes will only make things worse in the long run by further weakening an already shaky position. When facing the vigilantes, he struggles to make them understand how they are contributing to the starvation of children. Rather than attempting to bring about more resistance through fighting, Casey tries to convince both sides of the argument that they are all victims to the same monster; the same system that is working to destroy the migrants can also be turned against the vigilantes that are now upholding it and the only way to solve the issue is first to understand it and then to work in concert with human needs and concerns, such as ensuring that no child starves as a result of the practices one is engaged in (Pizer, 1988). The system itself is misguided because of its focus on profits, on property and on retaining possessions rather than being focused on human concerns and doing what’s right. This begins to introduce some of the ways in which Steinbeck suggests possible means by which the problems of the 1930s might be addressed, ways in which the ‘monster’ of capitalism might be tamed. In his introduction of capitalism as a monster, Steinbeck begins to suggest that as it is something that was made by men, it is also something that can be changed by men: “We’ve got a bad thing made by men, and by God that’s something we can change” (41). As it is allowed to continue, Steinbeck begins to suggest that revolution not only will come, but that it must come as a result of the neglect and exploitation that can occur. As the starving people watch the fruit being destroyed rather than distributed, Steinbeck explains, “In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage” (349). As the novel progresses through the adventures and misadventures of the Joad family and friends, Steinbeck continues to encourage at the very least a passive resistance to the poor treatment of the poor – do not contribute to the starving of children, do not take part in the oppression of an entire class – yet also encourages the middle class to rise up in cooperation with the oppressed to change the system before it can be used to work against them. Although many things have changed since the 1930s that work to help the poor and keep them from being so oppressed – free lunch programs for children in school and welfare assistance for those who do not earn a decent wage on their own – I think Steinbeck was right to encourage his readers to look more deeply into the social systems they were supporting. Welfare is not able to overcome many of the issues that are still causing problems today, people continue to be underemployed and unable to attain higher wages or better employment because they do not fit in with a predefined, ‘acceptable’ definition and the ‘monster’ is still loose, still able to wreak havoc on any class it chooses to target. People have become more disconnected than ever in recent years, making it even more likely that those with power and money can force others to do what they find objectionable simply by threatening them with their own comfort while what is considered objectionable becomes ever more distant and removed. Works Cited Cunningham, Charles. “Rethinking the Politics of The Grapes of Wrath.” Cultural Logic. Vol. 5, (2002). Daniel, Cletus E. Bitter Harvest: A History of California Farmworkers, 1870-1941. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1981. DeMott, Robert. “’Working Days and Hours’: Steinbeck’s Writing of The Grapes of Wrath.” The Grapes of Wrath: Text and Criticism. Eds. Peter Lisca with Kevin Hearle. New York: Viking, 1997: 526-539. Gregory, James N. American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California. New York: Oxford UP, 1989. Pizer, Donald. “The Enduring Power of the Joads.” John Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath. Harold Bloom, ed. New York: Chelsea House, 1988: 83-98. Rothbard, Murray Newton. Making Economic Sense. Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1995. Ruiz, Vicki L. Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950. Albuquerque: U New Mexico P, 1987. Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 1961 (1939). Read More