The Grapes of Wrath: Chapter 19

Chapter nineteen is a powerful chapter that acts as a window into the struggle between the migrant farm workers and the land owners. It tells of how at first, the Americans took the land from the Mexicans because they wanted the rich farmland, and there was really nothing that could stop there “hunger” for land. Then, their sons grew up on the farms, so they did not hold it in as high regards as their fathers; only saw it as a way of making a profit. That is when the real trouble started, because they merged their farms, and soon there were very few farms, but a ton of farmland. Some farm owners have never even seen the land they own, they just hire people to do it for them (Steinbeck 231-232).

Then, with the Dust Bowl, over three hundred thousand people migrated to California for work, and since there were so many workers, the price of labor went down. This didn’t really sit well with the “Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, and Filipinos” that were already there, because they now made less money (Steinbeck 232). So basically everybody hated them because they lowered the wages, the owners feared they would revolt and take the land, and the shop owners didn’t like them because they never had money to buy anything (Steinbeck 233). On top of all of this hate, they had to live in shanty-towns called “Hovervilles.” They were forced to live right next to acre upon acre of “fallow” land, and they were not allowed to cultivate even the part that only weeds grew in, even if it were for their malnourished children. Everybody hates them because of the way they live, when in reality, they were forced into that lifestyle by the people like the land owners in California.

The owners don’t listen to history and its “rules” like “when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And when a majority of the people are cungry and cold they will atake by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds all the way through history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed” (Steinbeck 238). Faced with these facts, the owners still try to find ways to repress the farm workers so that they don’t rise up, when in reality, they are just solidifying their fate of being revolted against, they are simply just pushing back the date.

Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.