The Grapes of Wrath: Question 3: Part 3

Basically every action displayed in The Grapes of Wrath is done because of one reason; the families were lied to at every turn. From the land owners to the car salesman, people lied to the desperate and fairly inexperienced farmers on their way to California, just to make a quick buck.

It would be easy to see after the book is over that the families most likely should not have gone to California in the first place, at least not all of them. It really was an unfair situation for the farmers because first they were pushed off of their land, then they were swindled out of money that they should have gotten for their belongings, but instead they barely got anything, and then the people selling the cars jacked up the prices because they knew that the people were going to need cars, so they would pay almost any price.

The easiest chapter to see the manifestation of deceit was in the chapter about the crooked used car salesman. He said “Goin’ to California? Here’s jus’ what you need. Looks shot, but they’s thousan’s of miles in her” (Steinbeck 66). This shows how the families were tricked into buying cars that looked good, but they were probably not in the best of shape. The car salesmen didn’t care though, they were just looking to make money. It shows in another line when someone complains that they bought a car and it already broke down, and the car salesman replies “Sure, we sold it. Guarantee? We guaranteed it to be an automobile. We didn’t guarantee to wet-nurse it. Now listen here, you—you bought a car, an’ now you’re squawkin’. I don’t give a damn if you don’t make payments. We ain’t got your paper. We turn that over to the finance company. They’ll get cops after you, not us. We don’t hold no paper. Yeah? Well you jus’ get tough an’ I’ll call a cop” (Steinbeck 65). They also switch out good batteries in the cars with bad ones so that people will have to come back and buy new ones (Steinbeck 62).

Basically the only reason that people went out to California was for work and a home, but the owners lied to them so that they could get cheap and easy labor. They were the cause of the all of the troubles the families went through, and they did not care one bit.

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