This book is all about the history and social issues of the farmers and Western people during the American Dust Bowl during the 1930’s. It was a time of great change, and whenever there is great change, social issues are going to spring up.
In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck clearly states his opinion on what had happened to the migrant farm workers and of the owners and business men who caused all of the problems for the farmers. It started off with the owners and banks deciding to kick off the tenant farmers so that they could plant cotton and make some profit out of the land, even if it would suck the soil of the rest of its nutrients. Then, when the farmers were wondering where to go after being evicted from their homes, by way of tractor knocking it down, the owners gave out pamphlets and advice to go to California where there are plenty of jobs with nice wages and everything is perfect there, but they knew what it was really like there; overcrowding and jobs that barely kept the children alive.
They purposely made a class of “serfs” almost, people that would work simply for food. Chapter twenty-two talked about how, with all of the farmers pouring in, the people already living in California hated them, for they lowered the wages, took up space, and they were worried that they were thieves and criminals; “degenerates” (Steinbeck 283). It talked about how farmers would fight for lower wages just to get the job, “and this was good, for wages went down and prices stayed up. The great owners were glad and they sent out more handbills to bring more people in. And wages went down and prices stayed up. And pretty soon now we’ll have serfs again” (Steinbeck 283). The townspeople were mad at the wrong group, for it was not the farmer’s fault that they were forced into poverty, but the great land owners, and they were doing it on purpose.
Steinbeck, John, and Robert J. DeMott. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.
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