Dust Bowl Inhumanity

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The Great Depression, specifically in the southern mid-west, had dust storms ravage the land leaving the agriculture business in shambles, and families with no where to go. The Joad family, in the middle of the wreckage, flee their useless land to find prosperity in California. Little did they know that the adversity did not come from the Dust Bowl, but from man’s inhumanity towards his fellow man. Rather, the Joads and the migrant community cruelest evils come from those in positions of power, and throughout the book this theme is exemplified from start to finish of the Joad’s, and all “Oakie’s” plight towards a better life.
The undertone of inhumanity comes from Steinbecks emotional stake in the plight of migrants. He befriended and traveled …show more content…
Historically, as revealed in the interchapter 19, rich white men took what now is California from apathetic Mexicans, and took it as their own and made the Mexican people work under them for horrible low wages and work conditions. Decades later, the migrant farmers have replaced the Mexican workers, but the poor wages and inhumane work conditions have stayed the same. Along with the thousands of migrants flowing into the “promised land,” the fear of history repeating itself crawled into the back of the Californians minds’. Fear turned into delusions, and delusion turned into hate, thus hate turned into …show more content…
Glimpsed in chapter 5, in the beginning of the novel, the wicked banks take the farmers land, which has been in their families for generations, because they have stopped making a profit from their crops. The tenants are enraged, and want to fight back, but the men explain that the banks are a faceless monster that are controlling everyone. This inhumanity is also seen in chapter 7, a used car salesman is selling “jalopies” to the ignorant farmers who most likely know nothing about cars. To make the largest possible profit, they sells cars in terrible condition, with cracked and broken batteries and engines, but sell them for incredibly inflated prices, and cover it up by putting saw dust underneath the hood. The salespeople have no remorse lying to the proud and honest farmers, and they are completely aware they are ruining these people financially. The interchapters are a key way to show themes, especially man’s inhumanity against his fellow
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