Sacrifice In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

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The grass is greener on the other side, right? When times are tough it is worth giving up

everything in order to have a chance at a better life somewhere else, right? What is actually

considered bad enough to cause a whole group of people to risk their lives and leave their

friends, farm, and way of life in the dust? The Grapes of Wrath brings up and threatens the

validity of these simple, yet frequently asked questions with real-life experiences and examples.

Steinbeck uses the Joad’s to illustrate family sacrifice, struggle, and extreme inhumanity during

one of the darkest times in American history – the Great Depression and Dustbowl.

In the 1930’s, where the dustbowl was prolific and deadly, families slowly began losing …show more content…
Demott illuminates to this throughout the intro of The

Grapes of Wrath, “The suffering was so great that any pretense of objectivity would only falsify

the moment” (Demott, xxxii). Many migrants lived in Hoovervilles, and the fortunate ones lived

in government camps where there was hot water and safety from cops. Cops were notorious

for breaking up any civilization that the “Okies” had started and were able to kill them with

essentially no consequences. The people of California were afraid of the migrants, for they

were “unpredictable;” some of whom may have went as far as to kill someone for a loaf of

bread just to feed their children. The inhumanity that the Joads witnessed in California was so

much worse than it was back in Oklahoma. Wages for running a tractor in Oklahoma were

around three dollars a day, in California, the whole Joad family maybe made a dollar and a half

a day if they were lucky and found work. They were treated like animals, forced to move

around, and had to work for nothing or starve. Given the conditions of both scenarios, it is
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