The Contrast Between John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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Steinbeck shows the contrast between the humaneness of the farmers and the inhumanness of the bank and their machines. The banks hire men to drive tractors over farmer’s houses and destroy their land without warning or explanation. The bank even manages to get other farmers to destroy their peoples land in order to save their families from starvation. Once the men start driving the tractors, they become unrecognizable. Steinbeck describes it as, “That man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; A twitch at the controls could swerve the ‘cat, but the driver’s hands could not twitch because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent the tractor out, had somehow gotten into the driver’s hands, into his brain and muscle, …show more content…
During the Great Depression, men were typically the head of the family; everyone had to follow the males orders. Grampa, Pa, and Uncle John preside over the family and make all of the decisions concerning the family: “Grampa was still the titular head...Grampa came out of the house and saw the two [Pa and Uncle John] squatting together, and he jerked over and sat...that was the nucleus...walking daintily, they [Ma, Granma, RosaSharn] took their places behind the squatting men” (100-101). The “nucleus” is the center of the family that holds everything together and functions as the brain of the family. While the men are the “nucleus,” the women and children stand around the men waiting for orders. As times get tougher, Ma emerges as the central force and Pa remarks: “Seems like times is changed. Time was when a man said what we’d do. Seems like women is tellin’ now” (403). When the Wilson’s car broke down, Pa wanted to continue on the road and meet Tom and Al a few miles down the road. However, Ma did not want to risk splitting up the family and challenges Pa’s authority. Steinbeck states, “The whole group watched the revolt. They watched Pa, waiting for him to break into fury...The eyes of the whole family shifted back to Ma. She was the power. She had taken control...Ma had won” (242). This is the first time in the story that a woman is described as having “power;” this …show more content…
However, as the Joads begin to deteriorate under the pressure of migration, the family alters from a patriarchal structure to a matriarchal one where the importance of unity can be seen through the families’ decisions. Ultimately, in order to move forward and accept change, one must first forget the past. The Joad family was pushed off of their land by the bank and forced to migrate hundreds of miles for a better future. Along the way they lost and regained hope, challenged gender norms, and unified as a
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