Who Are The Farmers In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

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John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath takes place in the “dust bowl” period of the US in the 1930’s during the Great Depression. During this time, an abundant amount of farmers, (particularly those from Oklahoma to Arizona) migrated westward to California in search of wealth and job security. The protagonists are the Joad Family, one of many families who were evicted off of their land from the Government and forced to migrated westward. Their goal was to travel to California because they heard there was lots of ‘work with just wages’ and fertile land to be claimed. When their family does finally arrive in California they find that it wasn’t the paradise they had thought it would be. Instead of an abundance of land and work for all who come, …show more content…
Both feature people wanting more money to support themselves but they play out in different ways. However, in The Grapes of Wrath the farmers were unable to change their situation unlike those who struck at McDonalds. One of the reasons the farmers were stuck is because there were more workers than there were jobs. If a farmer didn’t want to work for a certain wage, there were 100 other people that would’ve made striking obsolete. However, some farmers decided to speak up against the farmers and were publicly beaten and arrested to be sent to jail, discouraging other farmers from wanting to strike. This differs from the modern day story. Chanting and protesting, the people on strike didn’t hurt anyone and no one was arrested (Horwitz 1). Arrogant and prejudice, the townspeople in The Grapes of Wrath were no help to the farmers. They were openly discriminatory to the immigrants and labeled them under the derogatory term, “okies.” This is another divergence from the McDonald's story. In the present, Horwitz writes, “Strikers and protesters were occasionally joined by high-profile officials, such as former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who led a walkout at a McDonald's in Oakland prompting three workers to go on strike” (Horwitz 2). This further demonstrates how far we’ve come as a country as people who don’t rely on minimum wage jobs are gathering to help and show
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