Why you should read the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Even though Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath was first published in 1939 and followed the fictional, yet contextually accurate, Joad family through the great depression it contains a great deal of social commentary still relevant to today. I am sure Steinbeck would not be impressed to find his book still so relevant today as it depicts many of the things that were and still are horribly wrong with the society we live in.

One of the central themes of the book is the continual upward flow of money and power in our society. Small land owners and middle income people are always being pushed down if they are not growing, while large land owners and banks gain more and more power. We exist in an economy which rewards only entities that grow, it is not good enough to be consistent, and it is especially bad to be small and stagnant. In the book and likewise during the run up to the depression in America small scale farmers were beginning to have trouble paying back loans and were having their farms repossessed to be turned into giant ‘efficient’ cash crop farms run by as few paid people as possible. Where one plot of land once supported an entire family, ten plots might now provide work for one tractor driver. This is reminiscent of the way our economy runs now, large businesses try to employ as few people as possible and to pay those people as little as the can while maximizing their brand. While there were many other causes to the depression than farmers defaulting on loans it brings to light something that seems to be in the fabric of our society: that we accept practices and policies which are good only for a minority of people. It is obvious when you look at figures such as less than 20 percent of the population controls well over 80 percent of the worlds wealth, this is but one example of that process happening because we allow the bank to be controlled by a few people who do not have our best interests in mind. We give them our money everyday and as such give them power and authority.

Another subject this book talks about very strongly is how during this era and throughout most of human history the upper echelons of society find ways to convince everyone to criminalize people instead of acts. In the 1930s and still when vagrancy was criminalized it did nothing to stop vagrancy but simply made life for the majority of citizens more shitty. The government in this case deliberately invested money into criminalizing the people afflicted by the depression in the way of paying more police officers, and paying them commission for prisoners. While all this money is being invested into ‘fighting‘ the problem none is invested into solving it. These policies turned scared and hungry people into criminals and not just because they were sometimes forced to steal out of poverty, that is almost inconsequential, but because being hungry, scared and poor where now criminal acts. This paradox comes to mind when I hear the term “war on terror” being used, it is like we think we can terrorize the terrorists into submission. If there is one thing this book illustrates well is that you cannot beat hunger out of a group of people, you cannot criminalize homelessness and expect it to disappear. Similar to the ‘war on terror’ is what the Irish went through for decades under the British, the book Trinity embodies the struggle for equal rights and control of ones own life while a wealthier class or group of people tries to subdue another. No matter what, I believe that people deep down know they are intended to be free and I see this when countries like Bolivia elect a native like Evo Moralas, or when African nations threw off oppressive colonizers or Guatemala fighting against the might of the United States government to elect its own president and write its own constitution. One group can never fully suppress the spirit of another, only subdue it and its time we learned from this.

This book does a great job at illustrating the insane notion that all to often people who have enough to survive often think the less privileged some how don’t also want it, or perhaps more dangerously that they don’t deserve it. In the book the police are written as saying they would never live like the Okies, as if the migrants somehow have a choice as to their life style, or that they for some reason didn’t want a better life. Even in North America this happens today as Native Americans are often looked down upon for their life styles or the homeless are still demonized as having screwed up and put them selves there, and while some of the time people have certainly made bad choices we are far to quick to pass judgment and far to slow to listen to their stories.

One more reason I enjoyed reading this book and I think we all should is that it made me so thankful to have a job and so appreciative every time I eat a meal. In the book biscuits are common and it inspired me to make a batch (which is very cheap and easy) with dinner last night. They tasted so delicious and made me realize I could never do enough to deserve what I have and that I need to be thankful always.