In The Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family is forced to continually migrate

In The Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family is forced to continually migrate

because they lose the land that their family has inhabited for generations.

Ownership does not reside in legal title but in personal experience.

In The Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family is forced to continually

migrate because they lose the land that their family has inhabited for

generations. Despite the fact that they never owned the land, they

feel it is theirs because no one else knows it as well as they do.

When they reach California, they experience the position of being the

outsiders, such as the banks they despised were in Oklahoma.

Because of their strong agrarian roots and personal connection to the

land, the Joads believe that connection to the land means ownership.

The banks believe that fiscal investment in the land means ownership.

This is an interesting paradox; two dissimilar groups of people battle

each other, convinced that they are right. They are battling over a

desolate piece of soil, a meager purse for the victor. The Joads'

position is outlined in the third intercalary chapter, "We were born

on (the land), and we got killed on it, died on it. That's what makes

it ours, being born on it, working on it, dying on it. That's

ownership, not papers with numbers on it" (43). The bank believes that

their monetary claim to the land eclipses the personal investment of

the sharecroppers. Though there is perhaps no concrete argument to

decide who is the true owner, if money is worth more than labor Bill

Gates has more right to land than the populations of many small

nations.

The Joads migrate to California as a result of the loss of their home,

and soon learn the problem with allowing personal experience to

determine ownership. The Californians treat them with a ferocity equal

to that with which they treated the bank, although the Oklahomans were

reacting to a considerably more intimidating threat. The migrants go

to California with the expectation that they will be valued employees,

and be able to settle on their own land in California. This is ironic

because they had so recently learned how difficult it is to give up

land, so expecting to be able to buy up land in California goes

directly against the lessons they had just learned. Despite this

element of hypocrisy, little discussed by John Steinbeck, the plight

of the migrants does inspire sympathy, for it is truly desperate.