The Dust Bowl In John Steinbeck's Grapes Of Wrath

Grapes of Wrath: Rough Draft

The dust bowl is a severe drought with dust-winds experienced by the United States during the 1930s(Schubert). Many families had fled to the west for better job opportunities and life style. John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath describes Joad’s family, similar to many others, suffered from the dust bowl and tries to get to the California, as well as how capitalist is the enemy and the society can be saved by socialism. He describes the Joad’s family to be in Oklahoma, causing them to lose their job and be dehumanized; uneducated, resulting them to have difficulties when finding jobs; and proletarian, making them to have less social right and wealth, to show how their identity is shaped by the bourgeoisie class, preventing

The Joad’s family lived in Oklahoma during the 1930s, and this identity of them has brought them many misfortune. Being in Oklahoma caused them to suffer the dust bowl, resulting them to loose their homes and jobs. Another result of them being in Oklahoma is being rejected by California. Because of the dust bowl, many people from Oklahoma migrates to California, it creates a general stereotype of Oklahoman, or Okie, being poor and taking up all the jobs, causing people in California dehumanizing and reject Oklahomans such as Joad’s family. According to Steinbeck, “ [w]ell, Okie use’ ta mean you was from Oklahoma. Now it means you’re dirty son-of-a-bitch, Okie means you’re scum(Steinbeck 215).” This shows how people in California viewed people from Oklahoma with a bad stereotype, dehumanizing them just with their identity of being from Oklahoma. Being in Oklahoma is shaped by the bourgeoisie class, by geographic segregation. The bourgeoisie will want to live with the bourgeoisie, rather than proletarians, so they repels them, resulting bourgeoisies and proletarians to live in different places, such as California and Texas. Citing to Benjamin Forman about geographic segregation , “[t]he clustering of rich and poor into separate neighborhoods may have been a largely unavoidable symptom of the growing income gulf between rich and poor(Forman).” This shows how the bourgeoisies will live away from the

Joad’s family being proletariats is obvious due to the fact that they are uneducated and are farmers who lose their jobs. Being in the working class have a significant number of negative impacts. Being proletariats causes them to be uneducated, have difficulties in finding jobs, and have lower social status, which will all result in making them even poorer. Joad’s family being proletariat is definitely shaped by the bourgeoisie class, because they are the one who controls the means of production, they are the ones who decides who can get the job and how much are they paid, they are the ones who, according to Marx, are theft because they owns all of the properties. Letting Joad’s being proletarians and suffer through all these obstacles best explains that they cannot control their destinies and Steinbeck’s grudge against