The Dust Bowl In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

For many families in America during the 1930s, the Dust Bowl brought about difficult times that resulted in many people abandoning their property and fleeing west into unknown lands. In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck portrays the hardships of migrants, and specifically the Joad family. During their travels westward, the migrants hope to find work to support their families, but it quickly becomes evident that a job with sufficient pay is not available for miles around. Uncertain of the future, the migrants become scared and angry, and as the wrath inside them begins to grow, their sense of humanity began to diminish. Desperation and fear for the safety of their families causes people to abandon their sense of identity, and to do things that they normally would not do. The situation in Oklahoma becomes so hard for the Joads and other families that they are eventually pushed to the brink, and forced to leave their homes. This forced departure brings about the question of what to do with all of the family’s possessions. Bringing everything along with them is obviously not an option, so everything must be either sold or burned.

There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificates - died of malnutrition - because the food must rot, must be forced to rot” (Steinbeck 349).
This quote shows that as conditions in California worsen, people are beginning to value money and property over humanity. The farmers are so selfish that they will let a child die of starvation when a profit cannot be made. Steinbeck talks about this selfishness as a terrible crime that masks all of the positive things that migrants and farmers are doing, because it is so