Dust, Despair, and Discovery: Analyzing 'The Grapes of Wrath'

The world is a small place, but a person’s perception of the world is even smaller. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath takes place during the Great Depression, following a family called the Joads as they make their way from Oklahoma to California. The Joad’s transition from the Dust Bowl to California is filled with death and despair, as they realize the size and depth of the world that they live in. The Grapes of Wrath details the journey from a dusty desert to a cruel, man-made wasteland, showcasing the range and depth that mankind will go when pushed to the brink.

The world appears to be ending. The once fertile Great Plains has become a dusty desert, the winds forming dust clouds every day. No plants can grow in the sweltering heat, and

what does withers and dies. An excellent example of this degradation comes from this line in the book, “All day the dust sifted down from the sky, and the next day it sifted down. An even blanket covered the earth. It settled on the corn, piled up on the tops of the fence-posts, piled up on the wires; it settled on roofs, blanketed the weeds and trees”(Steinbeck 6). The ground has become dust, taking over everything that once stood on top of it, including houses, people, and crops. The constant growing and harvesting of a single crop killed the nutrients in the ground, causing the grass that held the dirt in place to die off. The tenant farmers agreed with the bankers during this line, “You know what cotton does to the land; robs it, sucks all the blood out of it. The squatters nodded-they knew, God knew. If they could only rotate the crops they might pump blood back into the land” (Steinbeck 41). The farmers and bankers knew what it meant to the land when they kept growing the same crop over and over again, but they kept doing it anyway. Now, everyone was suffering the consequences, living in a world where everything is dying and falling apart.
The people that are stuck in this dusty wasteland, such as the farmers and bankers, can do nothing but try and survive.

The bankers are kicking people off the land because money is no longer coming in, forcing farmers to take actions like this, “But where does it stop? Who can we shoot? I don’t aim to starve to death before I kill the man that’s starving me” (Steinbeck 49). The world is turning into a wasteland, forcing everyone into situations that they never thought they would be in, thus forcing decisions like shooting someone dead. The family that we follow throughout the book, the Joads, are like any other farming family. Large, hard-working, and straightforward. Unfortunately, they also suffer the same fate as any other farming family, kicked off their land and forced to move west, to California. On their way to California, they lose family members, deal with new hardships, and face an uncertain future. For example, on their way to California, they meet an old couple on the road. While conversing with them, the Joads show the California handbill to the couple, and the man says, “Why, that’s the one I seen. The very same one. You s’pose-maybe they got all eight hundred awready” (Steinbeck 189)? This line strengthens the fact that all of the farming families are moving west, since everyone at this point must have seen the handbill advertising work. Since there are so many people moving west, there won’t be enough room for everyone, forcing people to live in substandard

conditions. The wasteland has forced everyone to make decisions that they never thought they would make, balancing the lives of their family with the uncertainty of moving west.
The wasteland is barren, lifeless, and full of pain. Everyone is forced into something they would have never done in the first place, and all for the sake of their loved ones. Mankind will survive no matter what, taking whatever comes their way in order to live. The Joads are like any other family, and they will have to suffer the same situation as any other family.