Grapes Of Wrath Argument

Ashleah White
Baumann/Flanders
Grapes of Wrath/Great Depression Essay
04 May 2012 Step By Step We’ll Reach the Top Throughout life are untold dangers and unnumbered hardships. With every new day comes change, and with every change, big or small, there is a new obstacle to be conquered. Sure, some obstacles are petty pebbles on the road, but some are boulders blocking the path to your destination. In these particular situations, you bond with others sharing your experience and begin to realize, you cannot move forward by yourself. Around you, families pile up and gather around. What you lack, another may have and vice-versa. Suddenly what was his is yours and what was yours
One specific time period this potent bonding is found is during the 1930s and 1940s in America, commonly known as the Great Depression. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath studies this era, and every detail is relevant to its setting. In both book and history, greedy businessmen band together into a union of their own and call the band banks. Their wealth and fellowship create enough power to push the lower class of society all over the country. Citizens become nomads, individuals traveling to sustain life, and then, in a way, tribes, like Native Americans. They become families traveling to sustain life. This is the shift from “I” to “we” and how unity changes
When work at the Hooper ranch is only two and one half cents, Casy realizes a family cannot be fed with such low wages. Quickly, Casy rounds some men and protests, which is another tribute to history. Naturally, if a quarter of the nation is out of work and families’ stomachs ache from malnutrition, anger will arise, as it did during the Great Depression. Riots and protests aroused often during this period. One protest, for example, is the Bonus Army protest. After World War I, American war veterans were promised a cash bonus for their service. However, as the Depression struck America, anxiety aroused in the former troops. World War I veterans, portrayed by government and tabloids as greedy Communists like other American emigrants during this period, demanded their bonuses mid-1932, though the payments were not to be delivered until 1945. These former militant soldiers marched in Washington to gain their bonus early. After all, as Father Charles E. Coughlin boldly suggests, “If the Government can pay $2 billion to the bankers and railroads, having had no obligation toward them, why cannot it pay the $2 billion to the soldiers, already recognized as an obligation?” (Dickson 51). As most protests did, the campaign ended in violence. Steinbeck reflects this outcome as well as local