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Minorities In The Grapes Of Wrath

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Alienation of the Minority In The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck the sheer magnitude of the message Steinbeck portrays helps to define an entire generation: any time a community is isolated from the world and degraded, perseverance, hard work and family bonds results in firm success and lasting peace of mind. The Joad Family and thousands of others were brutally ripped away from the farmlands they called home; desperate; they went to California seeking work on an empty promise cooked up by the rich landowners to get cheap labor. Jim Casy, a former preacher man traveling with them recognizes the moral and social injustice that the landowners are doing and speaks out against them; soon Casy is murdered by a policeman as an example to not …show more content…

Steinbeck expertly demonstrates his theme in the finale scene of The Grapes of Wrath when Rose of Sharon tenderly feeds the starving man from her own breast. Rose of Sharon was not forced to help the older man; she did it out of free will and compassion for people in the same predicament as her own family members. The Joads, the man and the man’s son were abandoned by the world they helped build; they were alone and yet they were together, human nature dictated that they work as a team to overcome their obstacles, so they did. By helping the man out Rose of Sharon shatters the invisible wall between societal expectations and doing what is morally correct; it was unconventional and entirely frowned upon by the social order but there was no other course, she could provide a food source and the man was in severe need. Simply put the laws of society and current culture hold no power over individuals who have only suffered at the silence of society. As a culture we robotically condemn anyone who commits a crime (thievery); whether through the courts or social disdain, as Mrs. Wainwright so aptly phrased it; "They's lots of things 'gainst the law that we can't he'p doin'" (Steinbeck 499). Despite what the laws say, the workers need to eat, need to survive even when stealing or begging for the food is their only option left; “Then the hungry men crowded the alleys behind the stores to beg for bread, to beg for rotting vegetables, to steal when they could” (Steinbeck 479). Even though the fact that the migrant workers are starving, the other social classes disregard their plight and choose to view their desperate actions as only criminal and

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