How The Great Depression Reflected In The Film Grapes Of Wrath

The 1920s and early 1930’s Great Depression eras were crucial and agonizing periods which affected majority of the people both physically and psychologically, during this time, not only in America but all over the World, there was a major economic crisis. There was a deflation in asset and product prices and disruption of trade, which ultimately resulted in widespread unemployment around the globe and eventually led to poverty known as the century of Great Depression. Because of the amount of influence the American economy had in the world, the US stock market was equally important to the world economy. More than 15 million Americans were unemployed at the worst point of the Depression, which was one-quarter of the labour forces in the United States. I chose these films ‘Of Mice and

This was the same case in the film, ‘Of Mice and Men’ where George and Lennie were planning to buy their dream farm as it would have made life much more stable. Joad mentioned, “The children ain’t getting enough to eat as it is… My grandpa took up this land 70 years ago. We was all born on it.” In the film ‘Grapes of Wrath’, where Jim Casy began to organize workers after getting released from the jail, he gets killed by the police officers and Tom Joad retaliates and kills the police officers. The extreme conditions of the Great Depression caused these men to disregard the distinction between a human and an animal or a slave. These external conflicts during this era has created immense internal conflicts. The pain of having to hurt and kill others to protect the loved ones. Depression has made these naïve men to become desperate and violent to secure their possessions. In the film Cinderella Men, the protagonist, James J. Braddock was literally forced to fight as he knew how badly his family needed the money. He mentioned to his wife, “I have to believe that when things are bad I can change them… I’m everybody's hope.” The Depression