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Major Farm Organization In John Steinbeck's Grapes Of Wrath

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Humans find their greatest strength in numbers. Protesting, boycotting, going on strike and many other strategies are used around the world in order for people to show a larger organization what their needs or wants are. Without having numbers none of these strategies would work. Imagine if three people stood outside of their senate's office demanding lower taxes, they would get nowhere. Whereas, if a group of one hundred plus people were involved they would be much more of a source to listen to. The unity of the migrants, in the book Grapes of Wrath written by John Steinbeck, is a great example of this concept. They posed the greatest threat to landowners, who refused to raise laboring wages, when coming together. This idea began in the novel …show more content…

Therefore, the migrant farms would be the fast-food employees. With that being said the landowners and fast-food organizations affect the lives of every one of their employees as well as their families. In the situation of both the migrant workers and the fast-food employees, they are both so low on resources that they cannot support themselves or their families. Running low on food, not being able to buy comfortable and necessary clothing items, and even finding a home or shelter are all things that these individuals and families may be struggling to provide. This is due to the wages they were given for their labor. The landowners were affecting these people’s lives with no regard, or having any concept of their struggles, same as the major fast-food corporations. These organizations were either so oblivious to reality that they were not even aware of how extreme the situations were for these families because they had no struggles as far as money could reach, or they simply did not care enough to help. Either way this is why in both situations it came to the point of protest because without standing up together in large numbers they wouldn’t have gotten their points

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John Steinbeck has been a pillar of American literature for decades. His work, especially Grapes of Wrath and The Harvest Gypsies, helped to shed light on some of the issues that plagued California, and the rest of the United States during the Great Depression. His works accentuate the theme of the importance of community, especially when those with the power to help don 't. These novels take place during the Great Depression, a time when there were very few jobs, little stability, widespread poverty, and diminished hopes for the future. This era sets the stage on which these stories take place. During these harsh times, many people turned to the government or banks for help, but they were turned down by the banks because they wanted a profit, or they bankrupted, and the government 's resources were stretched so low they could only help few people.

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Farmworkers knew that they would lose their jobs as soon as they went against the system, they would lose their only mean of income, but their motivation for justice was stronger, they needed change. As Ester Hernandez, daughter of migrant union farmworkers recalls her mother saying “even if we starved to death, that we would not be alone, but we had to stay and fight because otherwise nothing was going to change” (PBS). These people who barely had anything were willing to lose everything, to starve to death if necessary, all for change. Change starts with one person, but in this union, change started with every migrant farmworker who knew their worth and were unwilling to continue being treated like an item that only produces

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