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Power In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

842 Words4 Pages

According to the University of California at Davis, during the 1930’s “roughly 2.5 million people left the dust bowl states” due to the desolate conditions. The story The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, shows the hardships of the fictitious Joads family who left Oklahoma, during the dust bowl, in search of more opportunities. Throughout the story, Steinbeck claims that the “elite” control the money and power and use it for the wrong reasons, while the migrants are given less and have greater needs. In the beginning, Steinbeck describes the elite landowners as harsh, ignorant and altruistic. Steinbeck characterizes the owners as ignorant by writing that in reference to their hardships “they do not know[ing] these things are results, not causes” (150) In addition, Steinbeck characterizes the owners as harsh by repeating the words “striking” when talking about their actions. Steinbeck also believes that the ones in power misuse it and the ones that don't have power are discriminated and given unequal opportunities. He believes that because the landowners have everything and the migrants aren’t given the …show more content…

“For the quality of owning freezes you forever in the “I”, and cuts you off forever from the “we” (pg152). Steinbeck believes that “we” is dangerous for the elite because it creates change and creates more strength in numbers which can ultimately lead to the uprising of the migrants against the elite, which is one of Steinbeck’s ultimate goals. Steinbeck states that “owning freezes you forever into “I” and cuts you off forever from the we” (152) which helps show Steinbeck’s belief that the migrants truly can rise up and his bias against the landowners. According to Steinbeck since the owners caused the need for the “we” due to their actions, destruction and owning the land they are forever stuck in the

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In this despondent selection of “The Grapes of Wrath”, Steinbeck uses simple and morose euphemisms to cover the awful truths that the “owner men” must deliver to the unfortunate tenants. Steinbeck illustrates that the owner men do all that they can within logic to separate themselves from the fact that these innocent people’s lives are ruined simply because they need a bigger profit margin. “And all of them were caught in something larger than themselves … These last would take no responsibility for the banks or the companies because they were men and slaves, while the banks were machines and masters all at the same time” (Steinbeck 21). Steinbeck describes the owner men as being in a situation beyond their control, where in reality they absolutely could have refused to ruin innocent people’s lives,

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