Technology corrupts anyone who uses it. The use of technology has disconnected man from nature.Humanity are the emotions, qualities, morals, and characteristics that make a person human. The relationship between the tractors and their operators demonstrate this. The tractors are used to destroy the land and the houses built on it. When the men use the tractors they sacrifice their relationship with the land and their humanity. In Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, the tractors mechanize their operators and severs their natural relationship with the land, which means that technology deprives its user of their humanity.
The tractors The tractor have invaded the farmers land, forcing them to leave.
The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was a part of the monster, a robot in the seat….The monster that sent the tractor out, had somehow got into the driver's hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him—goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest. … The driver could not control it. (Steinbeck 35)
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The worker is then described as “a robot in the seat.” This suggests that the tractor has stripped him of his human qualities and mechanized him. The man has now become like the tractor, a soulless machine used for destruction. The workers dehumanization is externalized in the form of a mask and goggles that hide his human features. The narrator goes on to say the tractor invades and restricts the driver’s body. The tractor “goggled his mind, muzzled his speech, goggled his perception, muzzled his protest”. This suggests that the driver, goggled and muzzled by the tractor, is no longer an human but a robotic slave to the tractor. The driver has lost his human will and the capacity to think and speak