Life In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

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The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is a very compelling and accurate book even though it 's fiction. This book follows a family from Oklahoma during the great depression and their journey to California in search of jobs. The Joads family is affected by atmospheric condition and the dust bowl. Some of the challenges the family faces because of this are drought, death, and job loss. First of all, atmospheric conditions and the dust bowl caused death. The dust bowl was caused because of the farmers over cropping it had no mercy for anyone that was caught in it. The dust bowl caused death because there was so much dirt in the air that it suffocated people. In the book, the dust is described as “evenly mixed with the air, an emulsion of dust …show more content…
The book The Grapes of Wrath captures well how the families struggled in real life. In the book and in real life families did start moving west to find jobs. The journey to California for the Joads was hard but the hardest was actually realizing what California was like. It is actually mentioned in the book that people are “livin’ like hogs, ‘cause ever’thing in California is owned” (Steinbeck 265). The Joads were filled with hope and were made to believe that California was going to be a place to start over and that there were many jobs it was a beautiful fraud. Many families arriving in to this new state were met with resentment because the locals did not want them there. The people of California had come up with the term “Okies,” a derogatory term, which meant “a dirty son- of- a bitch” (Steinbeck 265). The current residents did not want any outsiders coming in and stealing their jobs, especially since the cost of living had gone up and wages had gone down. Those how had suffered the effects of the dust bowl were lured in with the hope of jobs, but there were not any since all the people had gone to California. The Joads ended up being equally or even worse than they were back home in Oklahoma.
In conclusion, atmospheric conditions and the dust bowl had a huge impact on the lives of many people. The link between the book The Grapes of Wrath and the historical element is

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