Immigrant Living Conditions In the 1930’s, a massive environmental disaster called the Dust Bowl ravaged much of the Midwest; topsoil eroded and combined with massive winds to destroy homes, crops, and lives. Compounding on this, the Great Depression caused massive economic suffering, especially for the displaced farmers. It is in this context that John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath, a novel that focuses on the plight of migrant farm workers who came to California seeking a better life. Steinbeck depicts the major ramifications of such a decision, delving into the poor living conditions as a result of pittances of work. Despite the resounding effects of the novel, these conditions still exist today through unfamiliar living conditions, poor wages,
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The effect of the road and the camps also distresses family life in the fact that it “use' ta be the family was fust [yet] it ain't so [now;] it's anybody” (Steinbeck 441). The loss of the individual in all the hardship leads to the idea that “twenty families became one family, .. children were the children of all [and] the loss of home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream” (Steinbeck 193). The “Okies” gather and suffer together in the Grapes of Wrath, because so many “[haven’t] felt so--safe in a long time” and thought “people needs--to help” (Steinbeck 141). They --the Joads, for example-- only survive because they have someone else to lean on: someone a few tents down who understands their plight. They unified collectively as a people that was previously unknown to them in the foreign land of California. The Joads have to find friends and “family” where they could as their family fell apart, from the first (Grandpa) to the last (Rose of Sharon’s baby). This is not unlike the migrant workers of today who travel from far-off places to reach the country they work for. Many migrant workers in the United States have
The effect of the road and the camps also distresses family life in the fact that it “use' ta be the family was fust [yet] it ain't so [now;] it's anybody” (Steinbeck 441). The loss of the individual in all the hardship leads to the idea that “twenty families became one family, .. children were the children of all [and] the loss of home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream” (Steinbeck 193). The “Okies” gather and suffer together in the Grapes of Wrath, because so many “[haven’t] felt so--safe in a long time” and thought “people needs--to help” (Steinbeck 141). They --the Joads, for example-- only survive because they have someone else to lean on: someone a few tents down who understands their plight. They unified collectively as a people that was previously unknown to them in the foreign land of California. The Joads have to find friends and “family” where they could as their family fell apart, from the first (Grandpa) to the last (Rose of Sharon’s baby). This is not unlike the migrant workers of today who travel from far-off places to reach the country they work for. Many migrant workers in the United States have