The Common People In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

During The Great Depression, and subsequently the Dust Bowl, migrants and the poor were suffering because they were forced off of land. Many were unsympathetic to their plight, including landowners who were desperate to cling to their property. If the property owners were not as profit-driven, would millions of migrants not have to suffer?“This Land Was Made for You and Me and Critics, Too” by The Tampa Bay Times highlights the message behind Woodie Guthrie’s song “This Land Is Your Land”, presenting the song’s communist sympathetic lyrics. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck exhibits anti-capitalist sentiments as a main theme of the novel. These works and the authors behind them both strive to depict the struggles of the common people in …show more content…
“This Land Is Your Land” is about the person’s connection to American land and the negative effects of taking the land away from them, as The Tampa Bay Times associates with red sympathies. Guthrie would be opposed to banks claiming land that they had no use or emotional connection to, other than to profitize the land. Steinbeck had a similar opinion and calls the bank a “monster”. Since annexing the land was a step toward industrialization, Steinbeck and Guthrie opposed industrialization of agriculture. Early in The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck paints Muley Graves as a ghost on his former land and equates him to a loss of spirit that the newly industrialized land has. Graves is lonely and forgotten, representing the loss of essence of the land. The love of the land is a topic where the artists shared opinions. Now, most modern Americans live in urban areas and do not possess the same spiritual connection to the land that these artists …show more content…
The lyrics of “This Land Is Your Land” aimed to glorify the beauty of the land and unite the people of America. With phrases like “From California to the New York island” and “In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people, by the relief office I seen my people”, Guthrie unites people from east and west coast and calls his fellow citizens “my people”. The Grapes of Wrath united all the migrants and had readers sympathize with their plight when it was current. Ma Joad is a character associated with unity, at first only familial, but learned that cooperation in something greater than oneself or family is why the Weedpatch camp was peaceful and successful. Rose of Sharon also learns in the final scene of the book to be selfless, by breastfeeding a malnourished man who she has never met. They were both united because of a struggle and Steinbeck depicts with that scene that when people cooperate, they will persist. Currently, America is divided by people who do not want to cooperate, less than The Great Depression, but the division is still considerable. If Steinbeck and Guthrie were alive today, that they would work to fight for the fellowship of Americans.

John Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie had presented similar beliefs of worker’s union support, aversion of banks and industrialization, and brotherhood of Americans. “This Land Was Made for You and Me and Critics, Too” shows that Guthrie