Blog #20: The Grapes of Wrath

While I was reading, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, I noticed several themes. I think that the greatest of the themes that I noticed was that of Man's inhumanity to Man. I think that it is really apparent that the people of California treated the migrating farmers. I think that this happens in a lot of social situations. The greater people in the social structure seem to maneuver the people who happen to be lower in the structure whether it is the jocks and the nerds or the rich and the poor. I think that the people who are higher up think that they have to mistreat the lower people so that they can keep their status as high as possible. I am not sure why human nature has to make people think that they should mistreat other people to become the best or ruling people.

I noticed how in chapter nineteen Steinbeck portrays the state as the product of land-hungry squatters who took the land from the Mexicans and called it their own. I did not like the fact that the people of California were straight up mean. I think that they should not have taken the land away from the Mexicans because they clearly knew that the land was already taken. Of course they had to be the ones to get what they want because they are higher up in the social structure, and according to the grace of human nature that is how things go around here.

The higher people (In this case the Californians) feel like they have to separate themselves from the lower people, so I believe that they are the primary source of all of the evil and suffering in the world. They clearly treat the migrants like animals because they scoot them on to the next camp to the next as they all denied the migrants livable wages. Because the whole story was revolved around how the migrants were mistreated, I thought that this was the most noticeable theme in the novel.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. NY: Penguin, 1939. Print.