Many people lost their jobs during the Great Depression. This loss caused many people to move out west in search of jobs and greater economic stability. In The Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family moved out west to California from Oklahoma. This is the most obvious comparison between The Grapes of Wrath and the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. John Steinbeck has many other comparisons to the Great Depression in his book as well. During the Great Depression everyone was struggling economically and they did everything that they could to stay afloat. They only cared about themselves and not the people around them. The Grapes of Wrath shows the inhumanity of people living during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl.
The people in California hated the migrants who were trying to find work. They saw the migrants as needy and feared that they would become squatters. This causes the residents of California to treat the migrants cruel and unjustly. They even united against the migrants because they feared the strength of them since there were so many. The residents used valuable money that could have been spent to feed the migrants, to fight them instead. Because of this, life was still extremely difficult for people like the Joad family.
On page 77 it says, “Salesmen, neat, deadly, small intent eyes watching for weakness.” These salesmen saw their customers as weak prey instead of fellow human beings. They needed to make money to survive because everyone was suffering from economic instability. People who lived during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl only cared about themselves and making sure they had money, even if it meant ripping off others. People were selfish and did not care about the well being of other people.
John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath as an indictment of society during the Great Depression. He shows the inhumanity of people and how that impacted daily lives for everyone. People will steal from others and keep them from having opportunities to do well in life. They do this because they are worried about people taking things from them that they want. If someone feels threatened they will try to make themselves look better by making the people arond them look as bad as they can make them look. Steinbeck shows that people are selfish and only care about themselves and their own survival. This was true in The Grapes of Wrath, during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, and it continues to be true to this very day.
