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Social Injustices In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

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The novel The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck is about the social injustices that took place during the Dust Bowl migration in the western United States. It is composed of a third person view of a family, the Joads, who are kicked off their homestead and forced to travel to California in search of jobs, and inner chapters which are a general third person view of the hardship of homestead farmers during the time period. Steinbeck uses the inner chapters of the book to develop his political stance on the plight of the migrants. The story of the Joads is alone not enough to make the reader fully understand the extent of the misfortune and sorrow experienced by these migrants. The inner chapters help the reader understand the time period, and understand what is happening to the Joads, and what happened to thousands of other migrants during this time. Without these chapters, the book would not have as strong of a statement on the wrongdoings by Americans to other Americans during this time.
The story begins with the start of the dust bowl. Thick clouds of dust fill the skies, and the farmers tie handkerchiefs over their noses and mouths. At night, the dust blocks out the stars and creeps into the farmhouses. During the day the farmers have nothing to do but stare at their dying crops, …show more content…

When the farmers stop to buy parts for their cars, salesmen try to cheat them. The farmers struggle to make it from service station to service station. At each stop they are met with hostility and suspicion. People claim that the country is not large enough to support everybody’s needs and suggesting that they go back to where they came from. People who live in the West do not understand what has happened in Oklahoma and the Midwest. So many migrant farmers were coming into the west. The citizens of the western states fear that the farmers will come together and stage a

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