People Can’t Change

The Grapes of Wrath follows the Joad family and their companions as they flee the Oklahoma dust bowl to seek work in California. The group is a mix of different people who all want the same thing: survival. What I’ve noticed about these characters is that they all seem to have an individual set of characteristics or actions that are fundamental to their personality and allow them to cope with the difficulties of their displacement. Even if a character wants to change, they seem unable to, no matter the effort they put into it. The struggles we watch the group deal with over the course of the novel only seem to emphasize each individual’s beliefs and actions rather than changing or diminishing them. Tom Joad is likely the most obvious example, as he tries to leave behind his violent past in Oklahoma, only to find himself more angry, frustrated, and violent than he was when he left. Uncle John tries to be a good man out of guilt for his past but ends up falling to drink several times during the story. Ma, who has always held the family together, becomes more forceful in order to prevent the breakdown of the family. Again, their common goal is survival and that’s what keeps the group together. When survival is what’s at stake, the true nature of each character is revealed. For example, Connie abandoned his pregnant wife because he knew she would be a drain on resources and he would be better off on his own. Connie had always been young and immature, but he was pushed over the edge when he realized his own survival was at stake if he took on the responsibility of both Rose of Sharon and their child. He embraces his immaturity and opts to simply leave, rather than face his responsibility. Tom kills the man who killed Casy which reflects both his protective instincts and his deep frustration with the dire circumstances he and his family can’t seem to escape from. Throughout the novel, it becomes very clear that the Joads aren’t the only ones returning to their fundamental personalities and instincts. This is happening across the country, as millions of people lose their jobs and livelihoods in the wake of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. The Joads, like most other small scale farmers in the area, felt a strong connection to the land they had inherited from their ancestors. They grew up, worked, died, and were buried on this land, just like their parents and grandparents and so on. The land was a massive piece of their identity and the loss of it to the large and uncaring bank has turned them into primal, selfish, and uncivilized shells of their former selves. I believe that the Joads are simply a representation of the displaced American farmer in the dust bowl. John Steinbeck created these characters and this story to reflect on and raise awareness about the things he saw during the Dust Bowl era. He saw that the banks were buying up and collectivizing all of the land while kicking the poor farmers out without even a single moment of hesitation. In The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck points out how the economic and natural disasters of the 1930s have caused everybody to act according to their basic, selfish instincts. This includes the bank workers who are afraid of losing their jobs and ending up just like the people they’ve been evicting. In a way, “The Bank” is a representation of the selfish and cutthroat attitude that seems to develop in the people of the United States during this era. “The Bank” seems to transcend the people that make it up as it selfishly forces desperate people off their land and allows them to starve for profit. I believe that this story reveals Steinbeck’s opinion on human nature. He believes that people are fundamentally self-serving and will revert to this instinct whenever trouble happens and they’re personally threatened.