Kevin+Thomas

The individual judges right from wrong by looking over the morally right thing and only doing what is most beneficial to themselves. Rather than doing the best thing for the people around them, they are forced to push others down to succeed past them. The role of the individual in confronting injustice is to unite together rather than go against each other through anger. In the novel, The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, Steinbeck uses intercalary chapters to further his purpose of writing and to focus on the meaning behind his work. Through these chapters, he shows that the real injustice in the novel is the infrastructure in the country that allows a powerful few to control a large number of people. The large companies control the majority by setting their wages and the products they buy, to make it so they are the only people that are able to succeed. Individually the people don’t have the resources to go against the companies and have to fight for the little resources there is at the bottom of the food chain. The intercalary chapters by Steinbeck and other works like “The Way We Lie” by Stephanie Ericsson, “Homeless: Expose the myths” by Joseph Perkins, and “Homeless” by Anna Quindlen, all contribute to show the injustice of the nation and confronting it.

Steinbeck shows injustice early on in the novel by showing the struggle of a family in the Dust Bowl that Oklahoma had become. The “Corn” (chapter one) shows the very poor conditions of the land and the family structure with each member looking to the older member for help. They have no resources to fight the poor conditions because the land is their identity and with the poor conditions they are unable to confront the injustice. Their land represents the infrastructure of the system because with the poor conditions of their land, they are unable to fight the system. “Every day the earth pales,” (5). Every day their situation is getting worse and there are less and less opportunities for survival. “The dawn came, but no day” (5) The people chose to do what is best for their situation and move west to start over and to regain their identity. To confront the injustice the family must come together and combine to move forward for the better of all of them. Isolated they are weak and have no chance, but together they can survive as a whole.

Another intercalary chapter that furthers Steinbeck’s purpose of the novel is “The Turtle” (chapter three). In this chapter, it shows the journey of a turtle trying to cross the road, at first one car avoids him, but the next car deliberately hits him; putting the turtle at the very spot it started from. The turtle represents all the “Okies” moving west on their journey to California for a better life. The Okies have to go through many obstacles to reach their destination because of the little resources they have. The infrastructure of the nation had shifted, leaving the Okies in the dust. Like the turtle, they relentlessly move west. The truck that hits the turtle represents the injustice of the infrastructure with the new technology controlling the people. The turtle is able to confront the injustice by absorbing the hit through it shell. The shell is able to withstand the hit by spreading the blow throughout the individual plates evenly, so that no individual plate gets the majority of the blow. Steinbeck is showing that like the turtle, the Okies must move as a unit to evenly distribute the blows thrown at them. The individual in confronting the injustice must unite together in order to overcome the injustice. The injustice of shifting infrastructure can only be beaten by the mass of people uniting together and combining their resources against the higher powers. "Lying on its back, the turtle was tight in its shell for a long time. But at last its legs waved in the air, reaching for something to pull it over. Its front foot caught a piece of quartz and little by little the shell pulled over and flopped upright"(15). The turtle, after a little while, got back up to go at it again. The turtle even though it got hit, was continuing determined to get to his destination. The Okies must follow the path of the turtle; no matter the obstacle that knocks them down, they must unite, absorb the blow and move forward.

Later in the novel, Steinbeck shows the anger fermenting in the local farmers, and Okies. Steinbeck briefly describes the Okies journey to California and shows that they will take very low wages just to survive. The large companies overlook their morals of right and wrong and make it that they are the only ones that are able to succeed in society. The businesses show disregard for human decency and use the infrastructure for their own personal benefit. The infrastructure is the system that allows them to have all power with the poorer majority unable to fight due to lack of resources. The local farmers then fight against the Okies because they are unable to confront the large businesses and instead take their anger out on the Okies. The system is then created with the locals and the Okies fighting for the scraps at the bottom of society. “These goddamned Okies are dirty and ignorant. They're degenerate, sexual maniacs. These goddamned Okies are theives. They'll steal anything. They've got no sense of property rights."(283). The local farmers are using their anger against the defenseless Okies rather than combining to take on the higher power of businesses. "The little farmers moved into town for a while and exhausted their credit, exhausted their friends, their relatives. And then they too went to the highways. And the roads were crowded with men ravenous for work, murderous for work."(284) The locals also looked over the rights and wrongs of society, when punishing the Okies, even though they were in the same situation as them. They overlooked that fact due to their desperateness of survival and doing whatever they could to have an upper hand over them. The role of the individual in confronting the injustice is to join together, but instead the farmers and Okies clash, allowing the big businesses to control the large mass of people. The injustice is the large companies slowly destroying society by having so much power in the hands of few and controlling a great mass of people. The only way to confront the injustice is to combine all the resources of the little farmers, Okies and locals against the big businesses of society.

Other sources of work correlate to the ideas of confronting justice such as “The Way We Lie” by Stephanie Ericsson. Ericsson describes the many lies in society and the consequences of them. She compares lying to a cancer in society. “Our acceptance of lies becomes a cultural cancer that eventually shrouds and reorders reality until moral garbage becomes as invisible to us as water is to fish.”(Ericsson). This is shown in the novel with the only people succeeding are the ones that are lying to control others. The salesmen in chapter seven exploits the Okies by selling them parts that will breakdown on their journey. The injustice is the inability for the Okies to argue this deal. The Okies have to accept the overpriced car because they need the car to move west and they don’t have the resources to argue it. They have no way to confront this injustice with the lack of resources and poor infrastructure in the nation.

**Works Cited**
Ericsson, Stephanie. "The Ways We Lie." 29 Mar. 2009 <[]>.

Steinbeck, John. __Grapes of Wrath__. New York, N.Y: Penguin, 1992.