Diana+Araiza

A New Strategy A numerous amount of times society has a way of allowing injustice to take place. In John Steinbeck’s novel //The Grapes of Wrath//, his purpose is to point out the obstacles or injustices the people migrating to California were faced with during the Great Depression. They must play a role in confronting injustice and choose what is right from wrong. Although an individual must choose on their own, society takes a big part in which way the individual will lean towards. He also points out the small things like how important it is to stay together and help each other out when people are faced with a problem.

A very symbolic chapter of the novel is chapter three, because during this chapter the Joad family are being victims of the harsh Enviorment in which they must live and try to survive. Meanwhile the government is kicking them out of their land which makes the situation a real obstacle. Just like the Joads’, the turtle is faced with the obstacle of having to get off the road, but is hit by the truck driver along the way. "His front wheel struck the edge of the shell, flipped the turtle like a tiddly-wink, spun it like a coin, and rolled it off the highway." (pg.15) The turtle symbolizes the Joad family and the struggle they faced when all of their resources were taken away, but forced to move on. "Little by little the shell slid up the embankment until at last a parapet cut straight across its line of March, the shoulder of the road, a concrete wall four inches high." (pg.15) The turtle just like the Joads’ both struggled to get back on their feet, but equally distributed the impact of the problem which helped them not to break or cause a greater harm.

The farmer‘s are placed with a new challenge when the government stops making a profit of their land. “You know the land is poor. You’ve scrabbled at it long enough, God knows.“ (pg. 32) During chapter five the banks start evicting the farmers from their land because they aren’t making a good enough profit off of tenant farming. “ The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.“ (pg. 33) The farmers complain, but can’t take on what they know as “the system” because they don’t truly understand what it is. Seeing the farmer’s have nowhere to go the landowners recommend they head west to California. This of course angers the farmers, and they all argue and begin fighting for themselves. The real injustice is that they don’t have anything to bargain their lands back with. The farmer’s role in confronting this injustice would have been to stick together and act as a community, but instead turned on each other.

In chapter seven the farmers are faced with a new injustice when the car sales men decide to sell cheap cars at an unfair price. "Sure we sold it. Guarantee? We guarantee it to be an automobile. We didn't agree to wet-nurse it." (pg.65) This can be identified as injustice in the eyes of the farmer because he was counting on false promises. Migrant farmers started with very little resources that were further diminished with the purchase of a broken down car. "If only I could have one hundred jalopies. I don't care if they run or not." (pg. 63) The salesmen took advantage of the farmers, because they knew they were ignorant when it came to knowing anything about cars. Very few had an understanding of how a car should sound or run. Dealers would also convince farmers in to buying a car by manipulating feelings of guilt and embarrassment. The poor farmers' realized they were being taken advantage of, but unfortunately, they did not have another choice than to take what was being offered.

The greatest injustice occurs during chapter nine, when the farmers and their wives are faced with the challenge of picking out a few belongings they can afford to take to California. The farmers must go to brokers in order to sell their belongings. These brokers are unfair and buy the items for a very cheap price, because they know the farmers are in no position to argue for a higher price. "Your not buying only junk, you're buying junked lives." (pg. 87) This quote shows the connection of the items to the farmers' lives. When the men return from their selling they find the women going through their belongings, recollecting memories. “The women sat among the doomed things, turning them over and looking past them and back.” (pg. 88) The selling of items is a symbol of the families putting their past lives behind them. “Maybe we can start again, in the new rich land-in California, where the fruit grows. We’ll start over.” (pg. 87) Throughout the chapter there are no quotation marks used. This is a reflection of the loss of individuality the people experience. This must occur in order to overcome the injustice they face.

Chapter twelve is a new obstacle for the people on route 66 when they are traveling from Mississippi to Bakersfield, California. “66 is the path of the people in flight…”suggests that the people were fooled into thinking that California was the land that would solve their problems. Unfortunately on their way to California they were faced with plenty more obstacles than they had bargained for. Many of the cars the farmers had bought from the corrupt salesmen broke down, and the farmers were forced to replace those parts. "They look a fella over. They know he got to go on. They know he can't wait. And the price goes up." (pg.120) This exploitation is evident as the salesmen attempt to overcharge the migrants for damaged products and migrants are forced to respond, “Got to, I guess. Let’s look her over. Open her up, look a’ the casing—you son-a-bitch, you said the casing was good. She’s broke damn near through.” (pg. 121) Despite the hardships the migrant’s experience, the chapter ends with renewed hope and faith in the human race after the story of how a family successfully traveled to California by relying on strangers to feed them and pull their trailer.

In Homeless, by Anna Quindlin the author’s purpose is to expose the injustices the homeless are faced with. Quindlen tries to show us that these people are more than "the homeless." They are people who do not possess a materialistic home but can still have a home, because after all home is where the heart is. From outside knowledge, or common sense, we know that most homeless people, aside of shell shocked war veterans; are homeless for a reason, which most likely is a fault of their own. Most are alcoholics, have a problem with gambling, drugs, or just laziness. It's no doubt that they play a major role in society, but the homeless have just as much potential as every other human being. So overall, it is arguable whether the role that the homeless play in confronting justice even exists at all, because it is also arguable whether treatment towards the homeless is even unjust.

In The Ways We Lie, by Stephanie Ericsson, the author points out that it’s in a human nature to lie. Lying is part of the everyday routine for everyone. "We lie. We all do. We exaggerate, we minimize, we avoid confrontation, we spare people's feelings, we conveniently forget, we keep secrets, we justify to big-guy institutions." There are a numerous other reasons why people lie, but lying will always bring consequences. In //The Grapes of Wrath// an example that shows when someone judged the right time to lie was when Mae the waitress in chapter fifteen lied to the farmer about the real price of the candy and sold him two pieces for just one penny. “Oh-them. Well, no-them’s two for a penny.” (pg. 160) From this quote it is apparent that Mae was thinking of the children when she told that lie. That lie brought consequences, but they weren’t necessarily negative. Although sometimes a lie isn’t too harmful other times it can be destructive. In //The Grapes of Wrath// one can see occasions when lying was used to commit injustice. For example when the salesmen sold the filthy cars to the migrants knowing they weren’t going to last the trip that was a destructive lie. "Sure we sold it. Guarantee? We guarantee it to be an automobile. We didn't agree to wet-nurse it." (pg.65) One can see that these migrants would pay the consequences for these lies, because with these cars anything could happen to them. They could end up stranded in the middle of nowhere, and probably wouldn't be able to do anything to save themselves because of the lack of money. "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 a fish." Ericsson makes it clear that we can not fall for every lie, but sometimes society needs to make the difference.

On Compassion by Barbara Lazear Ascher is used to describe the motives behind an act of compassion. The author’s purpose is to remind humanity of what true compassion is, an act motivated by empathy rather than fear, and to describe how compassion becomes a part of people and what causes it to grow. "I don’t believe that one is born compassionate. Compassion is not a character trait like a sunny disposition. It must be learned, and it is learned by having adversity at our windows, coming through the gates of our yards, the walls of our towns, adversity that becomes so familiar that we begin to identify and empathize with it." (pg. 2 p. 5) Ascher makes it clear that compassion is not what you feel when you are frightened and that is why you act in a kind way. Compassion is much more than that, and it’s an act with no selfish thought. //"Raw humanity offends our sensibilities. We want to protect ourselves from an awareness of rags with voices that make no sense and scream forth in inarticulate rage."// (pg. 2 p. 3) Although the mayor took an initiative by confronting the injustice of the poor and homeless forced to live outdoors during the cold winters, his ulterior motive could have been to avoid the possible confrontation of the homeless. In Grapes of Wrath, all of the locals in California as well as the many salesmen throughout the story demonstrate a strong lack of compassion. The majority of the locals completely lacked any compassion. Instead of attempting to put themselves in the "okies" shoes in order to empathize with their ordeal, they did the opposite and attempted to separate themselves from them by labeling them as a different species. Compassion is something a human must pick up when they are ready to become unselfish and understand the cause of the less fortunate.

Injustice can be found anywhere, but sometimes people can do something about it. When you stick together as a community it’s easier to confront an injustice rather than trying to take it on your own. In //The Grapes of Wrath//, John Steinbeck does an excellent job of demonstrating different injustices migrants had to confront as well as over come them through out their lives.

Work Cited "Bill Moyers Journal . Archive . Sister Joan Chittister on NOW WITH BILL MOYERS, 2004 |." __PBS__. 29 Mar. 2009 <[|__http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/archives/chittister_now_flash.html__]>.

"Bill Moyers Journal . Watch & Listen." __PBS__. 29 Mar. 2009 <[|__http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01302009/watch2.html__]>.

Ericsson, Stephanie. "The Ways We Lie." 29 Mar. 2009 <[|__http://classroom.quixoticpedagogue.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=667&Itemid=28__]>. Lazear Ascher, Barbara. "On Compassion." 30 Mar. 2009 <[|__http://wserver.scc.losrios.edu/~lewisa/English%20300/Essays/On%20Compassion.htm__]>

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

Quindlen, Anna. "Homeless." 11 Mar 2009 <[|__http://pers.dadeschools.net/prodev/homelesstext.htm__]>.