Amanda+Watson

CONFRONTING INJUSTICE An individual’s role when confronting injustice is to confront and overcome the injustice by relying on the infrastructure of a family in order to have the strongest base possible. John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath uses many instances of injustice to show the power of unity and how an individual alone cannot overcome injustice, but when strengthened with numbers, more can be achieved. Steinbeck’s purpose in writing this novel is to show the hardships that many Americans went through during the 1930’s. In this, he also shows the injustice in the American economic system by the banks forcing people off their land, and the social system by the farmers turning on their tenant farmers. This betrayal is the greatest injustice shown and an injustice that could not be overcome. Injustices like these are also common in today’s society, such as lack of aid for the unemployed and homeless. There is very little an individual can do to confront injustice alone, but when individuals come together, they can achieve great things.

Steinbeck stresses the idea of unity and the connection within a family throughout out the novel, starting in chapter one. In chapter one, a family is standing looking at their ruined corn. It describes the dust and how it had ruined everything. Each family member looked to the other expecting a solution to the imminent problem. “ The men were silent and did not move often. And the women came out of the houses to stand beside their men-to feel whether this time the men would break…The children peeked at the faces of the men and women,” (3). An individual must make choices based on their circumstance. For these families, whose crops were ruined, were left with no choice but to depend on each other to find another way to survive. “The women knew it was all right, and the watching children knew it was all right. Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were whole,” (4).

Chapter three is an allegory for the hardships and struggles the Joad’s will face on their journey to a new life in California. The turtle in this chapter not only signifies the perseverance that the Joad’s will need to encompass and the suffering they will have to endure, but also signifies the type of system they will have to create in order to confront the injustice of their land being taken away. The turtle’s shell protects it and keeps it alive on his journey across the highway, “And now a light truck approached, and as it came near, the driver saw the turtle and swerved to hit it. His front wheel stuck the edge of the shell, flipped the turtle like a tiddly-wink, spun it like a coin, and rolled it off the highway,”(15). The truck is the injustice, while the turtle is the individual. When confronting this injustice, the turtle simply took to its shell to protect itself. The turtle shell is designed to protect it in such a way that if it was to be struck, it’s infrastructure would disperse the blow to decrease the impact. The same system works for the Joad’s. Each member of the family takes a portion of the blow in order to keep the entire unit strong and keep it from breaking. When there was nothing left and it came time to pick up and leave, the Joad’s came together and relied on each other for strength. After such turmoil, like the turtle being flipped over, the Joad’s picked themselves up and kept moving forward. “Lying on it’s back, the turtle was tight in its shell for a long time…and little by little the shell pulled over and flopped upright,”(16). Steinbeck strategically uses a turtle to describe the necessity for family in chapter three and continues to enforce it throughout the novel in various incidents.

The main theme that Steinbeck tried to portray in chapter nine is “out with the old, in with the new.” The Joad family is selling their belongings in hopes of gaining more money for the move to California. The family must put their pasts behind them, including their material items, in order to move forward together. “Your not only buying junk, your buying junked lives,” (87). The selling of their old lives and item is a result of the family’s lack of resources and the necessity funds. The family joining together and being willing to give up their material items, what they saw as their identity, could only confront this lack of resources. “How will we live without our lives? How will we know its us without our past? No. Leave it. Burn it,”(88). This loss of identity is supported throughout the novel with the absence of quotation marks. This takes away the separation of characters, therefore losing their own identification.

The flood in chapter twenty-nine symbolizes the sudden rush of migrants into California. This flood is the perfect example of the relationship between the land- owners and migrants as well. When the flood hits, the land- owners move to higher ground and try to protect themselves. Just as when the migrants arrived, the land- owners slowly felt the need to protect themselves from the migrants. “And the people waded away, carrying their wet blankets in their arms,”(433). They knew the treatment the migrants received from the sheriffs and banks were wrong, but in fear of being pulled into the same situation, the land- owners put themselves as far away from the migrant’s problems as possible. This is the biggest betrayal and injustice of all, the “oakies: were left stranded by those who should have helped them; the migrants were left alone to fight the injustice of California. “They’s rules- you got to be here a year before you can git relief. They say the gove’ment is gonna help. They don’ know when,”(433). The lack of courage on the land- owners part is the injustice to be fought against by the migrants, but their efforts to find their own relief were diminished by another injustice in government. One that was too much for even a large unified group to face.

Possibly the most important chapter in Steinbeck’s novel, chapter twenty five, reveals the name of the book in context. “In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage,”(349). The title of this novel could be dissected in many different ways, perhaps the most notable is that the grapes represents the people, the vine represents family and wrath represents the numerous injustices the Joad family faced. The grapes, or people, are all tightly intertwined with the vine, or their family. Just as the vine is secured into the ground by it’s roots. The land, whether in California or in the heartland, is the root for this vine, and the land is the root for the families in this novel. Without it, they would both cease to exist. “The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed in order to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all,”(348). Chapter twenty-five starts out discussing the scientific men that are superior to farmers in that they can manipulate the crops in their favor. Eventually, the prices have to go up and they must destroy fruits and other foods. If food is not thrown away, it rots because no one can afford to buy it. Eventually, nature takes its toll on each grape and each orange, just at it eventually affects each person. There was no way to avoid the inevitable outcome of such injustices.

Many of the injustices one faces are associated in some way or another with a lie. Whether it be the Californian land- owners lying to the migrants about the number of jobs and amount of wages or politicians just telling the people what they want to hear, lies are an enormous part of injustice. In Stephanie Ericsson’s essay “The Ways We Lie”, she discusses the types of lie that people use on a day- to- day basis and the difference between them all. She states that, “When someone lies, someone loses,”(1). This statement agrees with the previous statement that lies and injustice are intertwined, in that it is unjust to lie or deceive someone. Ericsson in no way justifies lying; in fact she expresses intolerance towards lying and describes it as “cultural cancer”(6). There is no way to confront injustice with a lie; a lie weakens the strength that is built up by the number of people facing the injustice. In Grapes of Wrath, Casey lies and takes the punishment for young Tom Joad punching the sheriff; this creates conflict for the entire family for the remainder of the book. “You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything,”(6). Injustices and lies are often disguised, but by coming together to accomplish a common goal, the obstacles can be overcome.

“On Compassion” by Barbara Lazear Ascher brings forth a different angle on confronting injustice. Rather than facing the injustice and taking it head on, Ascher advocates treating such situations with compassion. This action is not effortless; she goes on to explain that compassion is not easy to come by. “I do not believe that one is born compassionate…It must be learned, and it is learned by having adversity…adversity that becomes so familiar that we begin to identify and empathize with it,”(2). Ericsson compares compassion with fear in her essay, are “random acts of kindness” fueled by compassion or fear? When faced with injustice, one must dig deep and be compassionate to whoever is facing he or she with the injustice. Injustice is inevitable, “It is impossible to insulate ourselves against what is at our very doorstep”(2), but with compassion one can rise above it rather than fight it.

Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience is filled with confrontation of injustice. Thoreau seems to advocate fighting injustice personally, rather than unifying with others that share the same cause. Thoreau fights against slavery by refusing to pay his taxes, although this is not a direct fight against slavery itself, Thoreau is taking justice into his own hands and lashing back in whatever way possible. His fight would have been more successful if it were larger and wider spread. Civil Disobedience seems to contradict Steinbeck’s view on confronting injustice in some ways but seems to be in agreement in others. Such as, Steinbeck gives the migrants numerous occasions to face oppression and injustice, as if wanting them to fight. Thoreau acts in agreement with Steinbeck’s desire for retribution by taking in active role in confronting injustice by refusing to pay his taxes.

John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath encompasses many instances of families and people being oppressed and manipulated. A chain of injustices ultimately leads to the pressing issue of being forced off their land and betrayed by one another. Steinbeck shows that an individual alone can not confront injustice, but rather that there is strength in numbers and forming bonds of unity and connection in order to stand up against the injustices.

A WATSON

 WORK CITED

Steinbeck, John. __ Grapes of Wrath __. New York, N.Y: Penguin, 1992.

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

Thoreau, Henry D. "Civil Disobedience." __ The Thoreau Reader __. 29 Mar. 2009 < [] >.  Ascher, Barbara L. "On compassion." 10 Mar. 2009 < []  