Melissa+Fackler

An individual judges right from wrong by first assessing the situation. Then they consider their morals, how society would view the decision, the pro’s and con’s, and finally react with what they believe to be the best decision for them. When it comes to confronting injustice, the individual must immediately react using whatever resources they can to stop the injustice before the resources are no longer available and the injustice is no longer conquerable. In John Steinbeck’s //The Grapes of Wrath//, it is shown that people in society establish their role against injustice by what they are advised to do, rather than what they should, however, when an individual is willing to change or stand up to that injustice, society isn’t always willing to follow. The novel was written to show that in order to fully overcome the injustice; you must distribute the impact, and unite. Through other literary works, such as “Homeless,” by Anna Quindlen, “The Ways We Lie,” by Stephanie Ericsson, and “On Compassion,” by Barbara Lazear Ascher, it is shown that if one individual takes a stand, they have a possibility to make change. The fight must initiate within the individual, but the strive towards justice will become more successful as the people unite in a common cause. Injustice is usually something you don’t plan to face, but something that is unexpectedly thrown at you. As the turtle is trying to cross the highway, a truck driver purposely decides to hit it, not only knocking it off the road, but flipping it so that the turtle is stuck on its back. “… A light truck approached, and as it came near, the driver saw the turtle and swerved to hit it” (15). After struggling over time, the turtle gains the strength to flip itself back over, and again tries to cross the highway. The turtle was faced with an injustice that he didn’t see coming, but took the impact and distributed it to all parts of its shell, and united to rebel against the injustice by continuing his journey. "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). Steinbeck’s purpose for beginning his novel this way is that the turtle’s story sets the infrastructure that will be seen throughout the entirety of the novel. “Like the turtle that trudges across the road, the Joad family will be called upon, time and again, to fight the malicious forces—drought, industry, human jealousy and fear—that seek to overturn it” (sparknotes). The farmers felt unprepared and unequipped to fight, but rather than giving up, they bound together, packed up their lives and headed out west to California to restart and have more affluent lives. Because the farmers weren’t capable of gaining the infrastructure to beat the injustice, they should, like the turtle, distribute the impact to everyone and then unite as one force to fight the injustice, which in this case is to challenge themselves and start over in California. As the novel progresses the source of the injustice changes. In Chapter nine, “forced to sell,” the injustice is the people trying to adapt to the new style of life with a lack of resources to help them. Many are still focusing on their past lives, rather than the present and what is to come ahead on this journey. To head towards California, the families need to sell everything they don’t need to take with them. Considering the fact that people know they are being kicked out, the products are being sold for little to nothing. Because the farmers are in no place to bargain, everything has to go. “Fifty cents isn’t enough to get for a good plow. That seeder cost thirty eight dollars… Can’t haul it all back – We’ll take it, and a bitterness with it” (86). This scenario is similar to today’s society as well. People are hurting due to the economic recession, so they negotiate things down in price, because they know the vendor needs to sell things in order to stay in business. In order to triumph over this injustice, families came together to release past memories and move forward to the new life ahead of them. “How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past? No. Leave it. Burn it” (88). The burning of the unnecessary items symbolizes the families putting their past behind them and starting with a fresh start. Throughout all of chapter nine, quotation marks are not used to indicate who is speaking. This shows a loss of individuality and how they were becoming a group, rather than many individual people. In chapter seventeen, “Needs of Man,” the farmers are on their way to California, and began leaning on each other. “And because they were lonely and perplexed, because they had all come from a place of sadness and worry and defeat, and because they were all going to a new mysterious place, they huddled together; they talked together; they shared their lives, their food, and the things they hoped for in the new country” (193). In this chapter Steinbeck really shows the readers how when there is an injustice to overcome, communities find stronger bonds that hold them together, and show them how to put aside their differences in order to survive. “In the evening, a strange thing happened: the twenty families became one family, the children were the children of all” (193). They create strong communities and create laws to be followed by the members living there. “And as the worlds moved westward, rules became laws… and with the laws, the punishments” (194). Due to the fact that they were all in need, families began finding similarities with one another and eventually became friends. These late night chats and campground scenes are used to show how the qualities of friendship and support help the families greatly in such tough times. People commonly say, “Stand up for what is right, and don’t worry about what other people think,” but is that necessarily the case when it comes to confronting injustice? In chapter twenty six, Casy decides to stand up for the workers earning wages too low for the work they are doing. He said, “‘Listen you fellas don’ know what you’re a-doing’. You’re helpin’ to starve kids.’ [With that] the heavy man swung with the pick handle. Casy dodged down into the swing. The heavy club crashed into the side of his head with a dull crunch of bone, and Casy fell sideways out of the light… ‘Jesus George, I think you killed him’” (386). Casy gets killed for doing the right thing, but if he was with a group all standing up against the injustice the workers were facing, the outcome would most likely have been different. Steinbeck teaches us that strength in numbers will inevitably prevail over an individual standing up for himself. This lesson still stands in today’s society, for example, gay marriage rights. If one man went to a court asking to marry another man, the outcome would be crushing for the man asking, but if a group of individuals, all fighting for the cause of gay marriage fight the injustice, the possibility of beating that injustice strongly raises. In chapter twenty nine, “Winter in California,” Steinbeck shows us that individuals stand a greater chance to brazen out the injustice only if the outcome with benefit them in some way or another. “They’s rules–you got to be here a year before you can git relief. They say the gov’ment is gonna help. They don’ know when,” (433). Even though the land owners understood the danger and suffering they were allowing those men and women to go through, they sat by rather than confronting the injustice because it would not personally benefit them. The migrants faced the injustice of the flood together, depending on each others strengths to help get their families through the tough times. No matter how rough the flood got, the migrants never gave up. They stood strong and united, which was all along Steinbeck’s purpose for writing. Through the outside texts, it is revealed that if one individual takes a stand, they have a possibility to make change. In Anna Quindlen’s, “Homeless,” we learn the story of a woman who at the moment doesn’t have a house, but is put into the category of homeless. Quindlen goes on to say that just because someone doesn’t have a home, we shouldn’t look down on them, or treat them differently. “But in the main I think we work around it, just as we walk around it when it is lying on the sidewalk or sitting in the bus terminal--the problem, that is. It has been customary to take people's pain and lessen our own participation in it by turning it into an issue, not a collection of human beings. We turn an adjective into a noun: the poor, not poor people; the homeless, not Ann or the man who lives in the box or the woman who sleeps on the subway grate” (Homeless). If American’s could look past the little things and see the big picture, which is a person in need of help, and join together to help the individual face the injustice that has been labeled on their foreheads, we could overcome so much more than the injustice of homelessness. Stephanie Ericsson’s phenomenal short story on lying also proves the point of standing up to injustice, and changing the way society runs. “Our acceptance of [continuous] 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” (Lies). If we as Americans allow others to incessantly lie, whether it is a little white lie or a large lie that we feel we are saving people from by hiding the truth, we are only hurting ourselves and others. Why do we lie as a society? Many say it is to protect others, or boost their self confidence. Who are you as the reader to decide what an individual needs? If Americans joined together and fought the injustice of lying, there wouldn’t be the need to worry about someone finding out the truth, because the truth would be all we know. What a world America is capable of becoming, if only we could join in such a simple task as not lying. Barbara Lazear Ascher wrote a compelling story all on one word, compassion, which by definition means a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. Ascher challenges her reader to depict whether or not in today’s society, compassion is really there, or if we have replaced it with fear and self admiration. “It is impossible to insulate ourselves against what is at our very doorstep. 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” (Compassion). Her statement can of course be argued both ways, but from the textual evidence given it seems that the acts were more out of fear or self admiration and inner completion than it was compassion. If American’s joined together to face the injustice being shown to these people just because of how they dress, compassion would be overflowing across America, rather than hiding inside many Americans. Steinbeck’s purpose for writing, along with Quindlen, Ericsson, and Ascher, was not only to convey what injustice does to individuals, communities, factions and nations, but to prove that people in general can accomplish so much more if they take the opportunity to band together and retaliate against the injustice being thrust upon them. The fight must initiate within the individual, but the strive towards justice will become more successful as the people unite in a common cause. __Works Cited__

Ericsson, Stephanie. "The Ways We Lie." 30 Mar. 2009 . Lazear Ascher, Barbara. "On Compassion." 30 Mar. 2009 . Quindlen, Anna. "Homeless." __Dadeschools.net__. 30 Mar. 2009 . "SparkNotes: The Grapes of Wrath." __SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides__. 30 Mar. 2009 . Steinbeck, John. __The Grapes of Wrath__. New York: Penguin Books, 1939.