Greed In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

The Dust Bowl and the Great Depression are two, pure examples of America’s weakest moments. American citizens struggle to find jobs and maintain hope from the 1920s and 1930s, causing them to sacrifice personal belongings in order to survive. In the novel, The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, exhibits the impact of greed, money, and power has on economic corruption, making it nearly impossible to recover.

Greed is one of the major components of the Dust Bowl. In chapter 14, Midwestern landowners demonstrate greed because, “The land company—that's the bank when it has land—wants tractors, not families on the land.” (Steinbeck 101). This quote exemplifies greed because landowners prefer to use tractors instead of people simply because of

In chapter 7, the car dealership’s owner trains his or her’s employees to make their clients feel responsible for taking up their time (Steinbeck 42). By holding their clients accountable, it strategizes power because they are taking advantage of people’s kindness and desperateness. The salesmen are taught to pressure their customers into purchasing jalopies so they feel as if they will not have another chance to buy a car along their expedition to the West. Another example of power is, “People are wandering in, bewildered, needing a car.” (Steinbeck 42). This demonstrates dominance and power because salesmen have the option to sell their jalopies to migrants or not. If not, there are plenty of other migrants to purchase their overpriced cars. At frantic times like these, car dealerships and business owners can overprice their inventory because of the flow of migrants in need of resources to travel out of the Midwest. One can argue power does not play a role, but in reality, it does because that is how human nature is, regardless of what they are going through. Hence, Steinbeck stresses on the significance of power in the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl because of situations like in chapter 7.

Throughout the novel, The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, it is proven that greed, money, and power plays a significant role in the economy. Examples mentioned in chapters 7 and 14 demonstrates how Americans revolve by the application of each component in order to survive. This leaves the reader to speculate if there are other elements to defeat such hardships in the 1920s to the 1930s other than greed, money, and