Man had to suffer through many things during the great depression. Not only just through conflicts of finding where to live or what to, but also having to face the lack of compassion of man. Don’t get me wrong the great depression not only brought out the bad in man, but the good as well. John Steinbeck the author of The Grapes of Wrath showed these themes vividly throughout the chapters of this book showing how a family stayed together through these problems.
The first theme I saw was the lack of compassion of man towards each other. I noticed that Steinbeck continually and hopelessly tries to show the enormous suffering of the migrants, not just caused by conditions or bare calamity, but by man itself. In chapter nineteen Steinbeck says,”Once California belonged to Mexico and its land to Mexicans; and a horde of tattered feverish Americans poured in. The Mexicans were weak and fed. Then, with time, the squatters were no longer squatters, but owners; and their children grew up and had children on the land.” Now these “children” think that history will repeat itself by all these migrant workers coming in. They feel that they have to treat these migrants like animals by outing them on roadsides, giving them low wages, and making these men betray each other just to have life. Through this theme you can see the human divide between these people.
How I said before, the great depression brought out the good in people through the theme of adding effects of insolence, and amity. Steinbeck would show many misfortunate things happen to the Joad family and migrants from insolence of the landowners, and businessmen to keep a chain going, and drowning families into poverty. Migrants realize that they have to work together to be free and break those chains. Steinbeck continually affirms amity. In chapter fifteen Mae a waitress, tells a migrant, and his kids that she won’t sell a loaf of bread to them for ten cents, but only for fifteen cents, but she is told to give it...