A macrocosmic chapter tells the reader why the farmers were evicted from their lands. Chapter five tells the reader that the landowners and the bank owners, unable to make high profits from tenant farming, evict the farmers from the land. These upper classmen are losing money from the drought and force the farmers, who tend to be stationary, to become migrant workers. The owners suggest that they migrate to California, where there is work to be done: “We’re sorry said the owner men. The bank, the fifty-thousand-acre landowner can’t be responsible. You’re on land that isn’t yours. Once over the line maybe you can pick cotton in the fall. Maybe you can go on relief. Why don’t you go on west to California? There’s work there, and it never gets cold (44). The landowners, also being affected detrimentally, feel that they have no choice but to send the farmers away from their land. These harsh conditions produced by the Dust Bowl drought pit man against man, contrary to Jim Casy’s preachings: the man should strive to act for the good of all men. This affected the Joads when the bank took their farm away, and they were forced to temporarily move in with Tom’s Uncle John until they had gathered their belongings and shipped off to California. Tom learns in this in the following chapter, chapter 6.
Once in California, the workers find adversity not only from the landowners, but also from the common man in California. The people of California are afraid of another revolution occurring, similar to the previous revolution of hungry American squatters, who took the area by storm, quarreling over Mexican land. The Mexicans could not resist them, for they wanted nothing in the world as much as the squatters wanted this land. Their parsimonious descendents now own the land and guard the land with security guards and keep their income from decreasing by offering unjust wages to their employees. These landowners hated the Okies. “Okies- the owners hated them because the owners knew they were soft and Okies strong, that they were fed and the Okies hungry; and perhaps the owners had heard from their grandfathers how easy it is to steal land from a soft man if you are fierce and hungry and armed” (300). The Okies, on their part only ask for fair wages and freedom from starvation. They are indeed hungry for a chance to work and provide for their families, but the Californian land owners, being scared, ask of the police force to keep the Okies from settling and organizing by disturbing all of the camps they set up, their Hoovervilles. This was drawn from the macroscopic chapter 19 to the subsequent microscopic chapter 20, where the Joads set up camp at one of the Hoovervilles. Here, they meet up with other migrant workers, like Floyd Knowles, who tell them of their hardships experienced in California. Near the close of the chapter, a landowner comes to the camps looking for work. When Knowles starts asking for fair wages and contracts, a riot ensues and the police force the Okies to move from the area.
Once the farmers are forced off of their lands, they are forced to become migrant wage earners. They are taken out of their natural surroundings attained during their lifetime, and are forced to become a single cell in the capitalist scheme. They are now forced to become a “modern worker.” A “modern worker” is interchangeable; most anyone can be in a certain position of work. Henry Ford and his company’s production of the Model T set this precedent. From that point on a majority of jobs did not require any kind of special training. There may have been a great discrepancy of the personality and adeptness from worker to worker, but each was qualified for the simple task set in front of them.
The relationship between the bourgeois and the proletariat is heavily in favor of the upper-class capitalist owners. Where the workers and wage earners need subsistent wages to survive, the owners are free to offer them even lower wages, knowing that the workers have no other options. The owners have an incentive to keep wages down in order to maximize profits, knowing that there are more workers than work. Karl Marx and John Steinbeck believe that the lower classes will revolt against the upper classes, similar to how the bourgeois revolted against the kings in Europe centuries before. Early in the novel, Ma Joad sees possibilities for revolution. “Tommy, don’t you go fightin’ ‘em alone. They’ll hunt you down like a coyote. Tommy, I got to thinkin’ and dreamin’ and wonderin’. They say there’s a hun’erd thousand of us shoved out. If we was all mad the same way, Tommy—they wouldn’t hunt nobody down—.” (p. 105) Steinbeck employs Jim Casy as the social conscience who embodies this belief. Steinbeck continues to suggest that the workers should unite and create unions for labor.
The Grapes of Wrath is a novel that Steinbeck uses to promulgate his opinions and suggests alternatives and motivates lower class to unite and be motivated by their surroundings to push against the current and defeat the upper class. The alternating chapters produce the intended result, leaving no room for interpretation. The usually odd-numbered chapters that encompass whole ideas are used to create universality, while the even numbered Joad chapters provide particularity. The microcosmic chapters are used by Steinbeck to give the reader a feel of emotion. The migrant family creates plenty of emotion as they make their way to California, taking every adverse obstacle in stride. The Joad family personifies this and thus produces a timeless classic out of John Steinbeck’s narrative-turned-novel.
