A+ Grapes Of Wrath

A detailed Summary of A+ Grapes Of Wrath

The United States has, since it's founding, been a capitalistic society and its citizens have always been frightened of proponents of other "-isms" such as communism and socialism. This political climate made it difficult for socialists, such as John Steinbeck, to become popular writers. His book, Grapes of Wrath, was popular because, instead of promoting Socialist philosophies, he showed the faults of Capitalism. Steinbeck portrayed in his work his perceived faults of capitalism: It's ability to cause people to put monetary wealth above all else, make people angry, and drive people out of their homeland.

Throughout the Grapes of Wrath people put monetary wealth before everything else. As the novel begins, we see the Joads are being forced off their land by greedy banks. One of their neighbors chooses to forfeit his morals and plow his neighbor's farms and knock down their houses for three dollars a day. On their way to California, the Joads are witness to a few rare acts of kindness, such as the candy given to the children at a discounted price. Steinbeck includes that act to show that a capitalistic society isn't all-bad, but most of it is. In California they hear about and see incredibly greedy acts. There

are rumors of a man who runs a newspaper, William Randolph Hearst, who has a million acres that he doesn't let anyone farm. They hear about farmers destroying their excess crops in order to drive up prices while people all around them are dying of starvation and malnutrition. These acts beg the question, "At what point does this greed become illegal?" In a Communist or Socialist society, people who commit acts of greed that are that extreme would be punished by the government.

Steinbeck makes a convincing argument in favor of socialism and communism. But he overlooks one key fact that outweighs all those that are in favor of socialism and communism. That fact is no matter how little the workers were paid, how much they were mistreated, or what their living conditions were, they still had their freedom. They had the freedom to do what they wanted to do. They could have stayed on the farm like Muley Graves, or ran tractors for three dollars a day, or they could have just given up and died on the side of the road. They had the freedom to make any of those choices, and if they were in a Socialist or Communist society, like Steinbeck would have preferred, they would not of had those inalienable rights provided for in our great country's constitution.

A capitalistic society tends to favor the well-educated upper class and not the poor uneducat

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Approximate Word count = 924
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English