Grapes Of Wrath Marxist Analysis

Author John Steinbeck treats characters in the Grapes of Wrath horribly. The novel Grapes of Wrath implies that discrimination between sexes and social classes is okay, along with the idea that all men/women basically live for material gain. Steinbeck makes it seem like the discrimination is perfectly normal. What does this say about our society today if people see these things as abnormal? Philosopher Karl Marx, the creator of the idea of Marxism, came up with the idea that people do more for material gain than ideological gain. Similarly Adam Smith a swedish economist believed that people don’t do anything to see the pleasure of others, they do everything in the pursuit of self-gain. Kishida Toshiko a famous women's rights activist is speaking

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” (Smith) Here Smith is saying that it isn’t from the kindness of the butcher, brewer and baker, that we receive food for dinner. It is the butcher, brewer, and baker need to fulfil their own interests. The Bank doesn't just want to give the Farmers money out of the kindness of their hearts. They are in it for pure profit. The Farmers aren’t there just to farm and make money. They are there to survive off of the land and with the extra money they make. The Police don’t care that the Farmers were pushed off their land in Oklahoma. They are just doing whatever means necessary to keep peace and order. “[T]en persons [...] could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day…But if they had all wrought separately and independently [...] they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day.”(Smith) Here Smith is saying no matter what, more people working together can always get more done than one individual person. The Police as a who were able to keep order over California where only a few cops would not have been able to. The police restored order and fixed problems and help people thrive and survive. The Farmers work together to survive they are doing whatever they can in the road side camps

“Men sang the words, and women hummed the tunes” (Steinbeck 194). In this quote we see a classic example of sexist behaviors. The women are forced to be in the background while the men take the lead. Women today, no matter what they do, most of the time receive less money, fame, and privilege than men. Whether it’s a job where women are working alongside men and are making significantly less, or they accomplish something great and receive less praise than that of a man. All of this comes together to really show us as readers that this was a different time in the 1930’s. Sexist behaviors might have been okay back then, but they are not extreme, vocal sexist behaviors". “In the open doors the women stood looking out, and behind them the children— corn-headed children, with wide eyes, one bare foot on top of the other bare foot, and the toes working. The women and the children watched their men talking to the owner men. They were silent.” (Steinbeck 31) This quote is trying to show us how sexist tendencies back then were normal. In the 1930’s a woman would not have even thought about working a job. They just stuck to what they knew best. This all really changed about the time World War 2 started. Women were asked to fill in for the men that had gone overseas to fight in the