Causes, Gains, and Losses- The Grapes of Wrath

The conflict in The Grapes of Wrath was basically the Dust Bowl. The cause of this conflict is the fact that it is the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl was a very long drought. People from all over the place all headed towards California for jobs. Since California got some rain they were able to work over there. The only gain of this conflict is the hope that people were able to get while traveling to California. A lot of families had hope and they were ready to work. Once they got over to California they did not find any jobs around. They were all already filled up. So once this happened they lost all of their hope which they once had and they ended up starving to death because they had no money for food, which brings us to the losses of this conflict. There are a lot of losses that are in this type of conflict. The first lost is that people have to leave their homes and travel all the way to California whithout knowing what their life is going to be like over there. When Steinbeck says, "Where'll we go? the women asked. We don't know. We don't know. And the women went quickly, quietly back into the houses and herded the children ahead of them. They knew that a man so hurt and so perplexed may turn in anger, even on people he loves. They left the men alone to figure and to wonder in the dust" (Steinbeck 34). This quote states all of the questions people had of where they were going when they had to get off of their property. All of the times that people were kicked off of their farm they were told to go to California because they had more jobs, little did they know, once they got to California all of the jobs were filled up. Another loss is all of the people that were in the state of California which led to no jobs and starvation of a lot of people.

Bibliography

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin, 2002. Print.