Synthesized answer
Based on the passages, the systemic issues driving displacement and exploitation stem from the consolidation of agricultural power by "the great owners, the banks, and the companies" [1]. These entities used vertical integration—for example, a great owner buying a cannery—to manipulate prices, cutting fruit prices below cost for farmers while keeping canned goods prices high. This forced "little farmers who owned no canneries" to lose their farms, which were then absorbed by the large owners [1]. The displaced farmers exhausted their credit and relatives, then joined the "highways" as homeless migrants [1].
Once in California, the migrants faced exploitation due to a massive labor surplus. Landowners hired far more workers than needed—"They need three thousan’, an’ they get six thousan’"—allowing them to pay starvation wages because "if ya don’ wanta take what they pay... they’s a thousan’ men waitin’ for your job" [5]. After the harvest, the workers were expelled because they were no longer needed and were seen as unsightly [5]. This was compounded by the fact that productive land was left fallow to maintain profit, while hungry families were denied even an orange by armed…
Synthesized from the book passages below. Chat with the book on Feynman for follow-up.
From the book
And now the great owners and the companies invented a new method. A great owner bought a cannery. And when the peaches and the pears were ripe he cut the price of fruit below the cost of raising it. And as cannery owner he paid himself a low price for the fruit and kept the price of canned goods up and took his profit. And the little farmers who owned no canneries lost their farms, and they were taken by the great owners, the banks, and the companies who also owned the canneries. As time went on, there were fewer farms. The little farmers moved into town for a while and exhausted…
And then the dispossessed were drawn west— from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out. Carloads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed oyer the mountains, hungry and restless— restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do— to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut— anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place to live. Like, ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land. We ain’t…
And a homeless hungry man, driving the roads with his wife beside him and his thin children in the back seat, could look at the fallow fields which might produce food but not profit, and that man could know how a fallow field is a sin and the unused land a crime against the thin children. And such a man drove along the roads and knew temptation at every field, and knew the lust to take these fields and make them grow strength for his children and a little comfort for his wife. The temptation was before him always. The fields goaded him, and the company ditches with good water flow-…
We’re sorry, said the owner men. The bank, the fifty- thousand-acre owner can’t be responsible. You’re on land that isn’t yours. Once over the line maybe you can pick cot-' ton 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. Why, you can reach out anywhere and pick an orange. Why, there’s always some kind of crop to work in. Why don’t you go there? And the owner men started their cars and rolled away. The tenant men squatted down on their hams again to mark the dust with a stick, to figure, to wonder.…
They need three thousan’, an’ they get six thousan’. They get them men for what they wanta pay. If ya don’ wanta take j what they pay, goddamn it, they’s a thousan’ men waitin’ for your job. So ya pick, an’ ya pick, an’ then she’s done. Whole part a the country’s peaches. All ripe together. When ya get ’em picked, ever’ goddamn one is picked. There ain’t another damn thing in that part a the country to do. An’ then them owners don’ want you there no more. Three thousan’ of you. The work’s done. You might steal, you might get drunk, you might jus’ raise hell. An’ besides, you don’…
More questions about this book
- Describe the journey and initial experiences of the sharecroppers in California as if you were explaining it to someone who has never heard of the book. What specific details are crucial to understanding their plight upon arrival?
- Given Steinbeck's diverse background – from a quiet upbringing in Salinas to working casual jobs like a hod-carrier and day laborer – how might these specific experiences have shaped his perspective and ability to vividly portray the struggles of the sharecroppers in *The Grapes of Wrath*?
- The description mentions the sharecroppers become "strike-breakers" but their "consciences force them to leave." Explain what this internal conflict implies about their values and how it foreshadows the "wrath" suggested by the novel's title.
- The text highlights Steinbeck's early works being met with "public's indifference" before the success of *Tortilla Flat* and *Of Mice and Men*, leading up to *The Grapes of Wrath*. What does this progression reveal about the typical path of an artist, and how might the "Modern Library" marketing strategy have contributed to making such a significant work accessible?