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Imogen Goode

‘Poverty and the struggle to make a living are common themes in American literature.’ Compare the handling of these themes in the grapes of wrath with at least one other text prescribed for the topic. Poverty and the struggle to make a living both appear in ‘Grapes of Wrath’ by John Steinbeck and ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald, although these themes are handled differently in the texts. In the novel ‘Grapes of Wrath’ John Steinbeck presents absolute poverty in an extreme poverty, in a way which the Joad family is unable to afford basic living necessities such as bread or a dinner meal ‘Maybe I can’t get no meat, but they want meat.’, the Joads have to buy only what they can afford with no disposable income, only being the bare minimum. Consequently, this encourages the frequent deaths throughout the novel, such as Grandma and Grandpa in their family. In addition to survive they have to sell all their belongings in order to have enough money to travel ‘You’re not buying only junk, you’re buying junked lives.’, this is implying that selling all of their belongings is also like selling a part of their self and their life. The family are in such desperate search in order to have a normal quality of life. Although, in ‘The Great Gatsby’ F. Scott Fitzgerald presents Gatsby as, in fact, flaunting his extreme wealth undeniably, yet there is a similarity in both the two novels that wealth and poverty are seen as being presented next to each other, in order to emphasise the level of poverty compared to extreme wealth. John Steinbeck shows oxymoron between the bank and the struggles of the citizens ‘The fields were fruitful, and starving men moved on the roads.’, this is a direct contrast between the bank owning fields food full of food, while families driving past are starving and even some dying due to famine. The tariff act of 1930 was signed by US President Herbert Hoover, this meant duties (taxes) were placed on over 20,000 imported goods. Its political intent was to preserve American jobs, particularly in the agricultural sector, by discouraging foreign imports. Ironically, this meant that America had plenty of food, yet it wasn’t going to many American citizens, it was being exported to make money, while thousands of Americans were starving. This is similar to ‘The Great Gatsby’ in that the struggling members of society in the novel lived in ‘the Valley of Ashes’. The valley is described as ‘a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens’, the area is supposed to represent how the valley is created through industrial dumping and so a by-product of capitalism, similar to ‘Grapes of Wrath’ in that migrant families are poor as a result of banks taking over. The narrator, Nick, just drives his readers through the issue of poverty as he drives us through the Valley of Ashes, not making the issue apparent. There is also a clear contrast between Nick and Gatsby, with their houses symbolising their wealth and power ‘squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season.’, even though Nick is not poor like the Joad family, there is still an element f poverty between Nick and Gatsby, living in such a grand environment, Nick was definitely the lower class of all the citizens. Critic P.J Palmer explains ‘Grapes of

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Wrath’ as ‘The book is a story of survival and resilience.’, the book’s main objective being to present the realistic stories like the Joad family’s journey through the Dust Bowl, which is the exact opposite to ‘The Great Gatsby’. In both John Steinbeck’s and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels there is a contrast in decade era, F. Scott Fitzgerald writing for the ‘roaring twenties’ and John Steinbeck writing for the ‘dirty thirties’. ‘The Great Gatsby’ is in the pregreat depression era, while ‘Grapes of Wrath’ is in the post-great depression era. The great depression (1929-1939) was the most long lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialised world. It soon started in the United States after the stock market crash of 1929, which wiped out millions of investors in Wall Street, this followed with investment dropping, steep declines in industrial employment sectors and the loss of many workers. By 1933, up to fifteen million Americans were unemployed. ‘Grapes of Wrath’ is a clear result of this financial crisis, the impacts being the struggle of living due to vast unemployment. Families has no money left and no farmland so the only alternative was to flee to other states in hope to pursue a normal life, ‘we got no clothes, torn an’ ragged’, reminders through the novel informs the reader of the simple things that travelling families lacked. Alternatively, there is a significant difference to ‘The Great Gatsby’ where the description of their clothes was somewhat different ‘shirts with stripes, and scrolls, and plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender’, the bright colours clearly reflects their ability to afford practically anything they wish. The ban of sale and consumption of alcohol mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1919) made ‘bootleggers’ millionaires, the novel refers to ‘stacked gins and liquors’ of Gatsby’s, the volume of alcohol described by the writer is a contrast to ‘Grapes of Wrath’ where many of the male characters converse about wanting a drink, and only being able to have one when they have the money, an alcoholic drink for the Joad’s family is rare where as Gatsby has them regularly throughout the week. Additionally, both of the novels follow the idea of the ‘American dream’, yet their idea of the ‘dream’ is different in both novels ‘Grapes of Wrath’ and ‘The Great Gatsby’. Gatsby is thought to be the perfect idea of the ‘American dream’ who portrayed himself as a highly educated, although secretly he lived through a poor childhood which all his wealth could never erase ‘his parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people, his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all.’, Gatsby is very untrue to himself through the novel and keeps his past as a secret, having experienced poverty himself, he only reveals the past to Nick, a very close friend, more towards the end of the novel. In comparison, Steinbeck presents poverty in his novel dominantly and abruptly, he even uses numerous small chapters dedicated just to describe events or description and society in order to illustrate poverty. The journey to the American dream is constant in the novel, simply being a job and possibly owning a house, and to stay alive ‘jus’ let me get out to California where I can pick me an orange when I want it’. The dust bowl if Oklahoma created

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this American dream due to the extreme measures it put through thousands of families. The dust bowl was a period of drought which brought dust clouds which covered the land, suffocating livestock and impending visibility. There were around two and a half million migrants from plain states, which by 1934 had turned into a desert. Overused land resulted in dust storms, the catastrophe lasted 10 years, this made the Joads family’s ‘dream’ to be simple necessities which were seen as luxuries to them. Migrants were also labelled the derogatory name ‘Okies’ during the Dust Bowl period, this came about due to the migrants frightening citizens in the sense that they were desperate for any work and would work for absurdly low pay, however this resulted in migrants becoming a minority. While, Gatsby’s dream is much more extravagant, ‘It took me just three years to earn the money that bought it’, this shows his aspirations and reasons for earning money are to inherit fortune, success, mansions, excessively expensive cars, etc. Furthermore, communism was a debatable accusation when ‘Grapes of Wrath was published, Steinbeck received death threats and FBI put him under surveillance too. The Association Farmers of California dismissed the novel as a ‘pack of lies’ and ‘communist propaganda’. The Soviet Union argued that even the most struggling of people could afford a car. In attempt to remove the accusations, Viking Press printed words from ‘Battle Hymn’ on the book’s end papers, however this was unsuccessful. It could be argued that the idea of communism was implied in the novel due to the vast amount of poverty prevented and hatred towards the bank and their decisions made in the dust bowl period, Steinbeck refers to the bank as a ‘monster’, yet Steinbeck’s intentions of the novel was to inform the readers of the effects of the drought on families, not necessarily addressing the banks more. Alternatively, ‘The Great Gatsby’ could been seen as a more capitalist novel, due to the extremely wealthy, such as Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby, description of food ‘glistening hors d’oeuvre’ clearly indicates their wealth, and the struggling families such as Myrtle and Wilson who live in the ‘Valley of Ashes’. Also, there is Gatsby’s death, the wealthy man is killed by a poorer man, this is the opposite of a more communist novel like ‘Grapes of Wrath’ where family is killed due to famine, which is mainly down to the banks and their restriction on American food. In conclusion, poverty and struggle to make a living is extremely relevant throughout ‘Grapes of Wrath’ and appears less obviously in ‘The Great Gatsby’....