When Does the Story Take Place?

The Grapes of Wrath

Time Period and Socio-Economical reality

Introduction

As we know, the famous award-winning novel "The Grapes of Wrath" was written in the thirties and released at the very end of that same decade, in 1939. However, this period of time is known as one of the darkest in modern society's history. Indeed, during those few years, the world was struck with one of the most important events of the twentieth century, today known as the Great Depression, which has been a very rough bit in the human race's history. Furthermore, the United-States of America also had to witness a series of natural catastrophes, mostly dust, and sand storms, taking place within itself. This natural problem, named "The Dust Bowl", combined with the many struggles caused by the "sick" and "poor" economy had its share of negative impacts on people who had to live through it. To fully understand the novel and the characters' motives, it is crucial to take an in-depth look at those two catastrophic events and understand them. Over the next few lines, the focus will be on what happened in the United-States, since it is the country in which the novel's story takes place.

The Great Depression

Description

As mentioned earlier, The Great Depression is an economical crisis that took place at the very beginning of a new decade, the thirties. It is one of the most significant and devastative events to ever happen in the industrialized world's history. It lasted a whole ten years, from 1929 to 1939, which is a huge lapse of time for an economic downturn.

Causes

During the twenties, the economy was at its peak. Many people, both rich and poor, decided to invest their savings in stocks. A stock is a status of ownership of a fraction of a company acquired by spending a certain amount of money. After buying a stock, owners get awarded a small proportion of the company's assets and profits. Stocks can be bought and sold on what we call the stock market, which was in New-York at the time. Those many investments lead to a rapid expansion of the stock market, which reached its peak in August 1929. However, at the time, production was dropping and unemployment was rising, which led to a huge increase in stocks price, who became way more expensive than they originally were. It is also important to know that at the time, wages were very low and a lot of people did not correctly spend and invest their money. The agricultural sector was also going through a struggle due to food production droughts (notably caused by the Dust Bowl), and since it played an important role in the economy, it was alarming. All those factors led to a recession in the 1929 summer, and then a ripple effect was seen. Indeed, consumers began to spend less, due to the growing stock prices, which led to an accumulation of unsold goods, which eventually led to a slower production, which inevitably led to a production decrease, which ended up leading to an even bigger increase of stocks prices. Investors desperately tried to sell their overpriced stocks but weren't able to, and on October 29th, 1929, a day which is also known as the "Black Thursday", millions of shares (units of stocks) were traded and ended up becoming worthless, which lead to huge losses of money because investors had to sell their stocks for insanely low prices after buying them for insanely high prices. This event is known as the New York Stock Market Crash, and it is considered as being the starting point of the Great Depression.

Another factor that led to the Great Depression is because banks were handing a lot of loans. At the time, a lot of people were using loans to buy pretty much anything. Using a loan means buying something on credit. In other words, a loan is when a bank hands a certain amount of money to people provided that they pay the same amount of money back along with interests, which are a fee applied when someone borrows money. However, people usually bought on credit because they didn't have enough money to buy a product. For example, farmers usually used loans to purchase farming equipment and fields to cultivate, thinking that these purchases would help them earn enough money to pay their difference. However, it frequently wasn't the case, and at one point, people borrowed so much that they became indebted because they did not have the required amount of money to pay their increasing different, and its interests, back. At this point, banks were in a little trouble because they had handed way too much and had not been paid back, which eventually led them to lose a lot of money and, in some cases, to be suspended. This lead to millions of people losing their deposited savings and even forced some countries to declare bankruptcy. This, combined with the stock market crash, is what created what is today known as the Great Depression.

Consequences

The first big consequence of the Great Depression is unemployment. Indeed, the production decreases in factories and agriculture lead to many people getting fired because owners didn't have enough money to pay all their employees at the minimum wage, which was already really low at the time. Indeed, the crisis led to one out of four Americans losing its job, which represents almost 31 million people. 

Another consequence that resulted from this economic catastrophe is poverty. Indeed, a lot of people lost money and proprieties throughout this period of time. As mentioned earlier, most people lost all their investments and their savings, and this combined with unemployment inevitably led to extreme poverty. The production drop also forced many institutions to declare bankruptcy. The economy took a huge hit, and it would take a whole decade to recover from it, at least for the United-States of America.

The Dust Bowl

Description

The Dust Bowl is a series of sand storms and dust storms that struck the United-States at the beginning of the thirties and that lead to a huge decline of the agricultural economy. Indeed, the farming industry was the biggest victim of this catastrophe, as storms covered lands with dust, making them infertile. At the time, farmers were using expensive machinery to farm, which led to huge production growth, which eventually led to food prices increasing. However, after the Great Depression began in 1929, people couldn't buy expensive food anymore, as most people were now either poor and unemployed or had lost a lot of money. This led to a reduction of food prices, and because of that, farmers were now struggling to make money, as their crops were now sold for less than their production cost. To remedy this situation, farmers had to extend their farming lands trying to produce more to make more money. However, the storms eventually struck, which lead to all fertile land getting covered by dust and becoming unusable. All those events generated huge financial losses for farmers, who eventually had to sell their farms and everything they possessed to make money.

Consequences

The first consequence of the Dust Bowl is the enormous migration movement that took place after it. This event is the one which is the most covered in the book, as we follow the story of a migrating family, who had to sell their farm located in Oklahoma to go to California in the hopes of finding jobs. Indeed, with their farms now unproductive, farmers could not cultivate anymore, so to earn money, they had to move. To do so, many of them had to sell a part of their belongings to buy a car so they could leave. Farmers left with the idea their life conditions would get better once they would arrive at their final destination. Little did they know, it would actually get worse from there.

Finally, the Dust Bowl also lead to more human issues, such as discrimination. Indeed, poor migrants were frequently considered as being inferior by wealthier people. For example, the ones who came from Oklahoma were often called "Okies", a pejorative nickname, by the California locals. They also had to live through mediocre life conditions, as they got hired to work under horrible conditions and with a salary well below the minimum wage. Indeed, their superiors often took advantage of their desperate financial needs to abuse them. They also had to settle in a very unhealthy life entourage, as they had to live in slums. This is the side of the crisis readers get to experience in the novel, as the Joads desperately try to go to California in the hopes of better living conditions, only to eventually realize it would not get better but only get worse, as they were subjected to both discrimination and poverty, this added to the fact they lost many of their loved ones through the trip to California.

Conclusion

To conclude, the thirties were "destructive" years for many people. The economy had a very rough time, mostly in the agriculture field. Unemployment increased and people lost a lot of money and many of their belongings. Poverty and discrimination were also unfortunately omnipresent. The Dust Bowl and The Great depression were both important events in recent history, and they must not be forgotten.