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  • Essay / Depiction of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl in The Grapes of Wrath

    The Great Depression was the worst economic crisis in world history. It all began after the financial crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a frenzy and wiped out large numbers of investors. In 1933, when the Great Depression reached its lowest point, about 15 million Americans were unemployed and almost a large portion of the nation's banks were bankrupt. To make the situation worse, there was another dramatic event, the Dust Bowl, with severe dust storms affecting the southern region of the United States. As strong breezes and choking residue swept across the region from Texas to Nebraska, people and animals were murdered and crops failed throughout the district. The Dust Bowl intensified the economic impacts of the Great Depression and caused families to migrate desperately in search of work and better living conditions. The Okies, farming families hoping to seek employment in the Southern Plains, moved to California in the 1930s to escape the ruins of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The film, The Grapes of Wrath, opens with Tom Joad, released from prison and returning home to his ranch in Oklahoma. Tom finally finds Jim Casy, his former pastor. Casey was Tom's family preacher and was the one who baptized Tom. Finally, Jim felt it was time to change and lost a little of himself, he felt lost especially his confidence. Tom and Casey go to Tom's house and find it empty. There, they meet Muley Graves. Miley explains how farmers around the world are being forced out by bigger companies. Soon the entire Joad family, twelve people and Casy, decide that the best option now is to go to California. They keep all their belongings in a small truck and head towards Highway 66. The whole trip is intimidating and tedious. Over time, negative events begin to take shape, the first being Grandfather's death. The family can't afford or even organize a proper funeral, so they just buried him with a piece of paper, talking about his death, so people wouldn't consider it murder. Shortly after, they lost grandmother and children Noah and Connie. Eventually, the family arrives at the migrant workers' first workplace and finds the camp filled with other hungry, jobless, and frantic travelers. Conflicts begin and the Joads advance towards another camp, Keene Ranch. Soon, Tom and Cast decide to go explore a nearby shore. A guard ends up killing Cast and Tom ends up killing the guard. The family decides it's time to leave and comes up with a clever plan to get Tom out. A few hours later, they hide Tom under the cushions of the truck, while the guards come to ask the family questions. Tom avoids capture and the family leaves safely. Unfortunately, the engine breaks down and the family finds themselves stopped at the top of a hill. With little fuel, they decide to head towards the nearest fires. After a few hours, the engine started to fail and the car started to run out of gas. The family decided to stop at a third camp, which had toilets and showers. After all the events Tom has witnessed, he decides to work for change. Casy's death will not be in vain and he will continue the fight for social justice. He leaves the family and the film ends with Ma Joad discussing thefamily situation. The Grapes of Wrath is a bestselling work of fiction that aims to give a voice to thousands of people, the Joads. Despite the fact that the film accurately depicts certain historical scenes, there are significant differences between the film and the story that affect the value of the film. These inaccuracies include the description of the future of the Okie, of the Joads as a whole, of what the okies experienced at the time they were evicted from their farms, throughout their life-long adventure to the west and how they were perceived and reacted to their current situation. The film The Grapes of Wrath inaccurately portrays the Okie families through the Joads and other children. In the film, we meet the members of the Joad family, twelve people from Oklahoma. This is very misleading because the typical Dust Bowl Okie family had approximately 2.8 children with an average life expectancy of thirty years. A good part of the film has us meeting grandfather and grandmother. Grandfather and grandmother Joad are well over thirty years old. In the early stages of the film, both are depicted as weak and sometimes unable to move without assistance. Mom and Dad are both younger, but then again, well into their thirties. These characters were used to appeal to the pity of the public, who see elderly people unable to live peacefully during their retirement. Interestingly enough, when the family arrives at their first camp, they see many starving families and children. There were a lot of scenes where it emphasized the situation. However, only migrant children and starving families have rejected help from the Farm Security Administration (FSA). These families and children clearly fell under the purview of the FSA. These inaccuracies are quite significant because they change the number of characters that should be in the film as well as the current situation of the other characters. Even though this inaccuracy is quite significant, I don't think it greatly diminishes the value of the film because Joad's number does not play a significant role in the film, the grandparents even die early in the film and the family is overshadowed by the rest of the plot. The FSA situation does not diminish the fact that families and children around the world continue to die of hunger. Another inaccuracy is the film's depiction of government and corporations. In The Grapes of Wrath, the government and corporations are depicted as working together to eliminate farmers' wages. Oddly enough, none of these companies were capable of committing such acts. In fact, it was the Okies who determined each worker's income. The FSA provided camps for workers, and the government worked to help the Okies find jobs on farms. Ultimately, this gave Okies the chance to start his own harvest. These jobs would have allowed the Okies to grow their own crops while earning good wages, but in the film the Joad family is clearly shown hopping from camp to camp due to the poor quality of the camps. This inaccuracy is very significant. Throughout the film, the audience instantly labels corporations as the culprits in all of this. Fifteen minutes into the film, we see fellow Okie demolishing his peers' homes. He did it because he is paid well and this angered the Joads even more. When he was threatened with a gun, he simply said, "You won't do it, and if you do, there will be fifteen others like me who will take my place." » The entire film features other families, who are also forced to leave their camps by the government and corporations. That/1_70_9_111. ’