The Grapes of Wrath Inhumanity and Dehumanization Quotes

Get ’em under obligation. Make ’em take up your time. Don’t let ’em forget they’re takin’ your time. People are nice, mostly. They hate to put you out. Make ’em put you out, an’ then sock it to ’em.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 7. The used car dealer uses dishonest and manipulative tactics to land a sale. Speaking to a salesmen, he suggests that he take advantage of people’s "niceness" to make them feel obliged to buy. He is dehumanized by the way he acts and speaks, using clipped sentences and staccato speech. A corrupt product of the ruthless capitalist system, he is bent on turning a profit at all costs.

Lookin’ for a car? What did you have in mind? See anything attracts you? I’m dry. How about a little snort of good stuff? Come on, while your wife’s lookin’ at that La Salle. You don’t want no La Salle. Bearings shot. Uses to much oil. Got a Lincoln ’24. There’s a car. Run forever. Make her into a truck.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 7. Steinbeck uses the power of language to paint a picture of a dehumanized car salesman. The endless monologue, the fast talking, use of clipped language, short and to the point descriptive sentences, all add up to a efficient dealer with an insatiable desire to sell used cars.

Guarantee? We guaranteed it to be an automobile. We didn’t guarantee to wet-nurse it. Now listen here, you – you bought a car, an’ now you’re squawkin’. I don’t give a damn if you don’t make payments. We ain’t got your paper. We turn that over to the finance company. They’ll get cops after you, not us. We don’t hold no paper. Yeah? Well you jus’ get tough an’ I’ll call a cop.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 7. The jalopy salesman shows no sympathy for a customer who bought a car which broke down. He cynically tells him that the only guarantee he got is that it is a car. Ironically he threatens to call the law on him, when in fact he is the one selling dodgy cars, which is not quite playing by the rules.

You’re not buying only junk, you’re buying junked lives. And more – you’ll see – you’re buying bitterness. Buying a plow to plow your own children under, buying the arms and spirits that might have saved you. Five dollars, not four. I can’t haul them back – Well, take ’em for four. But I warn you, you’re buying what will plow your own children under…You’re buying a little girl plaiting the forelocks, taking off her hair ribbon to make bows, standing back, head cocked, rubbing the soft noses with her cheek. You’re buying years of work, toil in the sun; you’re buying a sorrow that can’t talk. But watch it, mister. There’s a premium goes with this pile of junk and the bay horses – so beautiful – a packet of bitterness to grow in your house and to flower, some day. We could have saved you, but you cut us down, and soon you will be cut down and there’ll be none of us to save you.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 9. This expresses the bitterness of tenant farmers forced to sell their farm tools and belongings, and what they believe will happen to the people who purchase them. They tell profiteering junk dealers who take advantage of their need by paying the least money possible, that they are buying the bitterness of people’s ruined lives. Bitterness is used here as a metaphor. Steinbeck also personifies the tools and belongings the dispossessed farmers are forced to sell. The loss of dignity they experience comes across strongly in this chapter and passage.

That man who is more than his chemistry, walking on the earth, turning his plow point for a stone, dropping his handles to slide over an outcropping, kneeling in the earth to eat his lunch; that man who is more than his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis. But the machine man, driving a dead tractor on land he does not know and love, understands only chemistry; and he is contemptuous of the land and of himself.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 11. Steinbeck believes that the introduction of tractors and machines to the farms in Oklahoma has dehumanized farming. He refers to the "machine man" who drives a "dead tractor" and has no love for or connection to the land he works. He praises the farmers that they have replaced, men close to the land, who walk and kneel on the earth, and guide the plow with their hands.

Listen to the motor. Listen to the wheels. Listen with your ears and with your hands on the steering wheel; listen with the palm of your hand on the gear-shift lever; listen with your feet on the floor boards. Listen to the pounding old jalopy with all your senses, for a change of tone, a variation of rhythm may mean – a week here?

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 12. Steinbeck pitches us right into the story by speaking directly to the reader and using rhythmic repetition of the word "listen." The monotony of the migrants’ long and tiring motor trip west is conveyed. We feel that we are with the Joads and the thousands of other migrant families who have spent their savings buying a used car. The desperation of the migrants and dehumanizing effect of the long journey also comes across.

"Ever see one a them Gila monsters take hold, mister? Grabs hold, an’ you chop him in two an’ his head hangs on. Chop him at the neck an’ his head hangs on. Got to take a screw-driver an’ pry his head apart to git him loose. An’ while he’s layin’ there, poison is drippin’ an’ drippin’ into the hole he’s made with his teeth."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 13. Figurative language is used to describe what is happening in the country during the migration to California at the time of the Great Depression. Jim Casy uses a metaphor to compare the inhumanity of the banks and big companies in destroying people’s homes and lives to a relentless Gila monster. Even if you cut his head off it still hangs on, dripping its poison. The only way to defeat the system is to destroy its head, like using the screwdriver to pry the Gila monster’s head apart.

The big car slowed for a moment and faces looked back, and then it gathered greater speed and disappeared. And the dog, a blot of blood and tangled, burst intestines, kicked slowly in the road.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 13. When the Joads stop to refuel their truck, their dog is struck and killed by a passing car. The large car slows down momentarily and then speeds off, its occupants showing no concern for the harm done. The incident is foreshadowing of the difficulties the Joads will face on their journey west.

"Thirty days is all right," Tom said. "An’ a hunderd an’ eighty days is all right. But over a year – I dunno. There’s somepin about it that ain’t like nothin’ else in the worl’. Somepin screwy about it, somepin screwy about the whole idea a lockin’ people up. Oh, the hell with it! I don’ wanna talk about it. Look a the sun a-flashin’ on them windas."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 16. Tom Joad is talking to his brother Al about his time in jail. He questions the inhumanity of locking a person up for a long time.

"It don’t make no sense. This fella wants eight hundred men. So he prints up five thousand of them things an’ maybe twenty thousan’ people sees ’em. An’ maybe two-three thousan’ folks gets movin’ account a this here han’bill. Folks that’s crazy with worry…The more fellas he can get, an’ the hungrier, less he’s gonna pay."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 16. A ragged man coming back from California provides the first evidence that California may not be the promised land migrant families like the Joads hope for. He explains to Pa Joad that the handbills promising work in California are designed to attract too many workers, so that employers can exploit those who show up and pay them as little as possible. Steinbeck is hitting at the corrupt system whereby greedy employers can take advantage of workers’ starvation to add to their own wealth.

"Well, you and me got sense. Them goddamn Okies got no sense and no feeling. They ain’t human. A human being wouldn’t live like they do. A human being couldn’t stand it to be so dirty and miserable. They ain’t a hell of a lot better than gorillas."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 18. One of the workers at a service station makes these derogatory comments about the Joads. He dehumanizes and compares them to animals because they are about to cross the desert in an old worn-out jalopy. However, they are not doing this out of choice but desperation, after their homes and livlihoods were taken from them. This prejudicial view of migrant workers is all too prevelant during the Joad family’s odyssey to California to find a better life.

Crops were reckoned in dollars, and land was valued by principal plus interest, and crops were bought and sold before they were planted. Then crop failure, drought, and flood were no longer little deaths within life, but simple losses of money. And all their love was thinned with money, and all their fierceness dribbled away in interest until they were no longer farmers at all, but little shopkeepers of crops, little manufacturers who must sell before they can make. Then those farmers who were not good shopkeepers lost their land to good shopkeepers. No matter how clever, how loving a man might be with earth and growing things, he could not survive if he were not also a good shopkeeper. And as time went on, the business men had the farms, and the farms grew larger, but there were fewer of them.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 19. Between the narrative story chapters are sandwiched Steinbeck’s brilliant analysis and commentary on America’s merciless agricultural economic system. In this chapter he speaks on how the love of the mighty dollar fuelled the growth of corporate farming and agribusiness. As a result the farms became bigger, and the small farm as a way of life disappeared. With his journalistic background, Steinbeck had the courage to confront what he saw as the greed and inhumanity of large-scale corporate farming in wiping out the family farm.

Now farming became industry, and the owners followed Rome, although they did not know it. They imported slaves, although they did not call them slaves: Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Filipinos. They live on rice and beans, the business men said. They don’t need much. They wouldn’t know what to do with good wages. Why, look how they live. Why, look what they eat. And if they get funny, report them.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 19. Steinbeck puts class discrimination on trial in this chapter of the novel. He speaks of how modern industrialized farming has copied the methods of the ancient Romans, and built empires on the backs of slaves. Foreign workers are dehumanized by the big landowners – "look how they live." This is so that they can justify paying them slave wages.

And all the time the farms grew larger and the owners fewer. And there were pitifully few farmers on the land any more. And the imported serfs were beaten and frightened and starved until some went home again, and some grew fierce and were killed or driven from the country. And the farms grew larger and the owners fewer.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 19. Steinbeck laments the demise of the family farm, as farmers turn to a more capitalistic model of farming. This change leads to bigger farms, fewer farmers, and imported foreign workers being starved and treated as little better than slaves.

And then one day a deputy sheriff: Well, what you think you’re doin’?
I ain’t doin’ no harm.
I had my eye on you. This ain’t your land. You’re trespassing.
The land ain’t plowed, an’ I ain’t hurtin’ it none.
You goddamned squatters. Pretty soon you’d think you owned it. You’d be sore as hell. Think you owned it. Get off now.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 19. This dialogue depicts the conflict between a migrant farmer and a deputy sheriff, a conflict that occurs throughout the novel. It foreshadows events to come within the story. Like when the Joads learn in Chapter 20 about the harsh tactics of the police from Floyd Knowles. Later in Chapter 22 the Joads move to a government camp where migrants rule themselves and are able to avoid the abuse of corrupt police officers. In the quote above one line from the migrant-hating policeman, "This ain’t your land," is reminiscent of a title from the Woody Guthrie songbook. Except that it carries a polar opposite message. Woody Guthrie wrote his famous folk song and anthem for inclusion, "This Land Is Your Land," in 1940. Steinbeck’s classic novel about social exclusion came out a year earlier in 1939.

The cop was right. A crop raised – why, that makes ownership. Land howed and carrots eaten – a man might fight for land he’s taken food from. Get him off quick! He’ll think he owns it. He might even die fighting for the little plot among the Jimson weeds.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 19. When the homeless migrants come to the West, they try to create gardens in small strips of unused land. But they are chased away by police who don’t want them to establish squatters’ rights. Some of the worst inhumanity and prejudice against the migrants is shown by police.

And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 19. This is one of the great passages in the novel, where Steinbeck sounds a timeless warning about the destructiveness of complacent and unbridled capitalism. He suggests that the great landowners are blind to the lessons of history. With too much land owned by too few, the resulting dispossessions and inhumanity will inevitably lead to revolution. Cold and hungry people left without dignity and honor will take what they need by force and the owners will lose their land, he warns.

The great owners ignored the three cries of history. The land fell into fewer hands, the number of the dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression. The money was spent for arms, for gas to protect the great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmuring of revolt so that it might be stamped out. The changing economy was ignored, plans for the change ignored; and only means to destroy revolt were considered, while the causes of revolt went on.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 19. Steinbeck is merciless in his criticism of the great owners for their unchecked greed in acquiring more and more land and dispossessing people. Instead of tackling the causes of the people’s revolt, they spent large sums of money stamping it out with guns, gas and spies. They shut their ears to the cries of history.

"S’pose you got a job a work, an’ there’s jus’ one fella wants the job. You got to pay ‘im what he asts. But s’pose they’s a hunderd men…S’pose they’s a hunderd men wants that job. S’pose them men got kids, an’ them kids is hungry. S’pose a lousy dime’ll buy a box a mush for them kids. S’pose a nickel’ll buy at – leas’ somepin for them kids. An’ you got a hunderd men. Jus’ offer ’em a nickel – why, they’ll kill each other fightin’ for that nickel."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 20. Floyd Knowles explains the corrupt and inhuman system employed by exploitative California landowners to recruit workers and pay them low wages. He tells Tom why they print so many handbills advertising for labor. The promise of so many jobs is a deception to attract a surplus of laborers and pay them as little as possible. If a hundred turn up for a job, you can offer them a nickel and they’ll kill each other for the chance to earn it to feed hungry children.

"They’ll pick you right off. You got no name, no property. They’ll find you in a ditch, with the blood dried on your mouth an’ your nose. Be one little line in the paper – know what it’ll say? ‘Vagrant foun’ dead.’ An’ that’s all. You’ll see a lot of them little lines, ‘Vagrant foun’ dead.’"

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 20. When Tom Joad suggests that the Joads are "no sheep" and would fight the injustice of the law, Floyd Knowles warns that that would simply get you killed. Corrupt police would pick you off because migrants have no rights and you would be found in a ditch.

"Well, when the cops come in, an’ they come in all a time, that’s how you want ta be. Dumb – don’t know nothin’. Don’ understan’ nothin’. That’s how the cops like us. Don’t hit no cops. That’s jus’ suicide. Be bull-simple."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 20. Tom learns more about the prejudices migrant workers face in a system weighed against them. Floyd Knowles offers advice to him on how to deal with cops who come into the Hooverville camp. You have to sacrifice your dignity and act stupid and less than human because that’s how cops see migrants. Also don’t fight the cops, Floyd advises.

"He’ll get five thousan’ there, an’ he’ll pay fifteen cents an hour. An’ you poor bastards’ll have to take it ’cause you’ll be hungry."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 20. Floyd Knowles has a go at an exploitative fruit farm contractor who wants to hire workers from the migrant camp. The contractor won’t say exactly what the pay is, except "’Bout thirty cents, I guess." But Floyd warns the other migrants that when they arrive at the farm they’ll find the pay is 15 cents, and will accept it because they are hungry.

"If it was the law they was workin’ with, why, we could take it. But it ain’t the law. They’re a-workin’ away at our spirits. They’re a-tryin’ to make us cringe an’ crawl like a whipped bitch. They tryin’ to break us. Why, Jesus Christ, Ma, they comes a time when the on’y way a fella can keep his decency is by takin’ a sock at a cop. They’re workin’ on our decency."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 20. Tom Joad explains to his mother why he is so angry with the police deputies, as she attempts to restrain him. He is bitter about the way they mistreat and humiliate migrants, stamping on their dignity. He wants to fight back and take "a sock" at them.

In the West there was panic when the migrants multiplied on the highways. Men of property were terrified for their property. Men who had never been hungry saw the eyes of the hungry. Men who had never wanted anything very much saw the flare of want in the eyes of the migrants. And the men of the towns and of the soft suburban country gathered to defend themselves; and they reassured themselves that they were good and the invaders bad, as a man must do before he fights. They said, These goddamned Okies are dirty and ignorant. They’re degenerate, sexual maniacs. Those goddamned Okies are thieves. They’ll steal anything. They’ve got no sense of property rights.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 21. The mass exodus of hungry migrants from Oklahoma into California puts Californians in fear for themselves, their property and their own jobs. This fear triggers a deep hostility and prejudice towards the "Okies," who not welcome and seen as subhuman by the residents of the Golden State.
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