Joe, did you know you was talkin’ to pikers?
I ain’t a piker. I got to get a car. We’re goin’ to California. I got to get a car.
Well, I’m a sucker. Joe says I’m a sucker. Says if I don’t quit givin’ my shirt away I’ll starve to death.
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 7. There are many important themes in play here: the American Dream, California, money and starvation. Steinbeck also makes great use of irony. The used car lot owner is having a go at one of his customers, labeling him stingy and tight-fisted – a piker! He is trying hard to manipulate him into buying one of his defective, over-priced used cars. The customer wants to get to California which he believes to be an earthly paradise – the American Dream! The salesman engages in a bit of oversell, saying that he is a sucker who is loving his shirt. The irony is that it is the customers he is trying to sucker and steal their shirts.