Selfish Reasons to Help Others

Abstract: This is the first installment of several literary commentaries I've written on Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. It explores the long-term consequences of refusing to help others when they need it most. The conclusion is reached that even from a self-centered point of view, it is in one's best interests to help others (for whatever that's worth).

Written: April 19th, 2015.

Pages: 86-87.

Bitterness infects everything: people, places, things, and land itself. In his novel, The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck suggests that when one cheats another, he cuts himself off from community and the aid and security that comes with it. In its place, he inherits only bitterness. Steinbeck uses diction to craft this message.

The diction of the work, with its terse matter-of-factness, encapsulates the very bitterness infecting the migrant farmer. For example, the farmer must “bring” (Steinbeck 86) everything he owns out from storage, “[p]ile” (86) it all up into a despicable heap, “[l]oad” (86) it into the wagon, “[t]ake” (86) it all away and off into town, and finally, “[s]ell” it for a fraction of its value because that is all one can get. First, the speed of progression here is breath taking. One moment, life is business as usual. The next, every thing is gone. Second, these terse words convey the bitterness that springs from having to sell one’s life and work for almost nothing of the value it truly holds. Moreover, the various descriptions of the farmer’s possessions reinforce feelings of bitterness. It is (i) nothing but a pile of “junk” (86), (ii) a family’s “toil in the sun” (87), a meaningless, aimless toil, (iii) a “sorrow” that cannot speak of its sorrow (87), and finally, (iv) all of it is “a packet of bitterness” (87). The bitterness of the farmer is transferred from him to his possessions. Further, the farmer issues a “warn[ing]” (87) to the one who buys his livelihood. The warning is this: though it may seem like no ill may befall you now, what you are buying will “plow your own children under[neath]” (87) it. The forces that made the farmer sell everything for a few dollars will not discriminate between buyer and seller: the buyer, too, will soon be forced to give up everything. He “won’t see it coming” (87), but it will come nonetheless. Furthermore, the reason this prediction is so damning is because the buyer will have no one to turn to when the tractors come to take his own livelihood. After all, the only people who could help him are the ones he “cut…down” (87). The result of all this is that the one who takes the farmer’s things for a tiny fraction of their value is only hurting himself.

To conclude, diction conveys the message that steeling from others isolates the thief, so that when his own time comes and everything is taken away from him, he will have nothing and no one to turn to. Instead, he will be alone. This realization has an important implication. Though we might be tempted to steel from others when they cannot stop us, the universe is so structured that such a sin will come back to us in the end. This is not a statement of karma. Rather, it is the simple fact that hurting others who need our help results in their refusal to help us when we need them. So even if we take an egotistical perspective on life, we still ought to help those who need it, lest we one day find ourselves staring down a tractor as it plows away our life.