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| 1894 |
Perhaps the highest praise an author can receive, John Steinbeck’s depiction of the harsh working conditions in Depression-era California was so brutal that it was banned in the county the Joad family moves to, despite historians confirming that Steinbeck’s portrayal was true-to-life. Local officials in Kern County convinced workers to burn the book in a number of photo opportunities, ironically further enforcing the manipulation experienced by migrant workers in the area that Steinbeck portrays so blisteringly well in The Grapes of Wrath.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our successes. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And the children dying of hunger, must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificates - "died of malnutrition" - because the food must rot if not sold at a profit.
...and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy - growing heavy for the vintage.
The soliloquy:
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