the jobs of the actual farm families. Work is what the driver of the tractor had to do when he comes to remove the Joads from the land in Chapter Five. He was working for the bank and to him work was simply following orders that were given by a faceless corporation. The tractor and it’s worker are described as a monster, when in fact it is not the machine that is the monster, but the job that it is actually doing that is monstrous. In Chapter Fourteen the phrase “results and not causes” is repeated numerous times to try to explain the rationalization that was being made about what had happened on almost all of the farms in Oklahoma. The cause was not the fact that these people were bad workers, but the fact that there was a natural disaster. However, the fact that the machine was quickly becoming the tool of choice would have eventually uprooted many farmers who might have stayed had there not been a dust bowl. Work is a very noble task that all of the characters in the book know a lot about. Pa Joad and John who know what it is like to cultivate the land and produce food for the family. Ma Joad, who has worked hard at rearing children and bringing them up as best as she can, knows what work is. Tom understands what work is based on his experience in prison and growing up on the farm. Even Jim Casey knows what work is. He worked as servant of God for much of his life. When we meet him in the book however, he is redefining what his God wants from him as a servant. Even the tractor drivers know what it is to work. The tractor drivers are not doing a “good” thing in relation to the characters in the book, but the fact that they are working is honorable. Steinbeck always has them say something to the affect of “It’s my job,” and “If I don’t do it, somebody else will.” Jobs are forever changing and I think Steinbeck captures a period of change where change is ...
