P4+JMartinez

There have always been injustices in the world, both past and present; therefore individuals have found different ways in which to confront them. In order for an individual to confront an injustice, whether the injustice is toward that individual or another, they must first distinguish between right and wrong. One would think that the person who suffers the injustice would be the one to take action toward the injustice but on some occasions an individual who sees the injustice being made is the one to take action. In Steinbeck’s //The Grapes of Wrath// as well as //Homeless// by Anne Quindlen, //On Dumpster Diving// by Lars Eighner and //Civil Disobedience// by Henry Thoreau serve as prove that as individual is subjected to injustices they adapt to the situation and once they distinguish between right a wrong they will then take action.

In //The Grapes of Wrath// the whole story is about the injustices people were subjected to during the Great Depression after many farmers lost there homes because of the dustbowl. Chapter one of the book illustrates that when a tragedy strikes it’s up to the individual to do something about it they can’t sit back and let other people solve their problems they must take action. “After a while the faces of the watching men lost their bemused perplexity and became hard and angry and resistant …Women and children knew deep in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men where whole.” (Steinbeck) Families depended on one another and the man being the head of the family was supposed to be able to decide what actions to make and what would be best for the family. The women and children weren’t expected to do anything but support their husbands and fathers and most farmers were in rage of what was happening to them because they were being kicked of the land they’d grown up in and the land their children were born in and were growing up in. Yet the government played a key role because they weren’t protecting the people as well as they were suppose to. Even though these things happened in the early 1900’s even today there are tragedy’s that can’t be easily fixed; like the problem of homelessness.

During the Great Depression farmers were left homeless and had to find a solution to their dilemma. Their Solution? Go to California and find work. In //Homeless// the topic of the text is homeless people and those less fortunate. In //Homeless,// the essay talks about how the author met a women who redefined the term homeless. Homeless in any dictionary means someone who has no shelter yet to the women, Ann, homeless meant having nowhere to feel secure in because, “Home is where the heart is” (Quindlen). This individual adapted to her situation and took action she found a place were she felt secure and did not let her state of having no real home stop her from feeling secure. During the Great Depression the farmers and there families also had to find a new place were they felt secure and as long as they were with their family they had a home. Once the farm house were vacated the house lost the feeling of being a home because there was no one to call it a home. Chapter eleven of //The Grapes of// //Wrath// is a good example of what happened to the land and the homes once there was no one to live in it. “ The houses were left vacant on the land, and the land was vacant because of this. Only the tractor sheds of corrugated iron, silver and gleaming, were alive; and they were alive with metal and gasoline and oil, the disks of the plow shining.” (Steinbeck). Though the homeless face an injustice in not being helped in where they live, there are other ways people adapted to the situation of being homeless or dirt poor.

In the essay //On Dumpster Diving// the author writes about his own situation with being homeless and having to survive. The author Eighner lives off the waste in dumpsters and is able feed and clothe himself that way. He gives a whole knew perspective on dumpster diving, “I began Dumpster diving about a year before I became homeless…I like the frankness of the word scavenging, which I can hardly think of without picturing a big black snail on an aquarium wall. I live from the refuse of others. I am a scavenger.” (Eighner) to Eighner dumpster diving is an art and to him a way to survive in a cruel world and though he was homeless in a more modern time those who were homeless do to the Great Depression also had it bad. In chapter twelve of //The Grapes of Wrath// Steinbeck gives a clear example of one of the injustices the “oakies” had to face. “We got to get a tire, but, Jesus, they want a lot for a ol’ tire. They look a fella over. They know he got to go on. They know he can’t wait. And the price goes up.” (Steinbeck) during this tome period of the Great Depression these poor farmers were getting ripped off because people knew there was nothing the farmers could do because they were things they needed. Farmers were being ripped off and there was nothing they could do to defend themselves because they weren’t even receiving help from the government that was suppose to protect its people. The government plays a large a role in the live of those who are homeless or are subjected to injustices.

In //Civil Disobedience (Part 1)// it talks about how the government time and time again acts against the will off the people. An example Thoreau gives is the Mexican-American war, “witness the present, Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.” (Thoreau). In many events through history the government doesn’t work with the people but in a sense against the people. In Chapter fourteen and seventeen of //The Grapes of wrath// Steinbeck shows what the government was doing while its people were suffering and having to live on the streets. In chapter fourteen, “And in the night one family camps in a ditch and another family pulls in and the tents come out.” (Steinbeck), when the farmers were put off their land they had to live or sleep were ever they could because they had no choice yet the very government that was suppose to protect them was the on who was hurting them. The different families on the road would come together at night and, “The loss of home became one loss, and the golden time in the west was one dream.” (Steinbeck) , since the government wasn’t helping them they helped themselves, and though for one night they were a small community in the morning they all went their separate ways. “The families, which had been units of which the boundaries were a house at night, a farm by day, changed their boundaries. In the long hot light, they were silent in the cars moving slowly westward; but at night they integrated with any group they found.” (Steinbeck) the family units found ways in which to make home if even for just ashort time, at least for a while it gave them the security they needed. The government was no help to them since they were giving farmers no aid. In the end the farmers adapted to their situation and made the best they could out of it.

Whether and individual is homeless or dirt poor they still must learn to confront the injustice and not just sit back for the ride and see were the ride takes them. They must act or adapt according to the situation but first they must distinguish between what is wrong and what is right. There will always be injustices but it is up to the individuals to decide what is wrong and what is right and act accordingly to the situation. No one can decide what is wrong or what is right because the answer defers for every individual, and for each injustice there is there is a different way an individual will confront it or adapt to it. “There is a man with no mirror, no wall to hang it on. They are not homeless. They are people who have no homes.” (Quindlen)