What Does The Grapes Of Wrath Say About Results, Not Causes Essay, Research Paper

As people get upset with something, they need to find another to blame. Most likely results stick out more than causes, and in turn the result gets the blame. If one is blamed for something that isn’t their fault, often the person will get upset and, in turn, find something or somebody else to blame. Sadly, this scenario is often what happens; the cause is never found and people get upset at each other over something that is not their fault.

Farmers and the like moved west because of the lack of rain and the Dust Bowl, which ruined their farmlands. Not often enough throughout the whole novel did the real cause get the blame. Mostly, the bank was to blame because they were the ones who had to push the farmers out of their land. If it wasn’t for the lack of rain and the Dust Bowl, the bank wouldn’t have had to push them out; the bank was just a result of the matter also. When the farmers reached California, they also started getting blamed for different things the rain and the Dust Bowl caused. The Californians look down on the way the “Oakies” lived, repeatedly stating they would have never allowed themselves to live the way the Oakies did. Little did they know that the Oakies lived the way they did because of the rain and the dust bowl; they were just results of the matter also. Results are continually given blame throughout the novel and the causes aren’t even given thought.

The novel also referenced to true to life results that were given blame. According to the novel, Pain, Marx, Jefferson, and Lenin were all results, not causes. If one was able to know that these people weren’t causes and just results, they might be easier to connect to. Just like the farmers looked down onto the bank and the Californians looked down onto the farmers, a lot of people looked down onto Pain, Marx, Jefferson, and Lenin, despite the fact they were just results. All of the people listed above could have been better understood if others wouldn’t have blamed them but would have instead looked at them as results, just like themselves.

The day when people can separate results from causes is the day action can happen. If one person is upset with a certain rule for example, instead of blaming everyone else and not doing anything about, they could instead talk to others about it. From this, they might find another person who also shares their opinion; “I” changes into “we”. The novel also gives a good example of such an occurrence: ” ‘I lost my land’ is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate-’We lost our land.’ And from this first ‘we’ there grows a still more dangerous thing: ‘I have little food’ plus ‘I have none.’ If from this problem the sum is ‘We have a little food,’ the thing is on it’s way, the movement has direction.” As soon as people can look past the results and focus on the causes, action can occur and change is made possible.

In many cases, results are more visible than the causes. All people simply have to do is discover that the people they blame are just results like themselves. They need to change the “I” in situations and open up to the “we”. As Margaret Mead once said “Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”