Many writers in American literature try to instill the philosophy of their choosing into their reader. This is often a philosophy derived at from their own personal experiences. John Steinbeck is no exception to this. When traveling through his native Californian in the mid-1930s, Steinbeck witnessed people living in appalling conditions of extreme poverty due to the Great Depression and the agricultural disaster known as the Dust Bowl. He noticed that these people received …showed first 75 words of 2303 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2303 total…founded on. Steinbeck started to write the Grapes of Wrath with the idea of changing the philosophy in place in California, but it expanded to changing the idea of the system in place in America. Steinbeck wished to make his mark in the field of American literature, and that he did with this novel. Through the novel, Steinbeck shows that there is not just one singular soul, but something bigger, which all men belong to.