Prosperity In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

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Few believe that being selfish is the most efficient route to prosperity, while others believe collaborating with one another will lead them on a path to wealth and prosperity. Ultimately, which route is preponderant? John Steinbeck demonstrates a society where people perpetually put their desiderata over others in his novel The Grapes of Wrath. Matt Ridley, the author of The Rational Optimist, is a vigorous believer and preacher that many minds are much more efficient than one mind alone and that teamwork is the only way a society can prosper. Both of these author's conceptions demonstrates a society where the balance of selfishness and munificent is the equilibrium of corporation. In chapter five of Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath,…show more content…
His scenario regarding the tractor driver and the tenant shows a fine line between working together and individualism. The tractor driver reiterates that the Bank is making him ruin the tenant's land, and he will lose his job if he fails to cooperate. The tractor driver's only goal is to gain individual profit. His view of helping others was completely obscured. The lack of unity within this community is contributing to the economic decline; also known as The Dust Bowl. Also, in chapter four of The Grapes of Wrath, Jim Casy, a former preacher, and Tom Joad, a former felon, cross paths when finding Joad's family. Casy demonstrates Steinbeck's idealistic view of teamwork when he says, "maybe it's all men an' all women we love; maybe that's the Holy Sperit—the human sperit—the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever'body's a part of.' Now I sat there thinkin' it, an' all of a suddent—I knew it. I knew it so deep down that it was true, and I still know it" (24). Ridley also points out that even though times get tough and attitudes change, "‘How[ever] selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it'" (Ridley
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