Extra Credit # 3
One book that drastically changed the way that I viewed the world was The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. I had to read it as summer reading for an English class that I took in junior year of high school. In the book, American farmers are forced to travel across the country to the West in search of work, land, and survival during and following the Great Depression. The region where they had worked had become useless because of drought, and they were forced to leave it in search of better chances.
There was one particular section of the book that had a profound impact on my life. It was the part of the story when companies where burning massive tons of oranges in order to keep the prices up, meanwhile people (migrants, or "Oakies", as they were called) were looking on in sadness, many dying of starvation. This was the first time in my life that I felt a real sense of injustice because of issues like this - and this is still a very real issue in some places. Food is constantly being wasted, thrown out because of excess, while it would be able to feed those who have nothing. Of course I had seen all the commercials of the dying African babies, and had heard about the unbelievable amount of people in the world that live on less than one dollar per day, but I had not understood the major role that corporations and governments often play in these situations until reading this book.
Throughout the rest of the story, there were many other points that stirred anger and confusion in me. The book made me want to reach in and lend a hand to those suffering people. Although the specific characters were fictional, the reality is that these injustices did happen, and still do today. The Grapes of Wrath helped me to know that whether or not the "fat and happy" people are paying attention, there are many people that are faced with horribly unfair situations daily. Now, in my everyday life, I try to be more aware of issues such as this that still continue.
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