Ch.1-10(F)*

In the 1930's machines were still being introduced. Cars and tractors were relatively new and were met with different opinions. Some people like them, others didn't. The Grapes of Wrath explores the opinion of machines in the 1930's through two different viewpoints. One is of a man driving a tractor and another of a man selling cars.

The tractor driver is a man who admires the power that comes with driving the machine. However that power consumes the man who drives the tractor, which is described by Steinbeck,

         "The driver could not control--it straight across the country it went, cutting through a dozen farms and             straight back. A twitch at the controls could swerve the cat', but the driver's hands could not twitch               because the monster that built the tractor, the monster that sent the tractor out, had somehow got into           the driver's hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him"(35) 

The idea that is being pointed out by Steinbeck is that while man has made the machines, they are too much for us and that they abuse us. The man who drives the tractor cannot move and not only that, he cannot control the tractor. The tractor had gotten into the man's head and now he can't do anything. This goes to demonstrate the effects of the machines on us, that we cannot handle the appliances we made to help us. 

On the other hand, there is man who adores machines and is instead in control of it, using them to make his money. He would buy used car and sell new ones to others. He is the opposite of the tractor drivers, controlling it instead of having it control him. He appraises cars while thinking to himself, "We aint' sellin' cars--rolling junk. Goddamn it, I got to get jalopies. I don't want nothing for more'n twenty-five, thirty bucks. Sell 'em for fifty,seventy-five" The dealer, uses the machines to his advantage to make profits off of it. This shows that while there are those that are controlled by the new inventions, there are others that can use them to their fullest.

The Grapes of Wrath makes comparisons from new to old when it concerns a new idea. With the introduction of the machine, it compares how people react to it and how they, both use it and are used by it. Both of the examples used describe how men are using the machines to make money, however one is used by it and the other uses it.