Many Questions and Few Answers in The Grapes of WrathThe book The Grapes of Wrath focuses on a particular part of America called the " Dust Bowl” in the early 1930s. Around this time, when renting was a way of life for many Oklahomans, a drought drastically reduced agricultural production and forced the bank to evict tenants to reduce losses. The problem may seem simple at first, and perhaps it is, but the cause of the problem should not be simplified. Naturally, the three participants in this disaster, the tenants, the bank and the workers, have their own distinct and logical points of view. Who is right? From a broader perspective, the events during this period involving banks and corporations are early examples of greedy capitalism widespread in our modern society. One cannot think of the tenants of these farms without feeling some sort of pity or sympathy, for they had no concept of banking or land ownership. For them, the land was theirs if they lived there, fought there, and eventually died there; not just because of a flimsy sheet of paper in your hand. "My father came here fifty years ago. And I'm not going."(60) was the sentiment expressed by Muley Graves and felt by many Oklahomans when they were evicted from their farms for the first time. Some reacted quite violently, threatening to shoot anyone who came onto their land with a tractor to demolish their house, but when the tractor arrived and one of their friends was driving it, they laid down their weapons in submission. "Who gave you orders? I'm going after him. He's the one who needs to be killed."(49), declared a disgruntled farmer. "You are wrong. He received his orders from the bank." replied the driver. The farmer also discovers that the bank receives its orders from the East and wonders with exasperation: "But where does it stop? Who can we shoot?"(49) Basically, the tenants were cut off from their means of subsistence and without hope since they did not even know who they could kill or which person to speak to to conserve the land. The Bank. Who is a bank? Is it a person? A physical thing? Could he not see that this caused so much pain and despair? Although bank executives could sympathize with the tenants' plight, they felt that for whatever reason the eviction could not be stopped..