Because of the drought and the Great Depression, the farms in the Midwest are foreclosed by the bank owners, who send representatives to inform the tenants that they must move. The tenant farmers must make way for the tractors, which are able to work huge acreages. This, in turn, help the banks recover some of their losses. The farmers have no option but to leave before the tractors plow under any remnants of lives they used to know. Because the tenant families have a long family history of working their land, they take this change as a huge wound both to their income and to their sense of place and identity.
When Tom and Casy reach the Joad house, they realize it has been abandoned and is falling down, as.....