Cadillac Desert and The Grapes of Wrath: comparative analysis

¶ … 1930s and the 1950s, to contrast the California dream from two time frames. The method will use water as the basis for this contrast.

For the Joads, the California dream was a place where they could find work, change their lives, and start over. On the way to California, they express their hopes and dreams, and believe their lives can only get better once they arrive in the Golden State. Steinbeck writes of the masses of people heading west, "The loss of home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream" (Steinbeck 193). In the 1950s, the country was back on track financially after World War II, and masses of people were coming to the Golden State because of the fine weather, the sunshine, and the opportunities. Reisner writes, "California, on the other hand, was gaining people like no place on earth, and most of the growth was taking place in the south" (Reisner 124). All this growth, beginning in the 1920s and lasting until today, made it necessary for the state to develop sources of water, both for agriculture and the booming population.

Water links the Joads and Reisner's book, because Reisner's book is all about water and water development in California, while the Joads, who are migrant farm workers, depend on water to nourish the crops they want to pick. In the 1930s, California depended on agriculture for much of its economy. Reisner writes, "Agriculture was California, there were no sprawling defense and aerospace industries, there was no Silicon Valley" (Reisner 151). The Joads were coming to the agricultural Mecca that depended solely on water, while people in the 50s were coming for the sunshine and those diversified jobs Reisner was talking about, which all needed water to operate.

Another aspect of the California dream for these two periods is the California coastline. For the Joads, the coastline is just a dream, they are too busy working in the Central Valley (or trying to find work) that they only have time to dream about the ocean. Steinbeck writes, "And she will envy plump young bodies on the beach. Going to California really to go home again" (Steinbeck 156). Their California dream is filled with the daily reality of survival, while by the 1950s, recreation and the ocean helped urge many people to leave their inland homes and travel west. That meant they needed water to survive. Reisner writes, "By the 1950s, California was already using its full 4.4 million acre-foot entitlement to the Colorado River" (Reisner 134). Water, the ocean, and the population of California are all linked in the California dream.