The backwards effects of
self preservation
Humanities 30-1
Stephany Grant
11/6/2009
Humanities 30-1
Stephany Grant
November 06, 2009
Self preservation: to protect oneself from harm or destruction. Each individual has a
certain amount of self preservation in then. If we put people into life or death situations, they
go into survival mode; doing everything they possibly can to stay alive. It is when we put
ourselves before others and do whatever is crucial to our survival. In the novel Grapes of Wrath
we see two very distinct acts of self preservation, where the characters try to protect
themselves from harm and destruction. The bank in the novel is one of the first we get
introduced to. Also, the entire Joad family puts the needs of their family before anyone else’s,
demonstrating self preservation. Each of these groups are put into different scenarios that both
result in self preservation to come into effect. Both are responding to conflicting external and
internal demands of different sorts but the common factor between the two is the methods
they choose to deal with them. Self preservation plays a huge role when responding to these
demands, and in the two cases, self preservation is harmful to those surrounding them, and in
the end harmful to them as well.
The Joad family was a happy quaint little family until their world was turned upside
down. The Joad’s had to make a quick decision on what to do when they were removed from
their household by the monsters and left with nowhere to go. They could either stay there with
no house, no land, and no money, or they could choose to leave the farm and make their way
down to California. This proposed a problem because some members of the Joad family hadn’t
even been off the farm in their whole lives. They finally made the decision to abruptly leave and
take on the adventure of a lifetime. The bank had pressured them to find a new mode of
Humanities 30-1
Stephany Grant
November 06, 2009
survival, therefore invoking their lust for self preservation. The Joad’s knew that they had to
take over and do things for the good of the family rather than the good of society. When they
have a chance to get a job they don’t consider anything other than the well-being of
themselves, and what the money they make could do for them. Even though there are plenty of
other starving families out there they choose to keep everything for themselves. This is the only
way they will be able to keep their family alive. Self preservation is like a mask to them. They
can only see the things that will get them through to California. The Joad family is not as brutal
as the banks are. This family doesn’t directly hurt others to get there faster; they just do not
help anyone but themselves. The whole reason they even have to use self preservation is
because of the way everyone else in society uses self preservation. This whole desperate
scenario was started by the banks unhealthy drive to keep them afloat. The Joad’s only helps
the Joad’s. It does nothing else to better the lives of anyone else that are on the same journey
as them. This just shows that self preservation only makes the situation worse.
In Grapes of Wrath we are first introduced to the banks as these horrible monsters that
everyone hates. These monsters are given the name monster because of their methods of self
preservation. The monsters have mainly two different demands they have to choose between.
First they have to respond to their want and need to have a job. In order for them to keep the
bank up and running they need to make some sort of a profit. The only way they see to make a
profit is to get rid of those properties that are just costing money and taking up space, and turn
them into money making machines. In order to do this they have to evict many families from
Humanities 30-1
Stephany Grant
November 06, 2009
their homes. The second demand they have to answer to is their conscience. In most cases they
just ignore it, but these bank workers are still people and they still have empathy for the people
they evict. They can relate to the families because they also want to make money so they can
support their own families. So the bank has to consider which demand to cave to, and they
chose to let self preservation take over and surrender to external demands. Once these banks
make the decision to keep themselves ‘in the game’ they are motivated only by self
preservation, with their sole goal being to better themselves. This does not help out the
economic circumstances in the novel, and leaves innocent people out in the cold. These people
no longer have land to live on or make money from and are forced to find other ways to make a
living. Some of the characters resort to picking cotton, surrounding themselves with more self
preservation driven people; the cotton owners. Other characters have to pick peaches, making
not even enough money to buy one full meal. Self preservation turned a once simple, society
benefitting job of a bank into a cold hearted, money grabbing, carless creature that will stop at
nothing to keep itself alive. These self-preserved banks will step on and over anyone who gets
in their way so they can advance, make money, and better only themselves. Clearly, self
preservation does nothing to benefit the good of society and only hurts those who get in its
path.
Ultimately, those who use the self preservation method because of external and
internal demands will find that it just ends up imploding on them. In the end the banks have no
money because no one has anything to put into them without jobs and any sort of spare cash to
Humanities 30-1
Stephany Grant
November 06, 2009
even attempt to put into the bank. So they ignorance lead to their attempt at self preservation
failing. If they would have had some insight on what they might be doing to their business they
might not have been so brutally cruel. Without food and jobs and with the loss of multiple
family members, the Joad family ends up falling apart bit by bit as well. Their method of
survival, self preservation, has lead them into a new state with not much more optimism then
they had before, and even more external and internal demands. They no longer have the
security of their old town but are now faced with new obstacles to tackle, with less support
than before. They have nothing back to fall on to, because their only goal was to get themselves
to California. Even in modern times, those who are entirely focused on self preservation end up
having some sort of a problem in the future. When you only look out for yourself, you cannot
better society, which will eventually come back to hurt you in the long run. Even with the best
intentions self preservation because of competing demands never works out.