Circularity - Chapters 16-19 - Letter H

The lives of the Migrant farmers are ever repeating because of the common goal that all the farmers share. They all share the same dream, so they all work with each other and create valuable communities, again and again. Steinbeck uses this repetition to cement in his readers' minds the belief that these kinds of mutually beneficial communities are the natural result of hardship. In any system in which a group must face a common problem, Steinbeck proposes that the group will bond within itself and create a community, or as he calls it in chapter 17, a "world." He demonstrates this bonding in a quote near the beginning of the chapter: "In the evening a strange thing happened: the twenty families became one family, the children were the children of all. The loss of home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream"(193). Steinbeck illustrates a strongly connected group of people, specifically "in the evening." He chooses to have these connections occur during the nighttime because it is a time of day most closely associated with danger and the darker parts of humanity. Bad things happen at night, and in the face of these bad things, the people facing them unite. They all have the same dream, to move West, and that dream brings them together. By helping others achieve this dream, they ensure that they will be helped as well; "A kind of insurance developed in these nights. A man with food fed a hungry man, and thus insured himself against hunger"(195). Steinbeck suggests that there is nothing unnatural about these people's willingness to help each other. At first glance, it might seem strange that one would sacrifice something of their own to help another, but in reality, these people are helping themselves by helping others. It instills in other people a willingness to help, so that when one needs help they can get it. These acts of humanity are not some unique, anomalous happenstance, but rather the natural progression of self-interest.