G. Man Vs. Society (Chapter 1-10)

On page 37, a banker tries to take land from a farmer who was not producing goods and was not paying bills.

"It's our land. We measured it and broke it up. We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it's no good, it's still ours. That's what makes it ours - being born on it, working it, dying on it." (33)

The bank is the society because it is taking basically everything from the a person. This is crucial to the plot because it causes the huge farmer migration westward and additionally shows the harshness of big businesses, corporations and the government back then. Each person had to fight for themselves.

On page 37, a farmer takes a tractor driving job that makes everyone in his farming community lose their jobs.

"'Three dollars a day. I got damn sick of creeping for my dinner--and not getting it. I got a wife and kids. We got to eat. Three dollars a day and it comes every day.'

'But for your three dollars a day fifteen or twenty families can't eat at all. Nearly a hundred people have to go and wander on the roads for your three dollars a day. Is that right?'" (37)

The society is the farmer's neighbors. He has to take this job in order for him to survive. It develops the idea in the story that if you don't look out for yourself, no one will. For example, the banker from the first quote - he does not want to take the land from the farmer, but he has to because he is paid to do it and has to support his own family with the money he earns.