In keeping with the nature of the intercalary chapters, the conflict revealed in this chapter is general, not involving individuals, but groups of people representative of socio-economic classes. By looking at the larger picture, the widespread effects of the drought and the bank foreclosures are emphasized: It is not just the Joads, but a great number of families who will be forced off their land. The abstract conflict between the Bank/owner and the tenant, first witnessed in the novel's second chapter, begins to develop here. Steinbeck begins to draw a clear line between the sympathetic farmer who shares stories of his family's connection to the land and the company, an impersonal conglomerate that is isolated from attack. The generalizations of the action become specific in the next chapter when the Joads are actually forced off their land.
A second component of Steinbeck's social philosophy, related to the theory of Jeffersonian agrarianism, is examined in the portrayal of the tenants' connection with the land, as well as the resultant destruction that occurs when he is torn from it. These men take their dignity and self-respect from their proximity to earth and its cycles of growth. When this relationship is severed, they lose their identity and begin to drift, both figuratively and literally. Their trauma is underscored by the tenant's observation, "Funny thing how it is. If a man owns a little property, that property is him, it's part of him, and it's like him." This theme will be played out continuously throughout the novel, most notably in Granpa's death and, later, in the starvation of the migrants when they are denied a patch of land on which to raise food.
