Reflection+on+Outcasting+in+America

America has Outcasts. Every country has its Outcasts. However, Outcast should not always be considered a bad term. Outcasts shape what a nation is, stand for, and fights against. The Outcasts, those who are shunned by society, are those who people concentrate on. More attention is paid to those who are shunned than to those who are accepted. In The Grapes of Wrath, the farm owners in California seem infinitely more obsessed with the issue of the migrants than with other farmers. While the migrants are disenfranchised, kicked to the curb, and paid horrific wages, the owners focus their attention on the them. It would seem logical that the farmers would pay little attention to the migrant Outcasts. That is not the case in America. The Outcasts are powerful, almost as powerful as those who shun them. If the Outcasts had as much power as those who sun them, then they would no longer be the Outcasts. There is this very fine line in America between the accepted norm and the Outcasts. Both groups of people are very scared to cross it, as well as they should be. Once you cross that infinitesimally thin line, then it is very hard to cross it a second time. When Jim Casy left the accepted norm of the migrants, there was no going back. The irony is that Casy could only make a difference as an Outcast, a person who no one wants to accept for the other Outcasts.

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