The little farmers watched debt creep up on them like the tide…This little orchard will be a part of a great holding next year, for the debt will have choked the owner. This vineyard will belong to the bank. Only the great owners can survive, for they own the canneries, too.
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 25. Steinbeck makes effective use of simile ("like the tide") and personification ("debt creep up…will have choked") to describe the inhumanity of industrialized farming. The small fruit farmer, weighed down by bank debt, is swallowed up by the big farmer, who also happens to own the cannery too.