There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificates – died of malnutrition – because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 25. Steinbeck uses Biblical language in this chapter and passage to describe what he believes is an unspeakable crime against people and nature. Farmers cannot sell their crops because people are too poor to buy them. For many it is more economical to destroy or leave the crops to rot rather than harvest them, leaving people to starve. Farmers cannot make a profit from an orange, so children die of malnutrition, Steinbeck says in his savage indictment of the system.