This Land is Whose Land?

“This land is your land; this land is my land.

From California to the New York Island;

From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters.

This land was made for you and me.”

            - Woodie Guthrie

These are the words of the first stanza of Woodie Guthrie’s famous song “This Land is Your Land.” While Guthrie is very closely associated with the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, his words hold a special meaning for the migrant farmers of the time and are important to note when interpreting the harsh realities of being a climate refugee during the Dust Bowl.

One of the prominent themes of The Grapes of Wrath is that of land and land ownership. Reading this book really begs the question: this land is whose land? The concept of land ownership was not always present, but with the philosophical enlightenment came John Locke’s theory regarding private property. One of his major points regarding this theory is that which states “one may only appropriate property through one’s own labor.” This idea is referenced when the tenant men explain what defines ownership to them by arguing that “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. That makes ownership, not a paper with numbers on it.” (5)

The particularly interesting part of this is that even Locke, the man from which this theory is derived, seemed to understand that labor is not a guaranteed method of land ownership, as “even in the state of nature, ‘the Turfs my Servant has cut’ (2.28) can become my property.” I like this sort of contradictory statement from Locke because it truly showcases the complexity of land ownership. There doesn’t seem to be one definitive answer regarding what “makes ownership” and everyone may have their own idea of what should define land ownership.

These theories and the way they are implemented in The Grapes of Wrath is wonderful because it even seems that today this question is unanswerable. It is precisely this puzzling nature that makes the novel timeless and allows us to relate it to issues even today, be them similar scenarios regarding the loss of land to a higher power, such as the bank, or the concept of leaving the land that one once viewed as their own because of uncontrollable forces of weather. Regardless, man’s connection to the land they claim as theirs is strong and yet, bizarrely inexplicable, which begs that question even today: This land is whose land? And perhaps more importantly, why?

Sources:

The Grapes of Wrath

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/

Images:

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