Poverty
The events in the novel take place in the period of Great Depression when almost the whole country was deep in poverty, especially those people, who lived in rural area. The Lesters as a family were suffering from the consequences of depression more than their neighbors, although it is evident that this family represents hundred and thousand families around the country whose affairs were as bad as theirs or even worse. The magnitude of the poverty was so huge than many of these families, including Lesters, didn’t even have food to eat every day. The normal food even if there was little of it, was like a fest for them. As a rule, they stole some turnip from Lov, husband of Lester’s twelve years old daughter Pearl, but this turnip appeared to be taint. Lesters completely forgot about any moral values, they just wanted to live a normal life without struggling every day for food, the poverty made them weak and limited people.
Vicious Cycle
The unlucky farmer Jeeter Lester never managed to make a profit out of his land. He hoped that the next year he will do that at least, he felt it, but years were passing by and nothing has changed. He was still hoping to have money or seeds or guano from other farmers but no one ever helped him. Jeeter was a misfit of society; he was begging every man he met to help him, but these humiliations never led him to success. After Jeeter’s death his youngest son Dude voices the same ideas of plowing the land and growing cotton like his father did. It is a vicious cycle of the Lesters family – hope for something that is never going to happen. Dude doent have money to but seeds, to plow the land and, of course, he wont manage to do all the work by himself, he doesn’t even have a food to eat but he feeds himself with false hopes.
Despair
In his attempts to make a profit out of his land, Jeeter reached the point of despair. Although he always hoped for the best he never get anything out of his work. Even when he tried to sell some woods no one ever bought it and he didn’t know that to do with it. He had seventeen children, some of them died in their early childhood and others left the home as soon as they could. Only Dude and Ellie May stayed with their parents. Jeeter was sure that those children who were living by themselves, made a lot of money, although he wasn’t sure that they were still alive. He assured everybody that his elder son Tom makes a good money and he will be happy to help his parents but when Dude and his wife Bessie met Tom, he said that he wasn't going to help them and he never came back home. Jeeter couldn’t believe it; he was sure that Dude lies him. He built his own reality where everybody loves him and helps him but in fact he was alone with his problems, abandoned and miserable. That was true despair.
Naivety
Those people who are limited in their outlook on life are, as a rule, trusting and naïve. They cannot imagine that someone would cheat them and make a profit out of their naivety. The Lesters were naïve in their believe that they can run a farm without any money and everybody would help them. Jeeter’s desperate efforts and begging gave no results but still he went on hoping that everything would change “next spring”. Sister Bessie, the local woman preacher who always got what she wanted because of her constant praying was also a naïve person. When she was buying “a brand new car”, salesmen noticed that she is a province woman and sold her a bad car and it broke the next day and she never suspended those people in treating her this way. As it happens, naivety doesn’t help a person to live better; it may cover and mask some problems, but it never solves them.
