Kansas families who were evicted and uprooted from heir "Dust Bowl" farm land, and forced to search westward in the inhospitable Eden of California for jobs and survival with housands of other migrant workers.[Note: Dreiser based his story upon the sensational Chester Gillette and Grace Brown 1906 murder case in the state of New York.As his libido is aroused, the flick-knife spontaneously opens - a sexual phallic symbol - violently and orgasmically ripping out the pocket as he thinks what he might do to the stripper (he would literally open her up with his ""knife"") o punish her for tempting him to lustful sin." Kolp taunted him, called him a "clever ape," and brandished his pistol at Caesar: "And now, Ape City is about to lose its king.