John Steinbeck

In the wake of the so-called postmodernist turn in literary studies and criticism, Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath has been subjected to a major interpretative revision that has reoriented the focus solely on the chapters dealing with the Joads while leaving out those that provide a detailed analysis of larger socioeconomic forces at work. The latter are laid out in documentary interchapters that constitute the backbone of dialectical montage, a narrative method used by Steinbeck to create a consciousness-raising novel. Documentary interchapters, as this paper argues, shed light on the integrated forms of systemic exploitation that agricultural workers face in capitalism. Overlooking the significance of documentary interchapters results in a reductive reading of Steinbeck’s classic, which in turn also undermines its consciousness-raising potential in our era.

John Steinbeck was prolific during the Depression and War years: 1930-1945. Not only did he write twenty-seven books, but he put his journalist training into action. As an embedded reporter he performed primary research for his novels, “on the front lines, observing and reporting on the major events of his century: the Depression, World War II, the Cold War, Vietnam” (Parini 2004).  In this essay, I claim Steinbeck more profoundly reflected and affected American politics than any other author from 1930 to 1945. As evidence, I provide succinct precis of Steinbeck’s three Depression and three World War II novels.

THE SEA OF CORTEZ Once Steinbeck had written The Grapes of Wrath, it seemed natural to many readers that he would again write a novel that addressed a pressing social problem. Instead, he changed direction and went on an expedition of scientific exploration down the Baja coast of California and on to the Sea of Cortez with his friend Ed Ricketts. "We made a trip to the Gulf; sometimes we dignified it by calling it an expedition," he writes. 1 The text that emerged from this expedition holds a key to Steinbeck's thought and writing, as Jackson J. Benson has pointed out. "We were curious," Steinbeck writes. "[…] We wanted to see everything our eyes would accommodate, to think what we could, and, out of our seeing and thinking, to build some kind of structure in modeled imitation of the observed reality." 2 He pointed out that, though Sea of Cortez was non-fiction, the design and pattern of the book emerged from the perspectives of two men on a scientific fact finding mission.

In this essay I am going to examine in what way gender was a concern for a selection of modernist writers and that while in many ways modernism was alive with misogynistic and male-centric literature, there were a few who went against the grain and empowered women. Firstly, I will examine Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen’s role as a ‘proto-modernist’ and early feminist after which I will assess Virginia Woolf’s contribution to twentieth century modernist literature as one of the first modern feminist writers and critics. Finally, I will explore American author John Steinbeck’s depiction of women in Depression era America as portrayed in his documentary novel ‘The Grapes of Wrath’.

The main purpose of analyzing the symbols in the novel «Of Mice and Men» is to assist readers beyond the surface story of Steinbeck's novella. For this thesis paper required descriptions of the author's personal experiences as examples supporting her basic argument. John Steinbeck is one of the greatest storytellers of the 19th century. The winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, he has been called "a giant of American letters". His works are widely read abroad and many of his works are considered classics of Western literature. His amazing novellas Tortilla Flat (1935), Of Mice and Men (1937), The Red Pony (1937), The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Cannery Row (1945), The Pearl (1947) .etc. not only introduce readers realistic cost of characters, real surrounded life, but also tell intriguer stories of the lives of real people. Steinbeck's characters are not rich men and women with plush and with decorated lives, but are the homeless, migrant workers, poor fishermen, farmers and even forgotten American people. However, each of these people is important story to tell; a story which filled with love and pain. His stories tell us not only of the lives of the poor who seek to live in the seacoast of California and Mexico with fascinating boom days, but also the struggle of all poor people. Steinbeck's first commercial success as a novelist came with the publication in 1937 «Of Mice and Men», his most famous novel, a tragic saga of migrant laborers from Oklahoma. «Of Mice and Men» is one of the only published novels written from an obscure point of view called the objective third person, in contrast to the omniscient third person. So the readers can read the minds of all the characters… Such approach is typical which helps to explain why «Of Mice and Men» were easily adapted. Of Mice and Men is more complex of Steinbeck's short books is a simple short story with rich meaning. It's simple short easy-to-read plot, during story themes are more visual and characters make it most compatible for more mature readers. It is an excellent choice for the readers to experience the difficulty, reading complex and being capable to mature material… The author searched that, like most tragedies, this story also has a climax and tragic conclusion. When «Of Mice and Men» opens, we meet two migrant guys just coming off road trip to Salinas, California; George and Lennie. They are opposite but with unique relationship. Actually, Lennie the tragic hero is simple minded, George is the brains. Two opposite relationship have a dream about owning a farm together. The trouble is in beginning. During introducing themselves Lennie become George's cousin. During two chapters all important and main characters have been introduced. Throughout the entire story George and Lennie travel around together. " …They had walked in single file down the path, and even in the open one stayed behind the other. Both were dressed in denim trousers and in denim coats with brass buttons. Both wore black, shapeless hats and both carried tight blanket rolls slung over their shoulders… " [1, 4] Everyone who sees Lennie-strong, tall from such appearance he understands wrong that to harm. George each time says " …I didn't mean any harm, honest I didn't, I jus' wanted to pet 'um a little… " Lennie is still smiling over his delight.

Though Steinbeck’s fictional novel does make some incorrect predictions about the future of the Okies, his Joads could be a case study for what an average Okie went through from the time they were removed from their farms, through their journey west, how they were treated in the West, and how they reacted to the West.

This essay examines John Steinbeck’s depiction of migrant labor in view of contemporary New Deal welfare policy. I depart from recent work on The Grapes of Wrath—which has focused largely on its problematic racial politics—by framing the text’s hyper-specific version of migrancy around the question of state governance. Steinbeck’s novel and The Harvest Gypsies, its nonfiction predecessor, refigure vagrancy into a fantasy involving a mobile class of workers. In doing so, Steinbeck offers an explicit roadmap for a government desperate to move families across the country to where their labor is needed.

This essay was written for a History of the American West class. In it I explore the accuracy of what the fictional family, the Joads, experienced as compared to what an average family experienced during The Dust Bowl Migration to California.

This study aims to analyse the theme of dreams and hopes in the novella Of Mice and Men (1937) by John Steinbeck. Characters in the novella are trapped in different situations, as they are bound to other persons or to circumstances that impede them from reaching freedom. However, these impediments do not prevent them from continuing to dream and to have hope, since it is the only way to cope with life. Each character has their particular dream and, at some point, they think that their dreams could come true. Nevertheless, they soon understand that their dreams are not always possible, and they have to learn to live with this knowledge. This Final Degree Essay tries to analyse this fact in the novella by focusing on the situations that make characters feel confined, and on their different wishes, as well as on the socio-historical context surrounding them, which is, in part, an important factor that influences their current situations. Finally, it focuses on Steinbeck’s use of the natural and animal worlds as a prediction of the end of the novella.

A produção literária de John Steinbeck (1902-1968) dos anos 30 estava visceralmente ligada a um longo processo histórico cujos desdobramentos culminaram na Grande Depressão. Desse modo, suas obras literárias foram escritas sob a sombra desse profundo conjunto de transformações, as quais se estendiam para muito além da economia. Como um herdeiro das antigas classes médias rurais, Steinbeck, em sua obra, nutriu-se com os valores e a experiência proporcionados pelo modo de vida cultivado por aquele grupo social desde o século XIX. Por meio desse conjunto de valores e referências morais e subjetivas, Steinbeck construiu uma leitura histórica que buscou interpretar, denunciar e retratar os problemas postos pela evolução histórica estadunidense, cujos desdobramentos eram, em grande medida, o gradativo aumento da hegemonia do capitalismo monopolista e suas ramificações por sobre os mais
diversos rincões da vida social do país.

Studying the idea of “initiation” through three modernist short stories (Flight by J. Steinbeck, The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber by E. Hemingway and The Bear by W. Faulkner), this paper aims, on the one hand, to present how American modernist writers use this topos to establish new social and ethical values and, on the other hand, to underline the originality of their writings, developing a new canon for short stories.

The relationship between journalists, writers, photographers and filmmakers during the Great Depression in the 1930s in the U.S. gave rise to a fertile climate for the production of a powerful and recurring interweaving of text and image. The photographs of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) affected the writers of the time and vice versa. Cinema would adapt the language of writers, journalists and photographers in its own way. Through a study of The Grapes of Wrath (novel by Steinbeck, film by Ford), the article focuses on the influence the FSA aesthetic had on modes of cinematic representation both during the period and today.

The present study focuses on reading the novel, The Grapes of Wrath, in a Marxist perspective. The researchers have emphasised much on Marxian concept of 'dialectic materialism'. Dialectic denotes the contradictory opinions in the debate. Here, the conflict between Capitalist and Proletariat is seen as dialectic. The researchers use Marx's prediction of future history where the society will become socialist society. The research takes John Steinbeck as a socialist writer and perceives the novel as a 'political propaganda'. The researchers have analysed the work with different aspects of Marxism and especially the exploitation of the working-class and their way of resisting the injustice. Here, we see characters, Jim Casey and Tom are highly radical and therefore revolutionary. The novel moves towards a selfless society with humanity. Therefore, the researchers attempt to see a pattern of history which moves from a revolutionary form to a socialist form and eventually ends with a reconstruction, which is 'communist' paradigm.

Term Paper:

Tortilla Flat is Steinbeck's attempt to create a community within a framework of mythic and mystic reference. How Much of Malory do we find in Tortilla Flat? What are the differences and the similarities between Steinbeck's characters and King Arthur's knights?

John Steinbeck is a writer whose works have been widely criticized from different perspectives. In these interpretations the point in common about his characters is their loneliness. The article in hand believes the main reason for this isolation is the effects of economic crisis. This is a fact which can be obviously traced in his 1937 novella of Mice and Men in which the American Dream turns into nightmare, and the land of opportunity becomes the land of misfortune.
    In this paper the Great Depression is being discussed as the cause of this isolation, followed by a demonstration of American Dream and the role played by it during the Depression, and the last part is allotted to the main concern of the article i.e. economy and loneliness. This paper shows how economical repression of the era has made psychological depression in the main characters of this novel as representatives of the working class in the 1930s.

The present article examines the translation of racial elements in John Steinbeck’s novel and play Of Mice and Men into Slovenian. Using the basic concepts of Kitty van Leuven-Zwart’s comparative and descriptive models for the analysis of literary translations (1989, 1990), we examine strategies for translating terms referring to African Americans along with strategies for translating the discourse of the only African American character in Of Mice and Men. After the microstructural analysis, the effects of the shifts on the perception of this literary work are discussed, and its reception in Slovenia is examined. Although shifts are established in translations from both the socialist and the postsocialist period, in the first translation of the novel, from 1952, the macrostructure of the text was affected to a greater extent than in the modern translations of the novel and the play, both published in 2007. Because translation strategies differ substantially, possible reasons for the differences are also discussed, taking into consideration relevant historical and contemporary socio-political factors.