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"The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck is a great figure of American literature who does not need to be introduced since his name is often associated with the denunciation of financial capitalism excesses and the fate of the victims of the stock market crash which occurred in the USA, in 1929.

That have been said, this aspect of the great writer’s work obscures sometimes his stylistic qualities and his literary approach which have nothing to envy the great stylists of literature, although his novels are most often constructed in a classical or realistic way, with no modernist or poetic experimentations.

Nevertheless, he is among the greatest American writers of the first half of twentieth century like Wiliam Faulkner, F. Scott Fitgerald and Sinclair Lewis, and for me he outshines Ernest Hemingway in the way he builds his narratives and creates novelistic atmosphere, although contemporary critics tend to neglect Steinbeck to the profit of Hemingway, unfortunately.

I’ve been convinced by all this after the rereading of John Steinbeck’s most famous novel; The Grapes of Wrath (1939), a book that I had read a long time ago, at least twice at long intervals, and I was wondering whether I could once again dive pleasurably in the epopee of the Joad family who, after the 1929 crisis, has been driver out of her lands in the Midwest “by bulldozers” and started a long journey in search of better days in the rich and prosperous California, like praised in flyers.

I was wondering what could fill the 463 pages of the book and make a novel of it strictly speaking, and not just a social witness or a documentary despite the nobleness of such an approach.

Once again, the magic of Steinbeck worked, I was not bored one second reading this human adventure made of ups and downs, pain and solidarity, but also mistrust and outbursts sometimes, around the life of these characters who seem so different despite the fate that binds them. These characters are larger than life, thanks to the style of Steinbeck who managed to grasp all the nuances of the Joad family’s members of which we can cite among others: Tom : the awaited son who comes-back from prison with no regret for the act that had led him there, Al : the ex-lazy misfit who now assumes his responsibilities becoming a mechanical expert, the mother : strong and supporting, but who can prove incredibly stubborn and dangerously bold, the father : silent and a bit withdrawn, not to mention the friend of the family : “the former minister” Casy, who questions the meaning of his past life as a clergyman and the meaning of life in general.

Indeed, there is a lot of questioning and reflexion in this novel. You can find it in separate chapters analysing the capitalist process, the nation-building of the United States after the extermination of Native Indians, or even the emerging marketing and the adverts spread all along the American highways. Thus, besides the magnificent descriptions of the Midwest and Deep South nature, Steinbeck offers us striking passages written in an incisive style depicting the swift transformations that happened in the USA in the years 1920 and 1930, to the benefice of some but at the expanses of others. This urban realism reminds, somehow, the scenes described by F. Scott Fitgerald in The Great Gatsby or his other works although, of course, the decor differs and the protagonists don’t belong to the same social class.

In The Grapes of Wrath, there are also series of characters who appear and disappear on the road of the Joad family, and they are all fully embodied thanks to the accurate vocabulary of Steinbeck and his finely crafted dialogues that come from the American farmers’ slang, maintaining altogether the rhythm and the musicality of the style as a whole.

it's also worth-mentioning that the American writer approaches, in one part of the narrative, the issue of Christian puritanism and its excesses. Moreover, the “former minister” Casy wonders about the usefulness of religion to improve the human condition. Such themes were not approached back then in American literature, except the novels of the satirical writer Sinclair Lewis.

As for the welcome given to the Joad family upon their arrival with all those who have left everything behind them searching for Eldorado, I prefer not to spoil the pleasure of reading for whom have not read the book yet. I can only say that from the beginning to the end, The Grapes of Wrath is an exciting story with human, social and political dimensions. However, according to different levels of reading, one can interpret such event or another in a special way, or grasp a symbolic meaning in some situations or scenes described in the novel.

For example, we may see in the rush of the farmers towards California a parallel with the Conquest of the West which had led to the building of big American cities in that region. Yet, this had been achieved at the expense of wiping out the Indians, and it seems like a curse followed the dwellers of Deep America, but a curse that falls unfortunately over the weak and spare the mighty, as it is often the case with capitalist exploitation.

Steinbeck evokes also the Mexicans driven from their lands by the Anglo-Saxon pioneers because these latter were hungry and “desired” the land. But later on, the same pioneers don’t care anymore for the soil that they had coveted and more powerful men come to grab their parcels and tell the farmers what they should do, and they exploit them until the day when farmers go away, like the Mexicans did before…

Similar metaphors are contained in another great novel by John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men, published in 1937. It’s also worth-mentioning that some have perceived in the literary works of Steinbeck biblical references.

These are many reasons that earned him, in 1962, the Nobel Prize for literature, that he is well worth (and maybe more than some laureates) despite the controverses that broke out at that time and the excessive modesty of the author who hinted, in private, that he did not deserve the Nobel Prize.

 

Lyes Ferhani  

 

Tag(s) : #English
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