The Grapes of Wrath (Criticism)

Criticism

Richard Henry

In this overview of The Grapes of Wrath, Henry, a professor at the University of Minnesota, declares that Steinbeck's work still has relevance today, as it addresses the distinct issues of social classes and the importance of community.

The Grapes of Wrath is arguably John Steinbeck's finest novel and the summation of his California experience. His first two novels received little attention from the critics or the public. His third, Tortilla Flat (1935), a novel set in his native Monterey, found a national audience. He followed this success with In Dubious Battle (1936) and Of Mice and Men (1937), novels that explore the conditions suffered by migrant workers in California. These conditions were made worse by the massive influx of Midwesterners who had fled the drought and the economic depression of the 1930s. The Grapes of Wrath (1939) recounts the plight of the underclass in the story of the Joads, a family from Oklahoma, who lose their farm and travel to California, the land of milk and honey, only to find their hopes and expectations dashed. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940.

The Grapes of Wrath traces the decline of the family and the rise of the community as the basic unit of social structure in the United States. What precipitated this evolution is a social and economic situation that no longer allowed family farms to provide enough income for a family to survive. With the industrial revolution and the development of tractors, family farms were giving way to factory farming. One of the difficulties Steinbeck faced was how to demonstrate the shared plight of hundreds of thousands of displaced peoples without lapsing into abstractions. On the other hand, were he to tell the story of one person or one family, he would risk obscuring the universal nature of their distress. Steinbeck resolved this problem in several ways. By writing his narrative in the third person and diffusing attention across several characters, he prevents readers from sympathizing too closely with any one individual. To support his universal thesis, Steinbeck intersperses chapters within the Joads' story that move the narrative away from the Joads in order to discuss Judeo-Christian and American sociopolitical traditions that relate to the novel's themes.

Of the novel's thirty chapters, only fourteen tell the story of the Joads. The other sixteen chapters offer thematic or symbolic counterpoints to the story of the Joads. An early chapter, for example, follows a turtle's indomitable progress over the land and across a highway, where it is struck by a passing vehicle. Subsequently, the seeds caught on the turtle's shell are inadvertently planted as they are plowed into the soil. The turtle serves as a sym-bol for the Okies, their movement, and their indomitable will, which tie their destiny to the land.

Other chapters, from descriptions of apocalyptic dust and floods, to the presentation of used-car salesmen, the selling of household items, and the flight of 200,000 migrants over Route 66, expand the focus beyond the particular plight of the Joads. Steinbeck augments this movement from the particular to the universal by employing a diversity of narrative styles, thereby giving voice to a nation in transition. For example, in one chapter he uses the cadences of a used-car salesman trying to fast-talk his customers. In other chapters, he employs the diction, phrasing, and sentence structures of the Bible, of the poets Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg, and of the colloquial speech patterns of the Okies. Still other chapters follow the conventions of journalism and documentaries.

The novel is divided loosely into thirds, according to the setting of the action. In Oklahoma, the Joads ready themselves for their journey; across Route 66, they flee the Dust Bowl for the promised land; and, in California, they attempt to make a new life for themselves. This division supports a pointed analogy to the Old Testament exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt to Canaan. The Dust Bowl's drought and the banks' persecutions parallel Egypt's plagues and the Pharaoh's oppressions. The journey undertaken by hundreds of thousands of displaced Midwesterners is similar to that of the Hebrews. California is the land of milk and honey, but its citizens are less than welcoming to the migrants. Similarly, Canaan, the promised land of the Old Testament, resisted the influx of Hebrews. More specific parallels follow from the analogy. For example, the family name of Joad invokes Judah; the slaughtering of pigs just before the Joads depart is similar to the sacrifice of lambs; and the grandparents die on the journey, just as do the elders during the exodus. These and other references to the Old Testament help Steinbeck universalize the Joads, though not without cost. Some critics have found that by the end of the novel, Ma, Tom, Rose of Sharon, and the other characters serve little more than an allegorical or symbolic function. They, therefore, seem to lose some of their human appeal.

The novel also has its parallels to the New Testament in its language, imagery, and the values it conveys. Jim Casy's teachings and his self-sacrifice evoke Jesus Christ's teachings and his sacrifice. From this perspective, parallels emerge between the twelve Joads and the twelve apostles. Connie, for example, is a Judas figure who leaves the family for an alleged three dollars a day. As strong as these references to the Judeo-Christian tradition are, however, The Grapes of Wrath is not an exercise in piety. Steinbeck strikes a decidedly anti-religious tone early in the novel, where Casy explains why he has given up his ministry. Moreover, the evangelists who preach sin and damnation in the camps are treated with scorn.

A second major strain of social and political thought comes from nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century America. Casy recalls Ralph Waldo Emerson and his theory of the transcendental oversoul when he says that everyone "jus' got a little piece of a great big soul," an idea that is later picked up by Tom. But Emerson's emphasis on individualism falls by the wayside in Steinbeck's novel. When he shares his string of rabbits with Tom and Casy, Muley Graves gives an early nod to the novel's communal undertones: "I ain't got no choice in the matter," he says, " if a fella's got somepin to eat an' another fella's hungry — why, the first fella ain't got no choice." From the Wilsons' sharing of their resources with the Joads on the road, to the final scene — Rose of Sharon's giving her breast milk to a starving man — the novel displays the importance of a mass democracy.

Ma recognizes that the power of the people is in their community. She worries Tom will do something foolish after learning that the banks have foreclosed on farms throughout Oklahoma: "Tommy, don't you go fightin' 'em alone. They'll hunt you down like a coyote. Tommy, I got to thinkin' an' dreamin' an' wonderin'. They say there's a hun'erd thousand of us shoved out. If we was all mad the same way, Tommy — they wouldn't hunt nobody down — ." The novel also demonstrates the pragmatism of philosophers William James and John Dewey, who argued that political, social, or economic ideas are only important or relevant in their practical consequences in the world. The world in The Grapes of Wrath is a world of action.

Although Steinbeck gave a democratic voice to the migrant workers, the emphasis upon community and the general critique of capitalism and exploitation led to early charges that the novel advocated communist principles. Protests followed, fueled in part by the character Jim Casy's rejection of religion. These protests focused attention not on the novel as a work of literature, but on issues of representation and whether it depicted reality or was merely propaganda. There was little doubt that the social and economic conditions of the migrant workers were as Steinbeck reported. He had toured the Hoovervilles and had worked with the migrants in 1936. Issues of representation, therefore, were not about the specific details of the Hoovervilles and the orchards, but about the entire socioeconomic system, whether or not it was failing, and what to do about it. In this debate, the Joads moved from the world of fiction to impact the real world, much as earlier novels (Uncle Tom's Cabin, for example) had forced social change. This debate continues in light of the social, political, and economic changes in the fifty years since the novel's publication. Although the Joads, Jim Casy, and the thousands of migrants are firmly rooted in the circumstances of the 1930s, The Grapes of Wrath also rewards interpretations informed by more recent trends in criticism. Thus, the novel is still relevant with regard to questions about the role of children in the novel, the distinct issues of class, and the decided victimization of people of other races or nationalities.

Source: Richard Henry, in an essay for Novels for Students, Gale, 1999.

What Do I Read Next?

• In Dubious Battle, (1936), is John Steinbeck's first book of a trilogy by the author that looks at the migrant labor problem in the 1930s. The novel focuses on labor organizers and a strike in California's apple fields. The book caused controversy when it was published.
• Of Mice and Men (1937) is the second book in Steinbeck's trilogy of migrant farmers. It is about two migrants, one who is mentally handicapped, and how their dreams of a better life can never be realized because of the oppressive social system.
• Emile Zola's Germinal (1885) is set in a French mining town. The main character in the novel, Etienne Lantier, witnesses how the families of the working class are destroyed by a social environment that sees people only as disposable resources. It is a fate that Etienne is unable to change.
• The Octopus (1901) by Frank Norris, is the first in Norris's "Trilogy of the Wheat." It is set in the San Joaquin Valley of California and addresses the abuses of railroad companies on the local wheat farmers. Norris was concerned with the question of how a Judeo-Christian ethic can exist in a harsh and uncaring world
• In the nonfiction book Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California, (1939) by Carey McWilliams, the author takes a look at the migrant labor problem in his study published the same year as The Grapes of Wrath.
• Justin Kaplan's Lincoln Steffens: A Biography (1974) is a look at one of the most famous muckrakers of American journalism. Steffens wrote a series of articles in 1902 – 1903 that exposed corruption in various city governments. He was one of America's renowned social critics and a great voice for reform. As an old man living in Carmel, California, in the 1930s, he and John Steinbeck became friends, and Steffens was the link who provided Steinbeck with his knowledge of migrant labor and contacts with union organizers that eventually led to his assignment to cover the migrants for the San Francisco Chronicle. Kaplan's book won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
• James N. Gregory's American Exodus: The Dust Bowl and Okie Culture in California (1989) is an account of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s and the migration to California depicted in The Grapes of Wrath.

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