John Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath :: essays research papers

John Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath serves as a milestone in the plethora of literature addressing the lives, adversities and perseverance of those affected by the American Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s. However, the responses generated by the book motley greatly. Some permit hailed it as one of the great American masterpieces, flaws included, whilst others guide it as a so-so book fraught with distorted, dramatised hi taradiddle and propaganda. The forefront that persists sixty-six years later the publication of the novel, and sixty-five years after the dbut of John Fords black and ashen drama, is can this work serve as reliable history and permit literature? The novel was always intended to be a material account of the hardships of the migrating Okies, yet as Keith Windschuttle eloquently dissects in his article Steinbecks Myth of the Okies, the diachronic distortions of the narrative, regardless of the authors intention, abound.Before assessing the historical m erit of such a work it is important to systematically debunk the gross inaccuracies of the text. When assessing the historical writing of narrative, especially fictitious writing that presents itself as history, it is important to take into account the inherent subjective nature of a narrative. When creating any account of history it is unavoidable that the writer of fiction (or level off brute fact) will select and combine sources he designates as relevant in order to aid the overall meaning-making process of the text. Thus, Steinbecks tackle to generate dramatised myth around the history of depression and in specific the Okies, is only a function of the narrative intended to capture the reader. For example, in response to Keith Windschuttles article some readers of the New Criterion have been quoted the greatness of The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbecks masterpiece and one of the great American novels, should not be minimized, and I believe Mr. Windshuttle was wrong to do so. It is a story of the bravery and perseverance of three-dimensional human beings who come to life on the novels pages. The Grapes of Wrath is not a mere coitus of history, demography, or geography. -Grey Satterfield , Oklahoma City However, one cannot deny that the text is grossly distorted and propagandist at points. For example, the dust storms spoken of repeatedly in the novel would not have affected many of the regions described , such as the area inhabited by the Joads, Salisaw Oklahoma.