(Part I – see previous post)
Steinbeck in this epoch-making novel ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ has also described the concept of ‘oversoul’. Many philosophers and men of religion, not only in America but also in other parts of the world, have expressed their belief that there is an ‘oversoul’ of which all human beings are parts. In ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ this idea has been given a practical shape when the Joad family, after many deaths and separations, realizes that the only way of being happy in this world is to love others like oneself and help them as far as possible. Steinbeck has Casy rephrase Emerson’s concepts of the Oversoul and self-reliance. He helps unite the prisoners in California jail when they effectively protest against the sour food there and his death during the abortive strike at the Hooper ranch results in more determination on the part of those who survive him, including Tom.
Emerson, a great American poet, had earlier expressed his belief in the existence of and ‘oversoul’. Steinbeck has taken that validity in this novel. There are several incidents in the novel that demonstrate Emersonian concept of self-reliance. The Joads show this quality when they nurse their sputtering truck and the Wilsons’ car along Highway 66 to California. Casy declares that he cannot repair broken connecting-rods but Tom and Al can. The common people can also dig graves rig tents, grind valves, repair flats, find food where almost none exists, pick peaches and cotton, nurse babies and cook breakfast simultaneously, lay pipe underground and so on. They relish work. They want neither organized psalm-singing nor organized hand-outs. They want to earn their food by sweating for it. So Steinbeck places his faith in the little man and his instinctive ability to get together with others like himself for survival against the opposing forces of nature and the profit system.
The ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ deals with problems like social, political, economic and agrarian, side by side. Steinbeck has pointed to the inner emotional, ethical and spiritual state and the various phases of life, that is, the natural and social forces. It has cosmic dimensions and universal significance. It explains why the social, moral and religious framework of American society has been given a thematic extension which takes into stride the whole of mankind. The Joad family stands for the movement of humanity from a particular position to an ever-growing social, moral and spiritual state of universal love; self-centred individuality is left behind to achieve universal dimension. Joads always dream of happy home where no one would sterve as he is living a life and this dream becomes a symbol of man’s desire to escape from the prevailing condition to a happy and prosperous future. All the characters are lost in their own selves. They feel alienated. There is darkness all around because of individualism. In the end, there is light of knowledge, everybody tries to come out of the cocoon and identifies himself with the “bigger-self”.
Steinbeck seems to be saying ‘give the common man a chance and there will be enough to go around’. Like Jefferson, Whitman and Sandburg, the author of ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ trust the people. Jefferson deplored federalism and advocated agrarian democracy. Whitman made a religion out of his worship of man en-masse. Sandburg delighted in the little guy’s endurance. The novel also seems to be an extension of Whitman’s philosophy of looking at the masses like one’s own self (“One’s self I sing…the word en-masse”).
Steinbeck has also presented a case of government’s intervention in the prevailing circumstances. He dows not seem to be against the mechanization of the agriculture but he is certainly against the inhuman practices which forced millions to uproot from their age-old homes. Apart from mechanization, the other cause of misery of the workers was the bank. At many places banks and tractors have been presented as big devils.
A significant comment has been made by the author in the twenty-ninth chapter of the novel: “The break would never come so long as fear could turn into wrath.” Symbolically this statement sums up the meaning of the whole novel. It signifies that till people continue to fear their exploiters and other cruel forces, the ‘grapes’ will remain sour for them. But when they get united and turn their fear into wrath against their exploiters, the grapes would turn sweet. In other words, the author seems to be suggesting that unless the workers unite themselves against exploitation and man-made misery, their plight will only worsen without any hope of remedy.
There have been varied opinions about the novel. An association of farmers in California denounced it as “obscene sensationalism” and “propaganda in its vilest form”. The book was banned in some city libraries. But with such publicity the book became the bestseller in most of the stores. While some considered it “a heaven-shaming and Christ insulting book”, the other extreme may be represented by the view that it is a “truthful book of literary as well as social value, resembling in power and beauty of sytle, the King James Version of the Bible.”
‘The Grapes of Wrath’ is not only a novel of a contemporary problem rather it is as valid today. It it were simply a novel of social protest, it would now be as dead as Upton Sinclair’s ‘Jungle’ and Ida Tarbell’s ‘History of the Standard Oil Company’. If it were as inartistic as most proletarian fiction of 1930s, once startling examples of which one can hardly even name today, it would certainly not continue to be the steady publishing success it is. Like Stephen Crane’s ‘Red Badge of Courage’, which is about a specific war of a century ago, it is also a parable of fear overcome and as such appeals universally to generations of readers. ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ has an appeal which is timeless. It owed its inception to a specific crisis which no longer plagues the nation. But in the process of dramatizing that problem and suggesting ways in which it should be combated, Steinbeck gave us a gripping novel with enduring characterization and a message which is timeless. Ma Joad, Tom Joad and Jim Casy – and in lesser ways the others as well – enact for us a story of the unending struggle of men of good will to make the promise of the land a living reality.
Emerson, a great American poet, had earlier expressed his belief in the existence of and ‘oversoul’. Steinbeck has taken that validity in this novel. There are several incidents in the novel that demonstrate Emersonian concept of self-reliance. The Joads show this quality when they nurse their sputtering truck and the Wilsons’ car along Highway 66 to California. Casy declares that he cannot repair broken connecting-rods but Tom and Al can. The common people can also dig graves rig tents, grind valves, repair flats, find food where almost none exists, pick peaches and cotton, nurse babies and cook breakfast simultaneously, lay pipe underground and so on. They relish work. They want neither organized psalm-singing nor organized hand-outs. They want to earn their food by sweating for it. So Steinbeck places his faith in the little man and his instinctive ability to get together with others like himself for survival against the opposing forces of nature and the profit system.
The ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ deals with problems like social, political, economic and agrarian, side by side. Steinbeck has pointed to the inner emotional, ethical and spiritual state and the various phases of life, that is, the natural and social forces. It has cosmic dimensions and universal significance. It explains why the social, moral and religious framework of American society has been given a thematic extension which takes into stride the whole of mankind. The Joad family stands for the movement of humanity from a particular position to an ever-growing social, moral and spiritual state of universal love; self-centred individuality is left behind to achieve universal dimension. Joads always dream of happy home where no one would sterve as he is living a life and this dream becomes a symbol of man’s desire to escape from the prevailing condition to a happy and prosperous future. All the characters are lost in their own selves. They feel alienated. There is darkness all around because of individualism. In the end, there is light of knowledge, everybody tries to come out of the cocoon and identifies himself with the “bigger-self”.
Steinbeck seems to be saying ‘give the common man a chance and there will be enough to go around’. Like Jefferson, Whitman and Sandburg, the author of ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ trust the people. Jefferson deplored federalism and advocated agrarian democracy. Whitman made a religion out of his worship of man en-masse. Sandburg delighted in the little guy’s endurance. The novel also seems to be an extension of Whitman’s philosophy of looking at the masses like one’s own self (“One’s self I sing…the word en-masse”).
Steinbeck has also presented a case of government’s intervention in the prevailing circumstances. He dows not seem to be against the mechanization of the agriculture but he is certainly against the inhuman practices which forced millions to uproot from their age-old homes. Apart from mechanization, the other cause of misery of the workers was the bank. At many places banks and tractors have been presented as big devils.
A significant comment has been made by the author in the twenty-ninth chapter of the novel: “The break would never come so long as fear could turn into wrath.” Symbolically this statement sums up the meaning of the whole novel. It signifies that till people continue to fear their exploiters and other cruel forces, the ‘grapes’ will remain sour for them. But when they get united and turn their fear into wrath against their exploiters, the grapes would turn sweet. In other words, the author seems to be suggesting that unless the workers unite themselves against exploitation and man-made misery, their plight will only worsen without any hope of remedy.
There have been varied opinions about the novel. An association of farmers in California denounced it as “obscene sensationalism” and “propaganda in its vilest form”. The book was banned in some city libraries. But with such publicity the book became the bestseller in most of the stores. While some considered it “a heaven-shaming and Christ insulting book”, the other extreme may be represented by the view that it is a “truthful book of literary as well as social value, resembling in power and beauty of sytle, the King James Version of the Bible.”
‘The Grapes of Wrath’ is not only a novel of a contemporary problem rather it is as valid today. It it were simply a novel of social protest, it would now be as dead as Upton Sinclair’s ‘Jungle’ and Ida Tarbell’s ‘History of the Standard Oil Company’. If it were as inartistic as most proletarian fiction of 1930s, once startling examples of which one can hardly even name today, it would certainly not continue to be the steady publishing success it is. Like Stephen Crane’s ‘Red Badge of Courage’, which is about a specific war of a century ago, it is also a parable of fear overcome and as such appeals universally to generations of readers. ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ has an appeal which is timeless. It owed its inception to a specific crisis which no longer plagues the nation. But in the process of dramatizing that problem and suggesting ways in which it should be combated, Steinbeck gave us a gripping novel with enduring characterization and a message which is timeless. Ma Joad, Tom Joad and Jim Casy – and in lesser ways the others as well – enact for us a story of the unending struggle of men of good will to make the promise of the land a living reality.
2 comments:
My apologies, I had entirely overlooked the "Part one" of your previous post. I think this is a much more in-depth analysis (I don't mean to critique this as an essay or anything, I just don't know how to express it in other words), and I particularly liked the portions pertaining to the "oversoul." It's a fitting concept for Steinbeck, who, despite being a fixture of americana, always reminded me a bit of a british writer, and the idea of the oversoul seems to be a pretty popular topic for some British romantic poets (and arguably certain british modernists as well).
My apologies, I had entirely overlooked the "Part one" of your previous post. I think this is a much more in-depth analysis (I don't mean to critique this as an essay or anything, I just don't know how to express it in other words), and I particularly liked the portions pertaining to the "oversoul." It's a fitting concept for Steinbeck, who, despite being a fixture of americana, always reminded me a bit of a british writer, and the idea of the oversoul seems to be a pretty popular topic for some British romantic poets (and arguably certain british modernists as well).
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