, Research Paper
Matthew Sinrod
Dr. Doyle
Eng 102
5/5/98
& # 8220 ; Themes in & # 8220 ; The Grapes of Wrath & # 8221 ;
John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California February 27th 1902. He was the 3rd of four kids and the lone boy of John Ernst Steinbeck II, director of a flour factory, and Olive Hamilton Steinbeck, a former instructor. Steinbeck said of his young person, ( & # 8221 ; We were hapless people with a snake pit of a batch of land which made us think we were rich people, even when we couldn & # 8217 ; t purchase nutrient and were patched. & # 8221 ; ) Steinbeck used the country where he grew up as the puting for many of his narratives. He attended Stanford University for a few old ages. He had to work to pay for his instruction, and sometimes took off one one-fourth to pay for the following. ( He worked as a clerk in several shops, was a manus in a spread, and even worked at the Spreckels Sugar Company where he gained cognition of labour jobs he would subsequently compose about in The Grapes of Wrath. ) Other books by Steinbeck include Of Mice and Men, Tortilla Flat, and Cannery Row. He died in New York City on December twentieth 1968.
Sinrod 2
A changeless subject in our narrative is the agony of worlds. As F.W. Watt says,
( The primary impact of The Grapes of Wrath & # 8230 ; is non to do us move, but to do us understand and portion a human experience of agony and opposition. )
Steinbeck shows us that his characters, every bit good as all people must digest sufferi
ng as human existences. Humans suffer due to many factors. Religious agony is one factor which is ego imposed.
( When we foremost see Casy he is explicating to Tom Joad how he left sermon, non simply because of the lecherousnesss that plagued him, but because spiritual religion as he knew it seemed to put up codifications of behaviour which denied human nature its proper and full look )
Religious agony is possibly epitomized in Jesus Christ, and Joseph Fontenrose believes the tragic character of Casey is believed to be the symbolic representation of Jesus Christ himself.
( Jim Casy & # 8217 ; s initials are JC, and he retired to the wilderness to happen religious truth and came Forth to learn a new philosophy of love and good plants & # 8230 ; Casy sacrificed himself for others when he surrendered himself as the adult male who had struck a deputy
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Penguin Books USA Inc, Copyright 1939.
James J. Martine ( ed. ) , Dictionary of Literary Biography Volume Nine, Bruccoli Clark Books, Copyright 1981.
Harold Bloom ( ed. ) , Bloom & # 8217 ; s Notes, Chelsea House Publishers, Copyright 1996.
David Wyatt ( ed. ) , New Essays on The Grapes of Wrath, Cambridge University Press, Copyright 1990.
Carolyn Riley, Phyllis Mendelson ( editors ) , Contemporary Literary Criticism, Gale Company, Copyright 1976. Excerpt from Wilson McWilliams, John Steinbeck, Writer, reprinted with permission of Commonweal Publishing Company.
