DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM: A MARXIST ANALYSIS OF JOHN STEINBECK'S THE GRAPES OF WRATH (original) (raw)
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The Seamy Side of American Capitalism in John Steinbeck's the Grapes of Wrath
2014
This article is an attempt to study Steinbeck’s vision of the American system of capitalism during 1930’s as causing the greatest economic crisis in American history. The study particularly observes the growth of materialistic values in this era. The main discussion concerns the dramatic journey of Joad’s family toward California as reflected in The Grapes of Wrath. With an interdisciplinary approach, the study examines the novel to comprehend the author’s view about his social phenomena. This is a kind of qualitative research in which the researcher applied library research on The Grapes of Wrath. The data gathered from bibliographical sources was analyzed and written descriptively to describe the seamy side of capitalism in America. The result of this research shows that material success is not the human’s only orientation in his life. The great depression and tragic life of Oklahoma tenant farmers were viewed by the author as due to the impact of uncontrolled American Capitalism ...
The Dehumanizing Aspect of the American Capitalism in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1986
Himalayan Journal of Education and Literature, 2023
This study aims at examining the hardships undergone by a family of farmers, the Joads, evicted of the land they have been tied to for hundreds of years after being drastically affected by a drought. Being no longer able to stay in their homeland where they have no other source of survival than the land taken from them, they move to California during the fruit picking season to earn their living. Unfortunately, they experienced there harsher realities epitomized by hunger, rejection and injustice. Through the countless ordeals met by that family, Steinbeck uses the poor economic situation of the working class to unveil the inequalities that exist in the American society, and at the same time demystify the ideals that adorn the American dream. This work has followed a historical and descriptive analytical approach focusing on the aftermaths of the Great Depression and that of the Dust Bowl along with the description of the difficulties undergone by the Joads. In this analysis, realism and naturalism are also applied, the first one mirrors the true life of the American society, and the second one depicts the hard conditions of the working class. As far as the outcome is concerned, this analysis has revealed that people called capitalists in the novel, are financially rich but spiritually poor or even spiritually empty because they consider other humans as inhumans. In addition, the tough living conditions of the Joads family in the States has shown the dark side of the American dream.
The Efforts of Eradicating Poverty as Reflected in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath
2021
The researchers aimed to describe the efforts of eradicating poverty as reflected in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. This research is combined some supporting theory to explain the concept of poverty clearly. Moreover, the researcher analyzed the portrait of poverty and the solutions through the novel by using Goldmann's genetic structuralism approach. The qualitative method is using by the researcher in order to collect and to analyze the data. The results of this research show the portrait of poverty causing by several conditions. Furthermore, in eradicating poverty through the novel, there are some efforts done by the characters and the governments which is new deal program.
“We’re All Red” A Universal and Inclusive Perspective of Class Struggle in The Grapes of Wrath.
Although McCarthyism and the phrase “Red’s under the beds” had yet to be coined, John Steinbeck, in his novel The Grapes of Wrath, was able to illustrate an American society filled with fear of the Bolshevik Red menace. This menace was in a wholly different form though, that of the oppressed working class seeking basic worker’s rights. The Grapes of Wrath is as much a story about class struggles and oppression as it is a narrative on the complex economic turmoil during the Great Depression in 1930’s America. Steinbeck portrays the Joad family, abandoned by their current landowners, along with thousands of other families; they are part of a countrywide Exodus towards California - a promised land. Unfortunately for Steinbeck’s protagonists their story is as much about futility as it is despair. The Joads find that new conditions of oppression and new forms of struggles have replaced their old ones. The Grapes of Wrath is hardly explicit Marxist literature, but rather than being subversive the universal message and its infiltration into mainstream reading has made it a text that defines a whole generation of oppressed. In much the same way that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels sought to enlighten the subjugated working class with The Communist Manifesto, a text that spoke to all Proletariat, Steinbeck’s is fundamentally a narrative that not only adapts Marxist theory but also reports it as a wider issue in its historical context. The fundamental social issue that Steinbeck portrays is class struggle and this message is meant to be as comprehensive as possible - including all that are oppressed.
langlit, 2018
Steinbeck's The GW describes in detail capitalist failure in the 1930s during the Great Depression with realistic manner of depiction. Starting from the bankers and landlords of Oklahoma, elucidating precisely the terror and horror of the rich over the poor farmers and tenants; to the camps and shelters of the migrants, referring with their name to the corrupt President Hoover; then after, explaining the bad condition of the poor in California as being immigrants in the state; and eventually, the novelist ends the novel up with the tragedy of the poor as they are starved and fought by the landowners of California who have imported foreign workers though the Okies are in an urgent need for work to live on with their children, nonetheless, their dirty treatment with the low class workers and the poor in general. On the other hand, Steinbeck further praises the human values and morals of the communism in the help and cooperation of one another and unification.
Racial Discrimination And Economic Inequality In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath
Int. J. of Aquatic Science, 2021
The present paper studies the theme of racial discrimination and economic inequality in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. The Grapes of Wrath portrays the plight of the working class during the Great Depression (1929). It highlights the problems faced by the farmers and migrant workers. The novel exposes the dehumanized and antipeople nature of the American economy, especially the financial institutions. The story is about the agricultural labourers whose livelihood has been taken away by machines and technology. They became jobless and shorn of resources for their survival. It is a story of the dispossessed Oklahoma family and their struggle to carve out a new life in California at the height of the Great Depression. Steinbeck is not openly calling for revolution or relying entirely on attacking the rich or supporting the poor; he is merely struggling to find a way to illustrate the necessity of one man to be willing and able to rely on another for support. The present paper focuses on the plight of economically underprivileged sections of society during the Great Depression era.
The Grapes of Wrath: Tender Narrator in Action
Since their first publication in 1939, The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck’s unquestionably greatest novel, have been translated into at least forty five languages and sold in over fourteen million copies worldwide. Written at a staggering speed in eight months with the first draft under the title L’Affaire Lettuceberg destroyed by the author as not enough, The Grapes were the last in a triptych of novels about California’s migrant workers, the other two being In Dubious Battle (1936) and Of Mice and Men (1937). The tragic plight of migrant work force and their families remained at the time the focus of Steinbeck’s tender attention. In my presentation, I argue that the novel’s unwavering status and popularity among readers is in no small part due to the structure of its complex narration: the masterful employment of detail and narrow perspective that spans out to direct the reader towards vast conclusions and a wide picture of how the westering pattern created America. Furthermore, my aim is to demonstrate that Steinbeck’s method can successfully be analyzed through Olga Tokarczuk’s concept of “tender narrator” presented in her Nobel Prize lecture in 2019. The tender narrator is that mode of seeing which incorporates all without bias, which connects scattered fragments of a seemingly disconnected reality into a whole, wherein the world emerges as being alive, living, and composed of interdependent identities that interconnect and impact one another in often not evident ways. My aim is to demonstrate that Steinbeck’s tender narrative tactics created the masterpiece whose voice and message still resonate in the world today.
JISRS, 2024
After having a deep comparative study, this paper contends that both Echikkanam's "Biriyani" and John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath show the influence of Marxist thought. The study further examines this influence through three significant lenses: alienation, exploitation, and extravagance. The alienation section details workers' isolation from their harvest in each story and shows a pervasive shroud of alienation haunting those who work. Secondly, as for the second bent of focus, exploitation shows how daily workers work in hard conditions and systematic suppression that divides them from those privileged. Finally, an analysis of luxury demonstrates how the capitalist class delights in decadence as impoverished multitudes struggle for bare essentials, showing a stark socioeconomic contrast between two fictional worlds. This comparative study points at a current principle in Marxism concerning contemporaneous literature and presents great insights into similar thematic frameworks of "Biriyani" and Grapes of Wrath.