Abstract
Growing from immersion in field work among the Okies hunting for work in California, Steinbeck’s first lengthy novel draws from biblical rhythms, news journalism, interviews, and controversial politics. Staying with Pascal Covici after his publishing firm failed, Steinbeck follows Covici to Viking, which becomes his lifetime publisher. With uniformly good reviews, The Grapes of Wrath wins the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
He frequently wrote about his field experiences: “The death of children in our valleys is simply staggering…” (Conversations 38).
- 2.
George Jean Nathan sent Steinbeck the plaque. Of Mice and Men had been given the award over Our Town, Golden Boy, Prologue to Glory—any one of which would have been a likely recipient. The award expressed the judges’ appreciation of “the direct force and perception in handling a theme genuinely rooted in American life” and complimented Steinbeck “for his refusal to make this study of tragical loneliness and frustration either cheap or sensational” (Lisca 143).
- 3.
In one of Shillinglaw’s talks, she quoted from Steinbeck’s reply to a college student who had asked about the alternating chapters. She agreed with the student that both “pace” and “counterpoint” were important, but then quoted Steinbeck’s reply: “the basic purpose was to hit the reader below the belt with the rhythms and symbols of poetry. One can get into a reader, open him up, and while he’s open, introduce things on an intellectual level which he would not or could not receive unless he were opened up” (Shillinglaw “Wrath” 159).
- 4.
Steinbeck later wrote an essay about Collins, naming him “Windsor Drake,” stressing his great attention to human values, his management style that revered the people who found refuge in his camps. In Steinbeck’s words, the two men “traveled together, sat in the ditches with the migrant workers, lived and ate with them. We heard a thousand miseries and a thousand jokes. We ate fried dough and sow belly, worked with the sick and the hungry, listened to complaints and little triumphs” (Steinbeck Nonfiction 216).
- 5.
Benson quotes Steinbeck saying that, rather than Lorentz’s films, a more direct influence on The Grapes of Wrath was probably John Dos Passos’ achievements in his USA novels (Benson 399).
- 6.
Seed attributes the alternation between the general and the particular as well, so dominant in The Grapes of Wrath, to Lorentz’s technique in his film of moving between “stasis and movement, settlement and civilization, peace and war” (Seed 195–96).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wagner-Martin, L. (2017). The Grapes of Wrath. In: John Steinbeck. Literary Lives. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55382-9_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55382-9_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-55381-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-55382-9
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)