The Grapes of Wrath: No One Man, But One Common Soul :: Grapes Wrath essays

The Grapes of Wrath No star Man, But One Common Soul Many writers in American literature try to instill the philosophical systemof their choosing into their reader. This is a lot a philosophy derived atfrom their own personal experiences. John Steinbeck is no exception tothis. When traveling through his native atomic number 20n in the mid-1930s,Steinbeck witnessed pile living in appalling conditions of extremepoverty due to the Great Depression and the country disaster known asthe Dust Bowl. He noticed that these people received no aid whatsoeverfrom neither the state of California nor the federal government. The ragehe experienced from seeing such word fueled his fiction The Grapes ofWrath. Steinbeck sought to change the suffering plight of these farmerswho had migrated from the midwestern United States to California. Also, and moreimportantly, he wanted to suggest a philosophy into the reader, and take carethat this suffering would never occur again (Critical 1). Steinbe ck showsin The Grapes of Wrath that on that point is no one humanity, but one ballpark soul inwhich we all belong to. The subject of Steinbecks fiction is not the most thoughtful,imaginative, and constructive aspects of humanity, but rather the processof life itself (Wilson 785). Steinbeck has been compared to a twentieth coulomb Charles Dickens of California a social critic with more cerebrationthan science or system. His writing is warm, human, inconsistent,occasionally angry, but more often delighted with the joys associated withhuman life on its lowest levels (Holman 20). This biological examine of mancreates techniques and aspects of form capable of conveying this image ofman with sensuous power and conviction the power to overcome adversitythrough collectiveness, or in this case, as one combined soul(Curley 224). Steinbecks basic purpose of the novel is essentially ghostlike,but not in any orthodox sentiency of the word. He is religious in that hecontemplates mans rela tion to the cosmos and attempts to fleetscientific explanations based on sense experience. He is also religious inthat he explicitly attests the holiness of nature (Curley 220). A commonfear during the nineteenth century was one of this naturalism leading tothe hold on of reverence, worship, and sentiment. Steinbeck, however, is thefirst significant author to build his own set of beliefs, which some wouldrefer to as a religion, upon a naturalistic basis. Because of his religious way on a naturalistic basis, he is able to relate man with anatural soul that they own, and combine them into a grouping of a larger,more important soul (220). America and American literature was founded on the spirit of