Customer Reviews

The Grapes of Wrath: Text and Criticism; Revised Edition (Critical Library, Viking)

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When George Steinbeck made this book, he assigned the title "the Grapes of Wrath". Why did he do this? I personally think that he did this to make his readers ponder the meaning of the title. I think that it means different things to anyone that reads the title. To mean it means, The hardships of life.

Steinbeck wrote this book as a political statement and it is still as powerful today as in the 30s. When it was published, it brought national attention to the plight of the migrants. Many of our crops are still picked by migrant workers who work for a pittance - they harvest the abundance of the land but reap poor returns for their pains.

The Grapes of Wrath is one of the most important novels both historically and stylisticly that has ever come out of America. As the reader is taken down the road of hardship and economic injustice that the Joad family must travel, his eyes are open to the terrible calamities that the depression and the Dust Bowl brought on poor farmers. We gain a greater understanding and appreciation for the courage and perseverance displayed by thousands and thousands of migrant workers forced out of their native lands and compelled to compete for slave labor. Through his poetic use of the English language, Steinbeck educates us and inspires us to recognize the indominatable human spirit.

The Grapes of Wrath is one of the most important novels both historically and stylisticly that has ever come out of America. As the reader is taken down the road of hardship and economic injustice that the Joad family must travel, his eyes are open to the terrible calamities that the depression and the Dust Bowl brought on poor farmers. We gain a greater understanding and appreciation for the courage and perseverance displayed by thousands and thousands of migrant workers forced out of their native lands and compelled to compete for slave labor. Through his poetic use of the English language, Steinbeck educates us and inspires us to recognize the indominatable human spirit.

"The highway is alive tonight, but nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes. I'm sitting down here in the campfire light, searchin' for the ghost of Tom Joad."

--Bruce Springsteen, The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995)

And John Steinbeck's novel is still with us, still proving relevant. I would suggest listening to some Woodie Guthrie or Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska or Ghost of Tom Joad while reading this. Though many people clamored for Steinbeck to create another "Grapes of Wrath" throughout his career that would have been a shame. "Grapes of Wrath," is definitely Steinbeck's best-known novel and maybe most socially-conscious, but not the pinnacle of his writing. He creates far more in less pages in works like Cannery Row and Of Mice and Men.

The strength of Grapes of Wrath lies in capturing the migration West of people in need, people from Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas during the dust bowl of the 30's coming to California to find work and a new beginning. The historical accuracy of the plight of the Joad's is up to debate. That is the strength of the Viking Critical Library editions of literature, because the reader gets all the background information divided into the social and creative context as well as a section on criticism. I would highly encourage The Viking Critical Library editions of any great works of literature you are planning on reading.

Back to the point of historical accuracy, there are articles from Frank J. Taylor and Carey McWilliams that give a point-counterpoint to what the Dust Bowl migrants actually went through during that time. Maybe the squalid pallor and rancid prejudice experienced by the Joad family wasn't the average migrant family's ordeal, but I have no doubts that there are elements of migrant families lives pieced together. But the historical accuracy isn't really what a work of fiction should be judged against. Steinbeck never claimed it to be gospel, just a work of literature.

What is most interesting is Steinbeck's concept of the "phalanx" or a group of people formed together to act as one person in defense or in survival. Steinbeck portrays that beautifully here. For further reading on that idea and Steinbeck, I would highly recommend Jackson J. Benson's Steinbeck biography, "John Steinbeck, Writer" as a companion piece to Grapes of Wrath. It will illuminate the man behind the writing.

This is not a book that would make my ten best list, though other Steinbeck works would. But I can say I wouldn't have wanted to miss reading it. We find ourselves in times of struggle. We sometimes find ourselves to be people we hadn't known before. We find others as well. You will find this with "Grapes of Wrath."