19021902-1968-1968

One of the most One of the most

famous American famous American

writers of the 20th writers of the 20th

century, foremost century, foremost

spokesman of the spokesman of the

Great Depression. Great Depression.

Steinbeck’s novels Steinbeck’s novels

can all be classified can all be classified

as social novels as social novels

dealing with the dealing with the

economic problems of economic problems of

rural labor. rural labor.

• During the late 1920s and 1930s he concentrated on writing and wrote several novels set in California.

• Steinbeck gained great success byreaders and critics.

19021902-1968-1968

• His first novel was published in 1929 (Cup of Gold) and his last in 1961 (The Winter of Our Discontent).

• He won the Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath.

• He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.

• 29 Academy Award nominations and 4 Academy Awards were given for adaptations of John Steinbeck stories.

*Title originated from Julia *Title originated from Julia Ward Howe's Ward Howe's The Battle The Battle Hymn of the RepublicHymn of the Republic (1861). (1861).

**The ExodusThe Exodus story of the story of the Joad’s on their way to an Joad’s on their way to an uncertain future in uncertain future in California ends with a California ends with a scene in which Rose of scene in which Rose of Sharon, who has just Sharon, who has just delivered a stillborn child, delivered a stillborn child, feeds a starving man with feeds a starving man with her breast.her breast.

Tom

Jim Casy

Ma Pa

Rose of Sharon

Others

Granma Grampa

The Joad’s

Tom

Jim CasySelected reading

EXCERPTS

• Highway 66 is the main migrant road. 66 – the long concrete path across the country, waving gently up and down on the map, from the Mississippi to Bakersfield – over the red lands and the gray lands, twisting up into the mountains, crossing the Divide and down into the bright and terrible desert, and across the desert to the mountains again, and into the rich California valleys.

• The other halve – non-narrative chapters– Inter-chapters (intercalary chapters) – 16 in number interspersed with 30 chapters

＊ new technique created ; ＊ provides a social historical background for the Joad’s story ;＊ contributes to the book success as a social document & literary masterpiece

Writing style : ★ Under the trend of naturalistic writing with gloomy and

pessimistic revelation ; ★ Dramatic quality in the epic proportion and input ; ★ Interwoven with realism through journalistic and

cinematic reportage

Quick Questions• Why the Okies had to move?

• Where were the migrant farmers heading for?

THE Dust storms began on May 1934. Where did the dust start?_ 1930’s drought_ Heavy demand on agricultural crops made farmers over-farmed._ loose uprooted grass hardly kept the soil underneath.

The Dust Bowls stretched northward from the Texas panhandle, New Mexico, and western Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and the Dakotas.

The Fields of Salinas, California

Setting

• Geographical setting– Oklahoma →Route 66 → Central California

• Time setting– In the late of 1930s (in the midst of Great

Depression)

Selected Reading Analysis

• Poetic Description• Characterization

• Theme revealed – Holiness of all the people – Seize-the-time Philosophy– Unity of all the mankind

• I → We ; Selfishness → Altruism

Images

• Route 66– Way to hope

• Turtle – Tractor house– Desperate struggle

• Biblical Indication

Assignment

• Faulkner Dry September

• What is the story about?

• What is each part about?

• What is the setting of the story?