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BACKGROUND
- father = county treasurer (John, Sr.)
- mother = former school teacher (Olive)
- summers: manual laborer (on neighboring ranches)
- high school:
- school newspaper
- president of graduating class
- 1919-25: Stanford U….poor attendance, BUT no degree
- 1925-30:
- left college to be full-time writer in New York
- (no luck, back to California)
- drifted, read, wrote
- worked as manual laborer
- hod-carrier, fruit-picker, apprentice painter,
laboratory assistant, caretaker, surveyor
- 1st 3 books = basically ignored
- 1930: married (Carol Henning, 1st wife)
- #1: Carol Henning (divorced 1943)
- #2: Gwyn Conger (1943-48)
- #3: Elaine Scott (1950)
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BACKGROUND
- Tortilla Flat (1935)
- marks a turn-around in his career
- Of Mice And Men (1937)
- The Grapes Of Wrath (1939)
- dispossessed Oklahoma family
- (Pulitzer Prize)
- World War II:
- war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune
- North Africa & Italy
- post-WWII:
- prosperity
- materialism, acquisitiveness
- suburbia
- commercialization
- 1962: Nobel Prize for Literature
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THEMES
- social criticism
– proletarian themes
- (Great Depression)
- social commentary, social consciousness
- social protest (1930s = era of protest novels)
- waste, corruption, poverty (instead of promise)
- Fallen World (corrupted Garden of Eden)
- society = sick (greed, materialism)
- Common Man
- underdog
- Okie sharecroppers
- Salinas “paisanos” (Mexican-Indian-Caucasian
ethnic mix)
- fruit pickers
- migrant workers
- “neighborly interdependence”
- “migrants as preservers of the old American
verities”
- courteous, trusting, friendly, generous
- NI = needs to be regained before materialism
destroys society
- NI not = to Communism
- human dignity
- compassion
- anti-materialism
- post-WWII:
- prosperity à materialism, acquisitiveness;
suburbia; commercialization
- “Old America” (its values) = gone
- America’s best days = past
- anti-Big Business
- depersonalization
- dehumanization
- impersonal corporate farms/institutions
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THEMES
- relationship between people & nature
- nature not= Eden
- (not a perfect world, can be harsh to people, can be
deterministic)
- disconnect from the LAND
- misuse, abuse of land = misuse, abuse of people
- waste of lives & land
- MIX
- distrust & anger at society
- faith & love of land & American people
- extols virtues of American Dream
- exposes evils of increasingly materialistic society
- “biological view” of humanity
- objectivity
- as is (actuality)
- not @ causes/motives & not @ how should be
- adaption
- adapt to survive....change or die
- survival of the fittest (fittest to adapt)
- “group-man” (group instinct)
- man as individual = no identity
- man as group (humanity) = the only reality
- man = cell in organism (part of whole),
- but organism isn’t like the cell
- human vultures:
- people taking advantage of the hardships of the
vulnerable, weak
- exploitation
- self-serving
- posing as friends
- GROUNDED OPTIMISM
- life = tough (as is, not glorified)
- BUT
- life = worth living
- “celebrational sense of life”
- existence = conflict, constant battle (w/people,
corporations, nature)
- human fellowship, courage, “neighborly
interdependence”
- humans & nature (all life) = durable, resilient
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STYLE
- varied style
- MIX
- highly symbolic
- 1st-hand experience
- worked as migrant worker, lived among them
- total immersion
- genuine concern, authentic social commentary
- compassion, admiration, & outrage
- journalistic
- documentary-style
- description
- objectivity
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STYLE
- (+)
- descriptive
- vivid, evocative
- cinematic
- realistic
- didn’t glorify migrants, nature
- “warts & all”
- grounded optimism
- (-)
- sentimentality
- symbolism (obvious, too much)
- characters = flat, staged/manipulated,
“stage-like creations”
- (like actors obviously acting)
- (not brought to life)
- artificiality
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LINKS
LINKS
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