John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath As a Naturalistic Novel

Abstract

      John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath(1939) exposes the desperate conditions that surrounded the migratory farm families in America during the year of the Great Depression from the Naturalistic point of view. It combines his adoration of the land and his simple hatred of the corruption resulting from Materialism and his faith in common to overcome his hostile environment. It attempts to present the problem of the workers of the lower classes, and exposes the unusual family, conditions under which the Joads, the migratory farm family, was forced to live during these years. The progress the government intended to spread on the Oklahoma fields and ranches sheltered families a part and reduced the migrants to beggars suffering from deprivation and hunger. His California novels attack the counterfeited image of paradise that people held when they set their migration to California.