Politics and Literature: Steinbeck's View of Society as a Destroyer
John Steinbeck is remembered as not only one of America's most talented writers; he is also widely recognized as having used his talents to "advance a specific political and social ideology" (Meltzer 14). Having grown up in California and having come of age in the era known as the Great Depression, Steinbeck's own experiences lead him to sympathize with the plight of displaced migrant workers and the poor, particularly the working poor. This empathy, rooted in Steinbeck's belief that the American social contract was designed to prevent extreme disadvantages from accruing to any particular group, resulted in his greatest work. For Steinbeck, political activism and literature were closely linked; as significantly, he saw aspects of society as destructive of individual freedom (Vilbig 52-53).
Critic Todd Lieber stated that "The image of man that finally emerges form his writing suggests a fundamentally religious creature compounded of an intimate blend of good and evil passions and desires" (262). Consequently, society was vulnerable to the explication of the evil passions that drive men to become greedy and egocentric. This is apparent in his story of the Joad family. It was his association with migrant laborers that led Steinbeck to write The Grapes of Wrath, which "shows off many of Steinbeck's greatest strengths as a storyteller and a creator of unforgettable images" (Vilbig 33).
The central characters of John Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath, are small Oklahoma sharecroppers named Joad. They are very like thousands of other farmers and small landowners and business owners who lost their homes, farms and business in the Great Depression. Many of the farmers of the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma and the surrounding region which also experienced a great drought migrated to California and other Western Pacific states in search of work in the agribus...