In Ashley’s critique of “The Grapes of Wrath,” he states that Steinbeck’s greatest work finally suited his greatest limitation, that he is not a great thinker, nor are his characters. He supports his opinion with a quote from a great American literary critic, Edmund Wilson, that Stienbeck specializes “not in those aspects of humanity in which it is most thoughtful, imaginative, constructive” but in simple human beings, “almost at the animal level,” enduring or fighting to survive. His best subject is “the processes of life itself.” One might argue this point in asking if it is not characteristic of a great thinker to have acute insight into the psyche and motivation of the common man; to have a real sense of the human condition. And, aren’t the actions of the simple human being, struggling for survival, finding the will and the way to continue through endless obstacles and oppression, thoughtful, imaginative, and constructive? Ashley perhaps contradicts his opinion of Steinbeck when he writes, “Steinbeck is more artist than activist, and he has woven of actual events and biblical allusions what has been rightly identified as “a pattern of dispossession; of nobility achieved by sacrifice necessitated by suffering; of wandering in the wilderness of exile; of struggle, defeat, hope, and eventual victory; of decadence and renewed struggles–here is an allegory of humanity itself.”
Ashley continues his analysis of “The Grapes of Wrath” recognizing that the novel is better read today than in the day of it’s creation, he says, due to how college students today are “quite frankly, almost as unfamiliar with fine writing as they are with socialist theories or biologism or regional Oklahoma dialect (all of which take a beating in the book).” And that “they do not notice that this is one of those great American masterpieces (along with “Moby-Dick” and “An American Tragedy,” not to get too close to living writers) which is very awkwardly written.” Awkwardly written may perhaps be part of the point. Often the style in which a novel is written is also reflective of the tone of the story, creating a better understanding of the message to the reader. Ashley again supports his statement with one in agreement from Edmund Wilson in reference to all of Steinbeck’s novels, “precisely the borderline between work that is definitely superior and work that is definitely bad.” Steinbeck’s use of metaphors and symbolism in this work is superior; for instance, in the second chapter, after Tom Joad is released from prison and asked the truck driver for a ride, the truck driver agrees to do so despite the sticker on the truck that clearly states that he will not. The sticker is a statement of the rule of big business and the oppression of the working class man. In the third chapter the same point is illustrated by the turtle crossing the road, being hit by the sedan, spinning of the road and struggling to turn his body over again to start on his journey anew. The turtle is clearly symbolic of the farmers being driven off their land by the bank foreclosures, making a valiant effort to compose themselves, and forge onward. Are college students today less familiar with fine writing, or has the definition of fine writing changed? The novel is better received today, of course, because it is now being read by an audience far removed from the sensitive circumstances experienced by the original reader.
There is debate of the religious significance of “The Grapes of Wrath” as well. Ashley examines the resemblance of Tom Joad as either Christ or Saint Paul, and Jim Casy as Christ or Saint John the Baptist, and has deemed the novel “an angry and unorthodox New Testament of a religion of mankind.” This is apparent is Casy’s statement, as a former preacher who has abandoned his guilt over having sexual relations with the girls he had “saved”, in stating that he was unsure whether there is virtue or sin in the actions of people, or if there are just “things that people do.” This isn’t the only display of Steinbeck’s rejection of traditional Christian teachings; Tom Joad makes a mockery of the religious Christmas card that his grandmother sent him in prison. In chapter four, Tom Joad tells Casy that he is to lead people, even if he does not know where to lead them. Perhaps this does lend to the idea that these two characters are recreation of biblical figures. Eventually Casy does become a leader, as the organizer of the strikers. Later, after his death Tom Joad continues his work. Therefore, Steinbeck does introduce his philosophy, a view of God being of and the same as the common man, not as a Christ that is obscure.
Ashley states that many liked the book because “it is quintessentially American, and all the more so (perhaps) because though not “literary” it is one of our literary classics.” Literature is defined as a written work, displaying excellence in form and expression, dealing with permanent issues. The Grapes of Wrath undoubtedly meets the criteria to be considered one of the greatest works of American Literature, and is supported by the statement made by the Swedish Academy honoring Steinbeck in 1962 when it won the Nobel Prize for literature: “His sympathies always go out to the oppressed, the misfits, and the distressed; he likes to contrast the simple joy of life with the brutal and cynical craving for money. But in him we find the American temperament also expressed in his great feeling for nature, for the tilled soil, the waste land, the mountains and the ocean coasts, all an inexhaustible source of inspiration to Steinbeck in the midst of, and beyond, the world of human beings.
