Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism | The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck - James D. Brasch (essay date May 1977)

James D. Brasch (essay date May 1977)

SOURCE: Brasch, James D. “The Grapes of Wrath and Old Testament Skepticism.” San Jose Studies 3, no. 2 (May 1977): 16-27.

[In the following essay, Brasch finds elements from stories in the Old Testament in The Grapes of Wrath.]

John Steinbeck's Salinas Valley has always rested in the shade of the mountains of the Old Testament, and the legends of the people of Israel have frequently charted and illuminated the vicissitudes of his characters. Humble gestures and heroic achievements in Steinbeck's novels recount the history of “God's chosen people” as they struggled from the Garden of Eden to the Promised Land. Frequently, the speech rhythms of Steinbeck's chosen people echo the stately rhythms of the King James Version of the Old Testament. Even when he used quotations from the Vedas (To a God Unknown) or Paradise Lost (In Dubious Battle) as epigraphs for his novels,...

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