The Application and Reflection on Myth—Archetypal Criticism in The Grapes Of Wrath

【Abstract】John Steinbeck is a great writer who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1939 and the Nobel Prize for literature in 1962. His novel The Grapes of Wrath is considered as his best work. It describes the story of many farmers and their migration in the 1930s because of the economic panic. People became jobless and hopeless because of the disaster. During that period， many American peasants went bankrupt， and migrated to other places. They made every effort to survive. John Steinbeck managed to show how the hope-filled people become despair and wrathful and how the grapes of hope turn into the grapes of wrath， expressing his sympathy with the dispossessed and instills his novel with something religious solemn.

【Key words】John Steinbeck； The Grapes of Wrath； Bible； archetype

John Steinbecks most famous novel， The Grapes of Wrath， was published in April， 1939， and has achieved great popularity and sustained criticism. It describes the story of many farmers and their migration in the 1930s because of the economic panic. John Steinbeck applies the structure of Exodus to the novels plot and creates most of the main characters with the evident Biblical archetypal influence.

In the Thirties， the Great Depression spread， and life became more and more miserable（Zang， 2004， p. 63）. This book gives a vivid and detailed description of the history during this period about the struggling of the peasants. This novel also expresses the unjustness of the social economy， at the same time， showing a theme of the broken “American Dreams”（Li， 2009， p. 204）.

The novel describes the migration of a dispossessed family from the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to California and their subsequent exploitation by a ruthless system of agricultural economics. The plight of the Joad family is universalized as a microcosm of the thousands of other tenant farmers during the countrys time of crisis.

In Exodus， “the king of Egypt put slave masters over the Hebrews to oppress them with forced labor”， “They made the Hebrews lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and all kinds of work in the fields； in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.”（Bible， Exodus 1： 11）Thus the Hebrews fight their way to escape from the ruling of the Egyptians. In the novel， the dispossessed， migrant familys departure from their windy and dusty land， and their slow disintegration provides insight into the thousands of Oklahoma， Colorado， Texas Panhandle， and W. Kansas families who were evicted and uprooted from their farm land， and forced to search westward in the inhospitable Eden of California for jobs and survival with thousands of other migrant workers.

Like the Hebrews led by Mose， fight their way out of Egypt， the Joad family also followed a preacher Jim Casy， went on their way towards their dream land. While the Hebrews finally arrived in “a good and spacious land， a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites…”（Bible， Exodus 3： 2）， the Joad family were still in misery. Upon their arrival in California， they didnt find the “dream land”， but were trapped into a desperate situation： Hungry men crowded the alleys to beg for bread； a number of people died. There would be no work and no food. For Steinbeck， the treatment of these workers is not only inhumane， but below even the treatment of livestock； he makes the point that no farm owner would leave his horse to starve when it was not used. However， the farm owners are doing just that for the migrant labor force. Steinbeck even writes that “death was a friend， and sleep was deaths brother.”（Steinbeck， John， 223）

All the people have finished their spiritual journey， a successful one. In The Holy Bible， “liberation is not the true theme of Exodus narrative” but rather “the migration to a new land”（Barton， 1988： 77）The Grapes of Wrath is the story of the Joad familys experiences， at the same time， Steinbeck wanted the reader to see beyond the Joads and sense the larger suffering of the displaced migrants. By using a lot of Biblical archetypes Steinbeck write a tragedy on an epic scale. This makes The Grapes of Wrath not only a classic work of literature， but a timeless one as well.

References：

[1]Barton，John，ed.The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation[M].Cambridge：Cambridge Up，1998.

[2]Ling，L.（2009）.A stylistic analysis of The Grapes of Wrath.Youth Literator，20（204-205）.

[3]Steinbeck，John1993.The Grapes of Wrath.New York：Penguin Books USA Inc.

[4]Zang，Y.（2004）.Comment on The Grapes of Wrath.Science and Technology Information，01（63）.

作者簡介：孝红波（1976.5-），女，汉族，辽宁铁岭人，硕士，讲师，主要研究方向： 英美文学。