JOHN STEINBECK, “THE GRAPES OF WRATH” AND “THIRTIES”

Abstract

John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California, in 1902 and he grew up in a valley about twenty-five miles away from the Pacific Coast. This place became a scene of acting in his novels. It was 1919 when he went to Stanford University. However, he left the University without a degree in 1925. He served as a laborer, journalist in New York City and then as a caretaker for a Lake Tahoe estate. His first novel was “Cup of Gold” published in 1929. After his marriage he moved to Pacific Grove and published two California fictions. They were “The Pastures of Heaven” in 1932 and “To a God Unknown” (1933), and worked on short stories called in the “Long Valley” in 1938.

Steinbeck’s popular novels were focused in the California laboring class. They were: “In Dubious Battle” (1936), “Of Mice and Men” (1937) and “The Grapes of Wrath” (1939) which is considered to be one of his greatest masterpieces.

Then in the 1940s John Steinbeck became a filmmaker.

War topic was widely spread in his novels. They include: “Bombs Away” (1942) and “The Moon is Down” (1942). He won a Nobile Prize in 1962 and died after some years, in 1968.

“The Grapes of Wrath” is a novel by John Steinbeck. It was first published in 1939. This novel won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction and this novel played a great role in awarding John Steinbeck with the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962.

Key Words: America, American literature, John Steinbeck, “The Grapes of Wrath”, “thirties”.