Review Editors\' Report

Historical Background
The plot of Steinbeck's masterpiece is rooted in the historical and
social events of 1930s America, specifically the environmental disaster
coined the Dust Bowl by an Oklahoma reporter in 1935. Drought had
been a serious problem for the Great Plains region of the United States
for many decades prior to the 1930s. In the late 1880s, the land began
to be settled by sharecroppers for agricultural purposes, but a particularly
severe drought in 1894 brought such widespread crop destruction
that, in some areas, as many as 90 percent of the settlers abandoned
their claims. (McGrath.p.7)
One of the ways Steinbeck pushed the limits of the short story was to create
loose connections between stories in a collection. The results of this are
Steinbeck's story cycles. In these collections, much like Winesburg, Ohio by
Sherwood Anderson, each story may stand alone; each carries its own meaning
but additional meaning is found when the stories are read together as a unit.
The Pastures ofHeaven is the first example of Steinbeck's work with the story cy-
cle. It is also, significantly, Steinbeck's first California fiction and his first the-
matic focus on the experiences of everyday people. The stories of The Pastures
of Heaven present the separate experiences of the residents of a California val-
ley. The element connecting the stories is theMunroe family. Each story sepa-
rately invites the reader to consider the misfortune caused by the Munroes in
the incident the chapter presents. When reading the book as a unit of stories,
the reader is forced into a deeper consideration of cause and is forced to analyze
the nature of each unfortunate consequence of theMunroes' actions, weighing
them against each other. The order in which Steinbeck places the stories also
indicates the author's own assessment of theMunroes' various acts of destruc-
tion upon their neighbors.(Borkhead.p.25)
some among the distinguished array of American novelists
tury after World War I now seem rather far removed from us. The
writers who developed themes that were highly personal to their
own experience stand apart. Ernest Hemingway, though he exercised
enormous influence on the taste, and even the thinking, of the
young in his time, has become an aloof presence only the more withdrawn
from us because his gifts were so original and striking.(Gray.p.5)
The man was ready for his work at twenty-seven when he published
his first novel, Cup of Gold (1929). During the next quarter
of a century he produced copiously: eleven novels (To a God Unknown,
1932; Tortilla Flat, 1935; In Dubious Battle, 1936; The
Red Pony, 1937; The Grapes of Wrath, 1939; Of Mice and Men,

1940; The Moon Is Down, 1942; Cannery Row, 1945; The Way
ward Bus, 1947; The Pearl, 1947; East of Eden, 1952), as well as
two collections of short stories (The Pastures of Heaven, 1932; The
Long Valley, 1938), dramatizations of two of his novels (Of Mice
and Men, 1940; The Moon Is Down, 1942) and a play in story form
(Burning Bright, 1950), a documentary (The Forgotten Village,
1941), two volumes of reportage (Bombs Away, 1942, and A Russian
Journal, 1948), and a journal of travel and scientific research (Sea
of Cortez, 1951). His performance from the start was accomplished
and professional: his books were carefully designed according to
artistic principles of his own. The results were often moving, always
disturbing, and in several instances strikingly impressive.(Gray.p.9.10)
It is almost forty years since John Steinbeck died, and while his popularity
as a novelist still endures, his critical reputation has suff ered a considerable
decline. His honors were many and varied, and included the Nobel Prize
and the United States Medal of Freedom. His best novels came early in his
career; In Dubious Battle (1936); Of Mice and Men (1937); Th e Grapes of Wrath
(1939). Nothing after that, including East of Eden (1952), bears rereading. It
would be good to record that rereading his three major novels is a valuable
experience, from an aesthetic as well as an historic perspective.(Bloom.p.1)

The Grpes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath is set the Great Depression and describes a family Of sharecroppers, the Joads, who were driven from their land due to theDust storms of the Dust Bowl. The title is a reference to the Battle Hymn Of the Republic . Some critics found it too sympathetic to the workers Plight and too critical of capitalism but it found quite a large audience in the Working class. It won both the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (novels) and was adapted as a film starring Henry Fonda and directed
By John Ford .