Grapes of Wrath

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Fruits of Wrath (title of the English original from 1939: The Grapes of Wrath ) is the best-known work of the American writer and later Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck , for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 . Time magazine ranks the novel among the top 100 English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005.

The socially critical and naturalistically written novel describes the fate of the farmers in Oklahoma and Arkansas , who were heavily indebted in the 1930s by the "Great Depression" and drought years , who are driven by the landowners and who move from the Dust Bowl by the hundreds of thousands over Route 66 to California . Instead of the promised well-paid work, they expect exploitation, hunger and hostility there. In order to authentically portray the trek and the reception camps, Steinbeck himself accompanied such a trek to the west.

title

The title of the novel is a quote from the second verse of Julia Ward Howe's “ War Anthem of the Republic ” - a song composed during the American Civil War - and is also a reference to the biblical revelation of John (14.19 EU ): “And the Angel struck his sickle on the earth and cut the vine of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of God's wrath ”.

construction

The fate of the so-called Okies is exemplarily portrayed on the basis of the Joad family of farmers who, despite all privations and humiliations, maintain their humanity and dignity. Each chapter is preceded by a second synoptic narrative thread, in which the events are embedded in a social context. The novel has features of a parable in the exemplary representation of the main characters who experience a transformation in the course of the novel .

content

When the Joad family of farmers in Oklahoma can no longer pay their debt interest after a lengthy drought , the landowners drive them away from the leased land. In response to leaflets promising well-paid work as farm laborers in California, the family, like hundreds of thousands of others, set off west in a junk truck. In addition to the parents, the grandparents, the uncle, the adult sons Tom, Al and Noah, the pregnant daughter Rose of Sharon (allusion to the biblical Rose of Sharon ) with her young husband Connie, the children Ruthie and Winfield and the traveling preacher Jim Casy travel . The grandparents cannot cope with the loss of their home and die on the arduous journey. Noah and Connie run away. The father, resignedly, loses his leadership role more and more to the mother, who tries with all her might to prevent the family from breaking up. Tom, who was jailed for manslaughter and just been paroled, is another support.

In California, instead of the well-paid work they hoped for, families expect economic exploitation, hunger and hostility from the local population. A migrant camp run by the state Farm Security Administration gives the family another short break. When Jim Casy, who joins the strikers, is slain by the landowners' auxiliary troops, Tom commits a manslaughter. Finally Tom takes over the thoughts of the itinerant preacher, leaves the family, also in order not to endanger them by his act, and devotes himself to the fight for the rights of migrants. The break up of the family goes hand in hand with the merging of individual fates into a community of fate of thousands. When Rose suffers a stillbirth, there is a final scene in which she breasts a starving stranger.

effect

Steinbeck's novel was published in bookshops in the United States on April 14, 1939. Despite hostility from the ranks of the political right and large landowners to bans and book burnings as well as controversial discussions in professional circles, the novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and Steinbeck the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 .

As early as 1940, a film of the same name was made by director John Ford with Henry Fonda as protagonist Tom Joad, John Carradine as Jim Casy and Jane Darwell as mother. Ford's film, which itself achieved classic status and won several Academy Awards , remains the only film adaptation of the novel to date. A play by Frank Galati dates from 1990.

The American folk singer Woody Guthrie dedicated a ballad to the fictional character Tom Joad. This was later added and modified by Andy Irvine . In 1991 the English band Camel recorded the concept album Dust And Dreams , which retells the plot of the novel.

Bruce Springsteen named a song in 1995 in which he denounced the social grievances in America, "The Ghost Of Tom Joad". The album of the same name was awarded the 1997 Grammy for “Best Contemporary Folk Album”.

Five years later, the politically active band Rage Against the Machine gave the track a new musical look on their album Renegades , which consisted entirely of cover versions. The name Ghost of Tom Joad was given to a post-punk band in Münster in 2006. In 2000, a band from Hamburg called themselves the fruits of anger .

additional

The novel is dedicated to two people, Carol and Tom. Steinbeck's first wife, Carol (1906–1983), suggested the novel and found the title The Grapes of Wrath . She also typed the manuscript and did the initial correction. Tom Collins (1897? –1961) was the administrator of a reception camp for migrant workers and brought Steinbeck into contact with many of his protagonists' role models.

expenditure

  • The fruits of anger. Humanitas, Zurich 1940 (German language first edition, translation by Klaus Lambrecht ).
  • Grapes of Wrath. Vorwerk, Darmstadt / Berlin 1943 (first edition in Germany, translation by Karin von Schab ).
  • Grapes of Wrath. Diana, Konstanz / Stuttgart 1948 (translation by Klaus Lambrecht).
  • Fruits of anger . Zsolnay, Vienna 1993 a. 2002, ISBN 3-552-05191-0 (revised translation by Klaus Lambrecht); as paperback: 9th edition, dtv, Munich 1985ff, ISBN 978-3-423-10474-6 .

See also

literature

  • Brian E. Railsback, Michael J. Meyer: A John Steinbeck Encyclopedia . Greenwood Publishing 2006, ISBN 0-313-29669-3 , pp. 129-133 ( excerpt from Google book search)
  • Jesse S. Crisler (Ed.), Joseph R. McElrath (Ed.), Susan Shillinglaw (Ed.): John Steinbeck: The Contemporary Reviews . Cambridge University Press 2009, ISBN 978-0-521-11409-7 , pp. 151–192 ( excerpt from Google book search)
  • Harold Bloom: John Steinbeck's: The Grapes of Wrath . Infobase Publishing 2005, ISBN 0-7910-8239-3 .
  • Rich Wartzmann: Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck's the Grapes of Wrath . Public Affairs 2009, ISBN 978-1-58648-767-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rebekka Hahn: John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath - Analysis of the German translation . GRIN Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-638-91533-5 , pp. 8 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ↑ April 14, 1939: John Steinbeck Publishes 'The Grapes of Wrath' , The Almanac, Richard Kreitner, The Nation, April 14, 2015
  3. ↑ 'Grapes of Wrath' not well received, still questioned , Teresa Douglass, Visalia Times Delta, August 7, 2014
  4. ^ Robert DeMott: Introduction . In: John Steinbeck: Working days. The journals of the Grapes of wrath 1938-1941 (edited by Robert DeMott), pp. Xxvii , Viking, New York 1989. ISBN 0-670-80845-8 .