The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck
THE NOVEL
OTHER ELEMENTS
STYLE
It's hard not to be impressed by the richness of language in The Grapes of
Wrath.
Most of the writing is straightforward narrative prose. But some of the prose is highly
poetic, crowded with sensual images ("The dust-filled air muffled sound more completely
than fog does") and figures of speech such as metaphors, similes, and personifications ("The full green hills are round and soft as breasts"). Look especially at
passages about nature, such as Steinbeck's descriptions of the drought in Chapter
1 and of California springtime in Chapter 25.
An entire chapter turns out to be an extended metaphor. The turtle (Chapter 3) exemplifies
endurance and perseverance, qualities that we see demonstrated again and again by
the Joads and other migrants.
Steinbeck writes dialogue as the people spoke it. Spelling is unorthodox because the
migrant people drop the sounds of certain letters, like the g in words ending in
ing, and often slur two words into one, as in Pa'd, meaning Pa would. The people's
speech is dappled with expressions such as "a walkin' chunk a mean-mad" and "billy-goatin'
aroun'." There's no doubt that the dialogue slows down your reading, but Steinbeck
sought the likeness of truth, even though the characters are fictional. Besides,
who'd want to read a book about migrants who sound like English teachers?
In some of the interchapters, Steinbeck uses still another style of writing. He bombards
you with phrases, bits of spoken conversation, half-thoughts, expressions- a collage
of words to give you an impression of a place or an event. You have to fill in the details. For example, what actually happens at the used-car lots (Chapter 7) and
in the cotton fields (Chapter 27)?
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