Defending Steinbeck's Sensationalism

I was surprised at first to find out that most of the criticism aimed at The Grapes of Wrath came not from the greedy machines of banks and other profit-obsessed entities that are so lambasted in the novel, but rather from the migrant workers themselves, the protagonists of Steinbeck’s story. I then realized that people rarely like to see themselves as they really are, and they are overly critical of themselves, even when there is little to rightly criticize. When they see a photograph of themselves or look in the mirror, the first thing people tend to notice are their flaws. Despite this, they’re also quick to get defensive.

Though I’m perfectly prepared to get some flack for this comparison, I keep thinking of Sophie from Music and Lyrics, and how she lets her entire life be negatively affected by a fictionalized account of herself that isn’t exactly hunky-dory. She tries her best to prove that she is not the melodramatic, manipulative main character nestled in the pages of the nation’s latest bestseller – which turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy, as Hugh Grant’s character points out in his only display of competence in the movie. She becomes so obsessed with fighting an image of herself that she doesn’t like that the image ends up suiting her all the better.

The same is probably true for Grapes. The Okies were able to see themselves from a different perspective for once, and while the image portrayed is not necessarily a bad one, it does highlight a few flaws that I myself would probably want to cover up were I the subject: stubbornness, foolishness, perhaps a little hypocrisy, and, of course, extreme poverty. As I mentioned in class, the migrant mother in Dorothea Lange’s famous Depression-era photograph claimed that the widely published portrait only made her and her family feel ashamed of their destitution. They felt they were being judged. And even though artists like Lange and Steinbeck may have raised general awareness of the situation of Dust Bowl refugees, few families found direct assistance; most felt they were only being used.

There’s also the question of whether Steinbeck was truthful. Though some families’ experiences were similar to or perhaps even worse than those of the Joads or the Wilsons, I doubt that all of them met such hardships. But what good is a book that expounds upon a family’s virtually hiccup-free journey to California? Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Silent Spring, as was mentioned in class, likewise overexaggerated the situations they were attempting to alter. Their authors wanted to shock, to get a reaction – how else can change be wrought? Steinbeck makes you feel for the Joads by making them human – by giving them flaws – and then takes you on such an emotional journey that by the end of it you’re downright angry at what they’ve had to go through. The book was intended, I think, for a middle- and upper-class populace that had little knowledge and even less sympathy for the lives of Okies and Arkies. Naturally it would be of little interest and perhaps some offence to the people living those lives, who could do nothing to help their own situation.