Biblical Influence In The Grapes Of Wrath

John Steinbeck is a famous American novelist in the twentieth century. In 1939 he published his most famous and successful masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath, with which his fame is mainly connected. This thesis analyzes biblical influences on the content, style and theme of The Grapes of Wrath.This thesis firstly discusses the biblical influence on this novel's content. When describing the experiences of the Joads and other migrating farmers on their journey from Oklahoma to California, John Steinbeck skillfully uses the structure of the story of the Israelites in the Bible migrating from Egypt to Canaan. Correspondingly, characters in this novel have many similar characteristics to those in the Bible. Take Jim Casy for instance. His name has the same initials as that of Jesus Christ and his actions and speeches have many features similar to those of Jesus. Next, this thesis discusses the Bible's influence on the style of this novel. As for the language style, the narrative chapters in the novel use objective narration like that in the Book of Genesis, while the interchapters adopt the prophetic tone of the Old Testament. Besides, a great many images in the novel are directly or indirectly borrowed from the Bible. Finally, this thesis explores biblical themes in The Grapes of Wrath. Of the themes in this novel, two are particularly important—the journey and love. The theme of journey has two levels, the geographic journey and the spiritual one. The former is the journey that the Joads and other migrants take from Oklahoma to California, and the latter is the spiritual change they experience on their geographic journey. Another important theme is love, which is also integrated with their journey west and revealed on their spiritual journey. On the contrary, it is their changing attitude toward love that accelerates their spiritual baptism. From the analysis mentioned above, the thesis comes to the conclusion that Steinbeck is deeply influenced by Christianity and the Bible. He derives nourishment from the Bible and achieves a great success in The Grapes of Wrath. His purpose of using biblical narrative structure, characters and style is not simply to imitate the Bible but to develop the novel's theme.