San Jose State University SJSU ScholarWorks San José Studies, 1990s San José Studies Winter 1-1-1990 San José Studies, Winter 1990 San José State University Foundation Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sanjosestudies_90s Part of the American Literature Commons, and the Literature in English, North America Commons Recommended Citation San José State University Foundation, "San José Studies, Winter 1990" (1990). San José Studies, 1990s. 1. https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sanjosestudies_90s/1 This Journal is brought to you for free and open access by the San José Studies at SJSU ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in San José Studies, 1990s by an authorized administrator of SJSU ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SAN JOSE STUDIES Volume XVI, Number 1 Winter, 1990 The Grapes of Wrath, A Special Issue The essays in this issue stem from presentations given March 16-18, 1989, at San Jose State University: "The Grapes of Wrath, 1939-1989: An Interdisciplinary Forum." Susan Shillinglaw, Guest Editor Editorial. 5 Henry Adams Thomas Hart Benton's Illustrations for The Grapes of Wrath . 6 Elaine S. Apthorp Steinbeck, Guthrie, and Popular Culture. 19 Marilyn Chandler The Metaphysics of Style. 40 John Ditsky The Grapes of Wrath at 50: The Critical Perspective. 46 Leslie Fiedler Looking Back after 50 Years . 54 Warren French 40 Years in the Angry Vineyard. 65 Anne Loftis Steinbeck and the Federal Migrant Camps . 76 Kiyoshi Nakayama The Grapes Transplanted to Japan.............................. 91 Brian Railsback Selectivity, Sympathy, and Charles Darwin. 98 Deborah Schneer A Psychoanalytic Reading .................................... 107 Roy S. Simmonds The Original Manuscript ..................................... 117 John H. Timmerman Comic Vision in The Grapes of Wrath ........................... 133 Acknowledgments The publication of San Jose Studies is possible only tl_lrough the support of its guarantor, benefactor, and patron subscribers. The Trustees and Staff of SJS wish to acknowledge these supporters and hope to see their ranks grow. GUARANTORS Humanities Department, SJSU School of Applied Arts and Sciences, SJSU School of Engineerin~ SJSU School of Humanities and the Arts, SJSU School of Social Sciences, SJSU Society of Archimedes, School of Science, SJSU Spartan Shops, Inc., SJSU BENEFACTORS Accounting and Finance Area, School of Business, SJSU Associate Dean's Office, School of Business, SJSU Marshall Burak Hobert W. and Patricia Burns Lucius R. Eastman, Jr. Economics Department, SJSU Gail and Stanley Fullerton History Department, SJSU Management Area, School of Business, SJSU Marketing Area, School of Business, SJSU Master of Business Administration Program, School of Business, SJSU Arlene N. Okerlund Psychology Department, SJSU SJSU Emeritus Faculty Association Sourisseau Academy Rose and Raymond Tseng Mr. and Mrs. 0. C. Williams PATRONS Louis R. Bisceglia John A. Galm Ralph C. Bohn Ted C. and Caryl Hinckley California Faculty Association, Journalism and Mass SJSU Chapter Communications, SJSU Robert D. Clark Elsie Leach Communication Studies School of Education, SJSU Department, SJSU University Club, SJSU Whitaker T. Deininger English Department, SJSU SAN JOSE STUDIES Volume XVI, Number 1 Winter, 1990 EDITOR Fauneil J. Rinn, Political Science and American Studies, San Jose State University ASSOCIATE EDITORS Billie B. Jensen, History, San Jose State University Allison Heisch, English and Humanities, San Jose State University EDITORIAL BOARD Garland E. Allen, Biology, Washington University Judith P. Breen, English, San Francisco State University Hobert W. Bums, Philosophy, San Jose State University Robert Casillo, English, University of Miami, Coral Gables Richard Flanagan, Creative Writing, Babson College Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi, English, Stanford University Robert C. Gordon, English and Humanities, San Jose State University Richard Ingraham, Biological Sciences, San Jose State University Richard E. Keady, Religious Studies, San Jose State University Jack Kurzweil, Electrical Engineering, San Jose State University Hank Lazer, English, University of Alabama Lela A. Llorens, Occupational Therapy, San Jose State University William J. Rewak, English, Spring Hill College Lois Palken Rudnick, American Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston Richard A. Scott, Business, University of Arizona Dwight Van de Vate, Jr., Philosophy, The University of Tennessee Ellen C. Weaver, Biological Sciences, San Jose State University COMMITTEE OF TRUSTEES Jean Beard Elsie Leach Selma R. Burkom Arlene N. Okerlund John R. Douglas Jay D. Pinson Dolores Escobar Rose Tseng John A. Galm James P. Walsh T. M. Norton O.C. Williams, Chairman BUSINESS MANAGER Emi N obuhiro GRAPHIC CONSULTANTS AI Beechick Laura Chau PRINTER Quality Offset Printing, Inc. Santa Cruz, CA 95062 ©San Jose State University Foundation, 1990 ISSN: 0097-8051 Vital support for this issue has come from a number of people and accounts. The trustees and staff of the journal wish especially to thank those deans from schools which might normally be con­ sidered non-literary: Marshall Burak of the School of Business, Alan C. Ling of the School of Sciences, Jay D. Pinson of the School of Engineering, and Rose Tseng of the School of Applied Arts and Sciences. All responded generously to our plea for financial foun­ dation, as did the Sourisseau Academy, Deans John Crane of the School of Humanities and the Arts, and James P. Walsh of the School of Social Sciences, the Department of English, and Academic Vice President Arlene N. Okerlund Thanks, too, to the California Council for the Humanities. We are grateful to them all Without their help, our readers would now be holding something else-if anything-in their gentle hands. Editorial "In writing," observed John Steinbeck, "perhaps we hope to achieve companionship. What some people find in religion, a writer may find in his craft or whatever it is,-absorption of the small and frightened and lonely into the whole and complete, a kind of breaking through to glory." Certainly Steinbeck achieved that glory of completeness in The Grapes of Wrath, the novel that most think his best, his most impassioned plea for the worth of the human spirit. During the novel's 50th anniversary year, there have appeared more than 75 laudatory articles and reviews of both the new Grapes edition and the journal Steinbeck kept while writing the book. Almost without excep­ tion these articles acknowledge the "staying power" of this novel. Fully half mention its relevance today, when droughts bankrupt midwestern farms, when homeless wander the streets of major U.S. cities, and when the problems of migratory laborers mirror those of Steinbeck's Joads. Undoubtedly it is a classic, that most vaguely defined term, because it cap­ tures the spirit of what one Alabama woman declared were "my people;' what a Russian woman told me were "the world's struggling masses," what a woman listening to a Steinbeck address this year announced were "the poor but mighty," and what Cesar Chavez championed in the migrant workers and their plight. Held at San Jose State University in March, 1989, the 50th anniversary conference on The Grapes of Wrath celebrated this broad appeal. As the essays in this collection demonstrate, Steinbeck's novel reverberates widely. It provokes comparisons with artists and musicians of the period, partakes of revisionist histories of the 1930s, demands new and more probing investigations of the novel's artistry, all the while withstanding attempts at critical depreciation. All of these essays are published here for the first time, and such fresh treatments of the book from both established and young critics provide a fitting coda to this year when so many new books on Steinbeck and his work have appeared. Although the essays herein represent roughly half of the presentations at the conference-space limitations preventing publication of the full proceedings-they are representative of the high quality of all papers. Among my regrets is that the widely praised panel discussions on today's migratory labor problems could not have been transcribed for this issue; these, like other presentations not published elsewhere, will remain vivid in the minds of the audience. -Susan Shillinglaw Guest Editor 5 Thomas Hart Benton's Illustrations for The Grapes of Wrath Henry Adams A number of the works referred to in Adams's essay may be found as illustra­ tions throughout this special issue.-The Editors THoMAS Hart Benton and John Steinbeck both hit their artistic peak .1. in the 1930s. As twin tough-minded reporters of the American scene, they each saw the world in large, bold forms, with powerful con­ trasts of light and dark, good and evil. They vividly recorded social injustice, while at the same time trying to steer clear of propaganda and political slogans. Both enjoyed shocking their audiences and challenging the prudish mores of American society. Steinbeck jarred the readers of his time with the nursing scene at the conclusion of The Grapes of Wrath, and Benton ignited a political firestorm when he included-on a wall in the Missouri State Capitol-a woman changing a baby's diaper. 1 Despite the affinities between them, the work of the two came together only once, when Benton produced a series of illustrations for Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Shortly afterward, the art critic Thomas Craven praised the result as an ideal marriage of artistic talents: It was inevitable that Thomas