Research On John Steinbeck’s The Grapes Of Wrath From The Perspective Of Eco-Marxist Criticism

John Steinbeck(1902-1968)is one of the most famous contemporary American writers.In 1962,he won the Nobel Prize for Literature with his realism and rich imagination which showed his sympathetic humor and keen insight into society.The Grapes of Wrath,one of his masterpieces,was published in 1939.This novel depicts the dual crisis dilemma of the ecological crisis of the deteriorating natural environment and the social crisis of the laboring class to make a living overlapping each other during the Great Depression.This thesis is divided into five parts.The first chapter introduces the life of John Steinbeck and the significance of the novel The Grapes of Wrath,and introduces the paradigm of eco-Marxist criticism.The second chapter is the literature review on The Grapes of Wrath.The third and fourth chapters discuss the dual injustice imposed to the natural world and the laboring people by capitalism in The Grapes of Wrath from the perspective of eco-Marxist criticism,and analyze the essence of the capitalist system behind them.The fifth chapter is a conclusion.Based on the perspective of eco-Marxist criticism,this thesis combines the study of this novel with the theory of eco-Marxism to explore the dual oppression of human and nature by capitalism in The Grapes of Wrath,and expose its disastrous consequences so as to explore the institutional roots of the superposition of dual injustice.The research of this thesis is based on two clues in The Grapes of Wrath.The first is the social crisis of the lower-class laboring people represented by Tom Joad’s family,who cannot support themselves by relying on farming labor in their hometown,Oklahoma,and are forced to drive thousands of miles to make a living in California.The second is the predicament of environmental decay and ecological deterioration,which not only interferes with the normal growth of crops,but even directly threatens human health and survival,leading to an ecological crisis.These two clues together point to the fact that the capitalist mode of production blindly pursues profits while disregards the dual interest of laborers and the ecological environment.By combing the two clues of ecological dilemma and social dilemma in The Grapes of Wrath,this thesis reveals that under the capitalist system,the ultimate goal of private ownership production relations is to pursue unlimited profits,which is the fundamental cause of the ecological crisis and social crisis in the novel.At the same time,eco-Marxist criticism paradigm is used to criticize and study the dual crisis in the text of The Grapes of Wrath,organically connecting theoretical connotation with textual clues,which not only enriches the research perspective of the novel,but also shows the foresight beyond the age of John Steinbeck’s novel,and reveals the profound significance of the times and realistic care of the novel.