Disillusionment Of "the American Dream"

As a Nobel Prize laureate for literature, John Steinbeck (1902-1968) is generally considered as one of the most important American writers in the 20th century. As a prolific writer, Steinbeck produced nearly twenty novels during his lifetime. Although California, his home state, is the basic setting for most of his books, Steinbeck's topics in writing range from culture, politics, war, and science to society. These works win the popularity from wide audiences and attract the enthusiasm of quite a few critics.However, Steinbeck criticism in the past seventy years has been marked with much controversy. In other words, there has never been a consensus in the field of Steinbeck studies. Steinbeck study is a complex and fascinating area. In fact, all of Steinbeck's fiction has received direct or"tangential treatment"in a variety of studies embodying an immense range of topics, approaches and critical perspectives. One direction of Steinbeck criticism has been concerned with his form of social protest, and in a larger sense, defining his"ideology". Another area of criticism has considered his"philosophy", such as the biological view of man, non-teleological thinking, and mystical symbolism. In a third category, there have been critics in recent years, who concentrate on the measure of Steinbeck as creative artists, on an assessment of the literary value of his work from the perspectives of some contemporary critical theories, such as feminism, multiculturalism, and new historicism.This thesis aims at deciphering the theme of"disillusionment of the American Dream"which is reflected in John Steinbeck's three novels: Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and The Pearl from the perspective of symbolism.The thesis is composed of three chapters, plus the introduction and the conclusion. Introduction gives a brief review of the origin and development of the American Dream, and analyzes the two kinds of American Dream.Chapter One focuses on the brokenness of the materialistic dream in Of Mice and Men. The two protagonists, Lennie and George, cherish the dream of owning a farm of their own, but their dream is contradictory to the reality. In the novel, that their materialistic dream is doomed to be broken is suggested in many details, particularly in the protagonists'symbolic acts.Chapter Two concentrates on the images of the grapes in The Grapes of Wrath. No doubt the"grapes"are the central images throughout the novel. They symbolize the materialistic dream that the twelve of the Joad family move from Oklahoma to California to search for. After analyzing the implication of"grapes"being changed into"the grapes of wrath", that is, the disillusionment of their materialistic dream, this chapter turns to illustrate the moral embodied in the main characters. They are the symbols of love of human beings, though their materialistic dream is shattered by cruel reality, their spiritual dream sustains and is elevated.Chapter Three centers on"the pearl of the world"in The Pearl, which is found by the protagonist Kino and symbolizes the American dream. In the novel, the pearl elicits Kino and other people's greed, and like the scorpion, it incarnates evil and colonialism. It breaks the innocence represented by Kino's son Coyiotito and destructs the boat symbolic of the Indian cultural tradition. At last the protagonist has to throw the pearl back into the sea and this action announces the disillusionment of both the materialistic and spiritual dream.Conclusion conveys such an idea that these three novels can be regarded as different stages demonstrating Steinbeck's changing attitudes toward the American dream, which also explains the change of his fictional style in his long literary career. There are several reasons for my choice of the present study. First and foremost, the three novels have never been studied as a whole in spite of the large amount of Steinbeck studies. Produced in the mature periods of his literary career, these novels represent Steinbeck's highest literary achievement. The play version of Of Mice and Men wins New York Drama Critics'Circle Award; The Grapes of Wrath, his acknowledged masterpiece, wins the 1940 Pulitzer Prize; and The Pearl, is a novel with film versions in English and Spanish. Secondly, although most of Steinbeck's novels illustrate the theme of the American dream, this theme has rarely been studied in details although some critics have occasionally mentioned it in their essays. Thirdly, the central theme of"American Dream"is most obviously portrayed as"successive phases"in these three books. Therefore, this study tries to mirror the thematic transformation of"the brokenness of materialistic dream→the survival of the spiritual dream→the disillusionment of both dreams,"and helps to explain why Steinbeck's later literary style is different from his early one.