The Transcendental Tendency In John Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath

John Steinbeck (1902~1968), the winner of the 1940 Puliter Prize and the 1962 Nobel Prize, is well-known for his masterpiece—The Grapes of Wrath. The novel is undoubtedly his best-known volume of fiction as well as, for most readers, his finest achievement as an author.Heavily depending upon and profoundly influenced by the transcendental ideas, the author succeeds in revealing the relationship between spirit and nature. The purpose that the author describes natural calamity such as drought, dust-bowl, rain, flood and immorality of human beings is to make the readers feel that spirit is pervading everywhere in the universe and man can get enlightenment of God intuitively if he is close to nature. Nature is the symbol of spirit. And he also creates some principal characters such as Jim Casy, Tom Joad, Rose of Sharon and Ma to make the readers know individual divinity when communed to Oversoul, and in the process of their development, the promising future of society is foreseen. The author succeeds in demonstrating the transcendental philosophy that individual is the most important element to the regeneration of society, and self-perfection is infinite.The novel is one of the masterpieces of American literature for its rich thoughts. Obviously, in writing the novel, the author takes transcendental ideas in mind. Therefore, what I want to demonstrate in this thesis is to do my utmost to explore the transcendental tendency that serves to make the novel one of the masterpieces of the world literature.