Socialistic Vision of John Steinbeck and Dos Passos: Foucauldian Analysis of the Grapes of Wrath and Manhattan Transfer
Neha Puri1, Aruna Bhat2
1Neha Puri, Ph.D Researcher, LPU, (Punjab), India.
2Aruna Bhat, Assistant Professor, LPU, (Punjab), India.
Manuscript received on 03 May 2019 | Revised Manuscript received on 15 May 2019 | Manuscript Published on 23 May 2019 | PP: 336-339 | Volume-7 Issue-6S5 April 2019 | Retrieval Number: F10560476S519/2019©BEIESP
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: America emerged as a super power after the World War I but people also witnessed the suffering and severe degradation of American life. The Wall Street Crash, the Depression and the growth of Capitalism brought untold miseries to the fruit pickers and the farmers in America. John Steinbeck was inspired by the radical philosophy of Karl Marx who propounded the theory of class less society giving a dialectical relationship between the haves and haves not. John Steinbeck is seriously concerned with the struggle of the proletariat. Steinbeck’s novels written during the 1930’s and 1940’s display his strong understanding of the common Communist principles. Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath is the heartrending tale of how “farming became industry” (298), depicting the sufferings of the farmers trapped in the Dust Bowl of the twenties. Dos Passos depicted his radical vision in his Manhattan Transfer. The social injustice caused in the coal fields, in the mines and in the factories shocked Dos Passos who used his art to portray the slums and degradation of the middle class Americans. In this research paper the famous novels The Grapes of Wrath of John Steinbeck and Manhattan Transfer of John Dos Passos are investigated relying on the theories of power structure propounded by Michael Foucault. John Dos Passos is a celebrated American novelist who brought about cultural and critical renaissance in America since he launched a crusade against the growing materialism and capitalism. The critics hailed Dos Passos as a prophet of social conflict during the Jazz Age and the Depression who championed the cause of the proletariats of the Middle class Americans like John Steinbeck. His novels are indubitably a representation of American life possessing, passion, depth and appreciable artistic power. Dos Passos didn’t follow his contemporaries such as Earnest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Norman Mailer and Joseph Heller who celebrated the romantic adventures of war whereas used his artistic talent to depict the plight and anguish of the middle class Americans working in the factories and living in slums of New York and Chicago. Dos Passos was influenced by the ideas of Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci. The journey of his novels from One Man’s Initiation to U.S.A. and to Manhattan Transfer is full of convincing political analysis and an expression of his Marxian ideology. Dos Passos expresses his serious concern for the oppressed, exploited and the lower middle class workers.
Keywords: Power Structure, Renaissance, Materialism, Capitalism, Marxism, Crusade, Oppressed, Exploited, Anguish, Plight.
Scope of the Article: Vision-based applications