A Political Companion to John Steinbeck

Contents

Contents Series Foreword ix Patrick J. Deneen Prologue: John Steinbeck in the 1930s: Living Under the Gun 1 Rick Wartzman Introduction: The Dangerous Ambivalence of John Steinbeck 8 Simon Stow PART I: STEINBECK AS SOCIAL CRITIC 1. Revolutionary Conservative, Conservative Revolutionary? John Steinbeck and The Grapes of Wrath 19 Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh 2. Star Signals: John Steinbeck in the American Protest Literature Tradition 49 Zoe Trodd 3. The Novelist as Playwright: Adaptation, Politics, and the Plays of John Steinbeck 77 Donna Kornhaber 4. Steinbeck and the Tragedy of Progress 98 Adrienne Akins Warfield PART II. THE CULTURAL ROOTS OF STEINBECK’S POLITICAL VISION 5. Group Man and the Limits of Working-Class Politics: The Political Vision of Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle 119 Charles Williams viii Contents 6. The Indifference of Nature and the Cruelty of Wealth 146 Michael T. Gibbons 7. “The Technique of Building Worlds”: Exodian Nation Formation in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath 171 Roxanne Harde PART III. STEINBECK IN AMERICAN POLITICAL CULTURE 8. Focusing on the Migrant: The Contextualization of Dorothea Lange’s Photographs of the John Steinbeck Committee 191 James R. Swensen 9. Participatory Parables: Cinema, Social Action, and Steinbeck’s Mexican Dilemma 227 Marijane Osborn 10. “Not Afraid of Being Heroic”: Bruce Springsteen’s John Steinbeck 247 Lauren Onkey 11. Retelling an American Political Tale: A Comparison of Literary, Cinematic, and Musical Versions of The Grapes of Wrath 268 Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh PART IV: JOHN STEINBECK: AMBIVALENT AMERICAN? 12. Patriotic Ironies: John Steinbeck’s Wartime Service to His Country 293 Mimi R. Gladstein and James H. Meredith 13. John Steinbeck’s Shifting View of America: From Travels with Charley to America and Americans 311 Robert S. Hughes 14. “Can You Honestly Love a Dishonest Thing?” The Tragic Patriotism of The Winter of Our Discontent 325 Simon Stow Acknowledgments 349 Selected Bibliography 353 List of Contributors 357 Index 361 ...