Border Crossings: Jenny Erpenbeck’s Gehen, Ging, Gegangen as a Response to The Grapes of Wrath

This article compares the themes of borders, migration, and displacement in both Jenny Erpenbeck’s Gehen, Ging, Gegangen and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Despite a lack of direct connection between the two writers, focusing on the mutual theme of borders in the novels can lead the reader to new insights into how human beings erect borders to keep out ideas and people that they perceive as threatening, and how those barriers may be ultimately overcome.