Grapes of Wrath

The Epic in the Grapes of Wrath

This paper discusses how the idea of the epic can be found in The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. The novel itself is an enormous work of approximately 500 pages. And in the words of Howard Levant, it is "an attempted prose epic, a summation of national experience of genre" (Levant 91). Because Steinbeck is depicting more than just a "slice of life" but rather an entire range of life at a given time in America, the book may justly be called "epic" in terms of art and scope. Indeed, The Grapes of Wrath contains epic ideas and themes (the struggle to be good and/or to survive evil times), epic similes (examples of the struggle that go on at length), epic characters (larger than life types who seem bigger than ordinary men), and an epic journey (the travel from...
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