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John Steinbeck: Development an


He was interested in people from the beginning, long before he had any theory to account for their ways (Beach 1). With this, Steinbeck chose novel writing as a career, despite his family's insistence for a more prosaic career (Millichap 3153). This traumatic rejection of middle-class values would be an important factor in shaping his fiction (Millichap 3153). He grew up in a frustrated modern America and witnessed the most notable failure of the American dream in the Great Depression (Millichap 3152). During this decadent period, many of Steinbeck's writings of!.
             fered detailed accounts of social problems, particularly the plight of migrant agricultural workers in California's fertile valley (Millichap 3157). From this idea the design for The Grapes of Wrath emerged, which follows one family from Oklahoma and the Dust Bowl to California in search of a better life (Millichap 3158). Of Mice and Men also shows the persistence of the American dream and the tragedy of its failure (Millichap 3156).
             Several other points which helps elucidate the idea that some omnipotent force has an imperceivable grasp over Steinbeck's characters are the forces and themes found throughout his literature. "Many times to him modern life itself is the enemy in which his characters find themselves lost in a world they never made and want nothing to do with (Folsom 2276). At their best, Steinbeck's stories tell of lives which have turned out far differently from expectations, and the very modesty of these initial expectations allows the author ample scope for discussing that vague malevolence he sees at the heart of life itself (Folsom 2277). The villains which he creates are almost always faceless generalizations which can not be quite understood by his characters (Folsom 2276)." A good example of this can be drawn from The Grapes of Wrath where "the bank" represented an evil which drove the Okies from their farms and had also replaced the "lovable existential mule with the malevole!.


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