Grapes of Wrath Interpretations

Question 1

Bluefarb

Answer 1

You need geographical journeys in order to reach a spiritual destination

Question 2

Callahan

Answer 2

1920s-schizophrenic decade

Question 3

Freese

Answer 3

three types of journeys

Question 4

What were Freese’s three types of journeys?

Answer 4

search, aimless movement, escape

Question 5

Miller

Answer 5

Steinbeck penetrates the political life of the country

Question 6

Possin

Answer 6

journeys can be either mental or spiritual

Question 7

Spangler

Answer 7

Steinbeck smashes the notion of the American dream

Question 8

Steinbeck

Answer 8

Americans are restless people

Question 9

Briffault

Answer 9

theory that in nature there are no patriarchal organisations

Question 10

Jenn Williamson

Answer 10

Steinbeck extended the domestic sphere

Question 11

Pelzer

Answer 11

women remain prisoners of patriarchy… commodities to be possessed or discarded by brutish louts

women’s own attitudes about men, especially Daisy’s, paradoxically belie the depth of any real change in gender roles and expectations

Question 12

Fryer

Answer 12

the Great Gatsby… [was written] during a time of erosion of Fitzgerald’s marriage to Zelda … may have decreased his sympathy for feminine conflicts

Question 13

Judith Fetterley

Answer 13

Another American novel centred on hostility to women… Not dead Gatsby but surviving Daisy is the object of the novel’s hostility and its scapegoat