John Steinbeck's Philosophy on Human Strength
Grapes of Wrath Characters Reflected in Steinbeck's Nobel Speech
Dec 23, 2008
Steinbeck’s philosphy of human strength promotes the ideals of John Casy’s “holy sperit”.
Background of the Salinas Man
John Steinbeck, a native Californian, “loved to write about prostitutes and how wonderful they could be” (A&E). He celebrated the tawdry with nothing but the truth and sought for this truth through scientific study of human beings. When Steinbeck went to Stanford University he was an English major but desired to take a medical class involving dissection of human cadavers. Through studying the body, he saw the power capable of a single organism. The mind is always active, the heart continuously pumping, and the lungs perpetually inhaling and exhaling the sweet oxygen used as fuel for the body. Comparing the human endurance to that of an abstract higher being, Steinbeck developed his faith in humanity.
Nobel Prize Speech
In his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech he said “we have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God”. John Steinbeck emphasizes that humans have the capability to foster faith, promote hope, and develop a purpose in life. Through John Casy’s idea of the “holy sperit”, the religion in The Grapes of Wrath is indicative of Steinbeck’s.
A higher being is not necessary for faith— like the Joads and migrants alike, they create a religion in themselves by just having faith in one another. This “shameless magpie” was aware of human strength as well as human weakness, yet it is the weakness that is most significant in the migrant religion.
Without this weakness, human spirits could not be united; without defeat, help is never needed, rendering citizens independent and solitary from one another. The “big soul ever’body’s a part of” is molded out of the camaraderie and connection of people. John Steinbeck’s philosophies about religion and the “perfectibility” of man is the foundation behind John Casy’s belief of the “holy sperit”.
Steinbeck Reflected in our Country
The twenty-first century is a tumultuous period; it seems as though God is relentless in testing our faith and our ability to endure. Humans can destroy, but on the other hand, they have the same capacity to create— create love, hope, faith, endurance, purpose, and positive change.
From the time Americans rang the Liberty Bell after the Revolution, to now, where the common man has lost all faith in the Head of State, Americans have experienced a time where their motives behind the ideals of their nation have diverged. No longer is America based merely upon Christianity, but the spirituality of its citizens.
The Depression and the plight of migrant workers were catalysts for the new and cyclically ephemeral faith in the human “holy sperit”. In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck testifies to this new developing religion through the arduous troubles of the Joads.
Through biblical references, religious philosophies of the characters, and the ideologies of Steinbeck himself, Steinbeck develops this narrative to being a gospel for the migrant belief system— the faith in humanity. “Buried head over heels in the black old dust” people like Dorthea Lange’s “Migrant Mother” were forced to beckon beyond God to be the beacon of hope and faith— they had to create it themselves (Woody Guthrie).
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