Study guide for a collaborative project of the Alabama School of Fine Arts and the University of Alabama at Birmingham        John Steinbeck's Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel
	John Steinbeck, Photo by Toni Frisell, c. 1965, New York. John Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath in April 1939 to instant acclaim and criticism. From the bestsellers' list to the book's burning in his hometown, The Grapes of Wrath has continued to impact millions. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1939 and in 1940 was made into an award-winning film directed by John Ford. The book details much of what Steinbeck saw on a writing assignment reporting on the conditions of migrant camps for The San Francisco News. He framed the novel in an interesting narrative structure, oscillating between a macrocosmic (large-world) and microcosmic (small-world) view chapter to chapter. The macrocosm with which he worked was the Dust Bowl phenomenon and the thousands displaced because of it. The microcosm is the Joad family. They represent the Whole, but allow the reader in a classically naturalistic way to magnify the experience of one family. The odd chapters through Chapter 11 are macrocosmic, and the even chapters through Chapter 10 are microcosmic. The framework then switches from odd to even with Chapter 12 and eventually breaks down into a fluid melding of the macro and micro through the end.                            -- Elisabeth Rohlfs-Hill Click any chapter number to see the Discussion Prompts and Web Links for that chapter: 1  2  3  4 5  6  7  8 9  10  11  12 13  14  15  16 17  18  19  20 21  22  23  24 25  26  27  28 29  30 Some related web sites: Chronology of John Steinbeck's life from the National Steinbeck Center's website. The Center for Steinbeck Studies. Includes a Brief Biography, Chronology, Homes and Locations, Steinbeck Country, Sources for Further Reading, Biographical Web Sites, and a Photo Gallery. Creation of The Grapes of Wrath National Public Radio's Morning Edition sites containing Brian Naylor's original radio report, as well as links to Woody Guthrie's song "Tom Joad" and even a scene from the 1940 film starring Henry Fonda. (Requires RealPlayer.) Steinbeck Boyhood House website - Now a restaurant with a bookstore downstairs called (really) "The Best Cellar."