Naturalism and Steinbeck's "Curious Compromise" in The Grapes of Wrath

Alan Gibbs' "Naturalism and Steinbeck's "Curious Compromise" examines previous assessments of John Steinbeck's employment of naturalism in The Grapes of Wrath. The author takes the position that many of these assessments fail because they demand of Steinbeck a total commitment to Naturalism. Instead, Naturalism is taken here to be just one discourse among many other literary, philosophical and sociological theoretical bases present in the novel. The article assesses Steinbeck's success in blending Naturalism alongside these other discursive formulations, focusing in particular on its interaction with Transcendentalist and Marxist discourses. As such, the author examines not only Steinbeck's complex mix of discourses in this novel, but also assesses the extent to which Naturalism may be, by definition, conservative. The article concludes that a Manichean insistence that the novel either is or isn't a naturalist work is ultimately reductive and unproductive; instead, Steinbeck's skill in blending the discourses into a complex whole must be fully appreciated.