AS VINHAS DA IRA, OU A LEITURA HISTÓRICA DA DECADÊNCIA DAS ANTIGAS CLASSES MÉDIAS POR JOHN STEINBECK

Abstract

The literary works of John Steinbeck (1902-1968) during the 30s were viscerally connected to a long historical process among whose effects was the Great Depression. Therefore, his books were written under the shadow of this set of transformations, that extended itself far beyond the economy. As an inheritor of the old rural middle classes, Steinbeck nourished himself and his literature with the values and experience proportioned by the way of life cultivated by that social group since the nineteenth century. Through this set of values and its moral and subjective references, Steinbeck built a historical reading of reality, aiming to interpret, denounce and portray the problems set by the American historical evolution, whose effects were, largely, the gradual increase of the monopoly capital hegemony and its ramifications over the various nooks and crannies of United States social life.