The Grapes of Wrath - Viva Zapata ! - John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath -  Viva Zapata ! –  John Steinbeck

 

         

 

                  

     

The All Time Classic “Grapes of Wrath” written by Nobel Laureate American Author John Steinbeck celebrated 75^th Anniversary in 2014 and had also won ‘Pulitzer Prize’ in 1940 for best Fiction.

 

The writer read this book as a teenager, a translation in my mother tongue and always desired to write about this timeless classic.  

 

 The title of the book – “The Grapes of Wrath” -  was suggested by John Steinbeck’s wife Carol.

                     

            

VIVA  ZAPATA  !

I have great pleasure in writing this blog about  The Grapes of Wrath, and Viva Zapata another Novel by John Steinbeck which was made into a blockbuster motion picture starring Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn.

           

 The lead actor of this film Marlon Brando was an American actor and film director.  He is hailed for bringing a gripping realism to film acting and is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influential actors of all time.  He is famous for his roles in “The Last Tango in Paris”, “A Street Car Named Desire”, “Apocalypse Now” and “Godfather”.

The other lead actor of the movie “Viva Zapata”, Anthony Quinn was a Mexican American Actor as well as Painter and Writer.  He was most remembered for essaying his roles in “Guns of Navarone” and “Lawrence of Arabia”. 

At the 1952 Cannes Film Festival, Marlon Brando won the Best Actor Award, and the Film “Viva Zapata” Director Elia Kazan was nominated for the Grand Prix Du Festival International Du Film.

Anthony Quinn won the Oscar Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Marlon Brando also won the Best Actor Award in 1953 BAFTA Awards.



SYNOPSIS


Zapata (Marlon Brando) is part of a delegation sent to complain about injustices to corrupt longtime President Porfirio Diaz (Fay Roope), but Diaz condescendingly dismisses their concerns.  As a result Zapata is driven to open rebellion, alongwith his brother Eufemio (Anthony Quinn).  He in the South and Pancho Villa (Alan Reed) in the north united under the leadership of naïve reformer, Francisco Madero (Harold Gordon).

Diaz is finally toppled and Madero takes his place, but Zapata is dismayed to find that nothing is changed.  The new regime is no less corrupt and self-serving than the one it replaced.  His own brother set himself as a petty dictator, taking what he wants without regard for the law. The ineffectual but well-meaning Madero puts his trusts in treacherous General, Victoriano Huerta (Frank Silvera).  Huerta first take Madero captive and then has him murdered.  Zapata himself is lured into an ambush and killed.

Zapata is depicted in the film as an incorruptible rebel leader.  He is guided by his desire to return the land to the peasants, who have been robbed, while forsaking his personal interest.  

 Steinbecks meditate in the film on power, military and political, which corrupts men.  The Story and Screen Play of the film is written by John Steinbecks and was nominated for Academy Awards.

 

BIOGRAPHY

                 

                                          

 

John Steinbeck’s Childhood home.                                                  National Steinbeck Centre, Calofornia.

 
John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. was born in California in February 27, 1902 and was died in December 20, 1968 aged 66 years in New York City.

 He worked his way through Stanford University but never graduated.  In 1925 he went to New York where he tried for a few years to establish himself as a free-lance writer but he failed and returned to California.  After publishing some Novels and Short Stories, Steinbeck first became widely known with ‘Tortilla Flat’ (1935) a series of humorous stories about Monterey paisanos.

 Steinbeck’s novels all can be classified as social novels dealing with the economic problems of rural labour but there is also a streak of worship of the soil in his books, which does not always agree with his matter-of-fact sociological approach.  After the rough and earthy humor of ‘Tortilla Flat’ he moved on to serious fiction, often aggressive in its social criticism,  In Dubious Battle (1936), which deals with the strikes of the migratory fruit pickers of California plantations.



 

     











     

 “The Grapes of Wrath” is considered to be his masterpiece.  It is the story of Oklahoma tenant farmers who, unable to earn a living from the land, moved to California where they became migratory workers during the Great Depression.  The book published by Penguin Books has been sold more than 14 million copies.

 The Dust Bowl and Great Depression

The Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s also known as the Dirty Thirty’s  was a period of  Dust Storms (Dust Bowl) that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the US and Canadian prairies. It was one of the worst environmental disasters of the Twentieth Century anywhere in the world.  Three million people left their farms on the Great Plains during drought and half a million migrated to other states mainly to the Western States.  It was the combination of natural disaster severe drought and poor land use practice that created the environmental disaster.  The resultant Great Depression devastated the life of natives during the decade starting 1930s to 1940.









        



 The plot of this book “The Grapes of Wrath” was originated during the decade of “Dust Bowl” and “Great Depression”.

In one of the stark and darkest instance in the novel, a woman breast fed a man to save him from death due to starvation during the turbulent times of Great Depression.

John Steinbeck is the winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He was awarded Nobel Prize for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception. His works are widely read abroad and many of his works are considered classics of Western Literature.  His works frequently explored the themes of fate and injustice, especially as applied to downtrodden or everyman protagonists.  

His father John Ernst Steinbeck Sr., served as Monterey County Treasurer and his mother Olivia Hamilton, a former School Teacher, shared Steinbeck’s passion for reading and writing.  He also explored his surroundings, walking across local forests, fields and farms.

 

           

 
 

John Steinbeck’s works –

Fiction

·         The Grapes of Wrath

·         Viva Zapata!

·         Cup of Gold

·         The Pastures of Heaven

·         The Red Pony

·         To a God Unknown

·         Tortilla Flat

·         In Dubious Battle

·         Of Mice and Men

·         The Long Valley

·         The Forgotten Village

·         The Moon is Down

·         Cannery Row

·         The Wayward Bus

·         The Pearl

·         Burning Bright

·         East of Eden

·         Sweet Thursday

·         The Short Reign of Pippin IV : A Fabrication

·         The Winter of our Discontent

·         The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights

 

Non-Fiction (Short Stories and War Journals)

·         Sea of Cortez : A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research

·         Bombs Away: The Story of a Bomber Team

·         A Russian Journal

·         The Log from the Sea of Cortez

·         Once There Was A War

·         America and Americans

·         Journal Of A Novel : The East Of Eden Letters

 

Travelogue

·         Travels With Charley:   In Search of America
 

Travels with Charley (1962) in which Steinbeck wrote about his three month long travel in a truck across forty American states. Charley was his poodle who accompanied him in his road trip to rediscover America.

 

                        

 

 

 

In September 1964, Steinbeck was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Steinbeck’s books were best sellers and he is widely taught in American and British Schools as a bridge to more complex literature.

On December 5, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Steinbeck in to the California Hall of Fame, located at the California Museum for History, Women and Arts.

Filmography:  Based on his works there were 17 motion pictures that were made in Hollywood.