The Social Protest Tradition in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Nadine Gordimer’s Burger’s Daughter
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Date
2015
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
university Mouloud Mammeri of Tizi-Ouzou
Abstract
This piece of research investigates the issue of social protest in one of America’s
most outstanding literary figures namely John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and the
South African author Nadine Gordimer’s Burger’s Daughter. We have shown that
though their stylistic differ, John Steinbeck and Nadine Gordimer meet in their common
intent to protest against the established social orders in their respective American and
South African societies. Steinbeck describes the capitalist impulses underlying the
eviction, migration, and exploitation of Dust Bowl migrants in 1930s, while Gordimer
presents those animating the ideologically torn apart Apartheid society. For this, both
authors engage in the rhetorical involvement and awakening of their audiences. In fact,
confronting the reader with such realistically ironical depictions of his actual society,
arises, not only his empathy, but also his commitment to act upon it. To reach our goal
we have relied on the historicists theoretical supports of Wilhelm Dilthey, Karl Marx,
and Friedrich Nietzsche as developed in Paul Hamilton’s Book: Historicism the New
Critical Idiom (1996)
Description
57p.;30cm.(+cd)
Keywords
social protest, historicism, empathy, Marxism, Capitalism, ideology, historicization, naturalization, oracular history, Great Depression, Dust Bowl, and Apartheid.
Citation
Culture and Media Studies