Louis Owens

Bio: Louis Owens is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Dialogic. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 3 citations.

Dialogic Structure and Levels of Discourse In Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath

Abstract: UCH attention has been paid to the most basic level of narrative structure in The Grapes of Wrath, to the alternation of the story of the Joads with the story of the Dust Bowl exodus as a whole. Critics have discussed Steinbeck's rationale for such a structure and have closely examined devices the author uses to weld the two kinds of chapters into a unified novel.1 In spite of long interest in the immediate dialectic of the alternating chapters, however, almost no attention has been devoted to the still more complex dialogic structure and levels of discourse in The Grapes ofWrath. In attempting to write the story of a human tragedy on a national scale, Steinbeck was faced with a dilemma. The documentary, a form with which he was thoroughly familiar, tended to give the big picture, tended to focus on the suffering multitudes, with the effect of educating the viewer or reader but at the same time distancing him from the intimate suffering and pain of those caught up in disaster. \"It means very little to know that a million Chinese are starving unless you know

The Philosophy of Ecology in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath

Abstract: This thesis explores the possibilities for ecocritical study in fiction through John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath. Major ecocritical interpretation has yet to gain much traction in novels; by focusing on human nature, this form’s “anthropocentric” posture seems itself to be antithetical to ecocritical efforts, which aim to unseat humans as the center of the moral universe. However, by analyzing The Grapes of Wrath’s formal, narratorial, and thematic valences, I argue that principles of social justice concurrently imply environmental justice in the philosophical currents of the text. Tenets of deep ecology and Aldo Leopold’s “land ethic” inform the novel’s overall environmental outlook. The key to my interpretation is the value of community at the center of Steinbeck’s world. To expand principles of the collectivism and compassion in the social community to include the broader ecological community, I focus on the narrative’s unique Judeo-Christian spirituality and humanistic discourse. Ultimately I identify cohesion in The Grapes of Wrath’s composition that makes a single narrative of both the natural and the human worlds, and that creates a moral universe that guides ethical behavior towards others, both human and non-human; in doing so, I argue Steinbeck’s novel both enacts and represents an ecologically minded ethic.