Steinbeck's Dysfunctional Families: A Coast-to-Coast Dilemma

At The Beginning Of A Semester, when I ask American Literature students to tell me what they know about the writings of John Steinbeck, his main themes and subject matter, their answers depend on which works they have read. More often than not, I will get responses that allude to his sympathy and support for the plight of farm workers and the dispossessed. Some mention his interest in the outcasts of society, in particular the retarded or the malformed. Rarely is there any mention of the family. These answers are to be expected. After all, Steinbeck's international reputation is based largely on The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men , the two works most likely to represent his presence in the canon, the former omnipresent on those lists of the one hundred most important novels in twentieth century American literature. And these works are primarily about the plight of migrant workers and the powerless and oppressed. Initial investigation for this article confirmed what my students and my own rudimentary research and reading have suggested. I started with the MLA International Bibliography, the standard search engine for literary investigation. Inputting the words "Steinbeck" and "Family," I was disappointed but not sur-