Degree Type
Thesis
Date of Award
1997
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
English
Major
English (Literature)
First Advisor
Charles L.P. Silet
Abstract
John Steinbeck was an American author whose fiction has remained popular throughout the world for most of this century. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1939 for The Grapes of Wrath, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. His works include many of the most widely read books in the United States and abroad, and his popular appeal has remained constant. This may be due to his portrayal of common people performing heroic acts or merely attempting to survive in difficult times and often under lethal circumstances. He wrote about minorities, migrants and immigrants, laborers and peasants, whores and hoboes and other people living on the fringes of society. Most of his characters are badly flawed in some way, but Steinbeck gave them a quality of dignity which has allowed millions of readers to sympathize with their plights. In short, all of Steinbeck's characters seem lifelike. Steinbeck's ability to create such characters may have been his greatest gift.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.31274/rtd-180813-7549
Publisher
Digital Repository @ Iowa State University, http://lib.dr.iastate.edu
Copyright Owner
Craig Colin Phimister
Copyright Date
1997
Language
en
Date Available
March 05, 2013
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Phimister, Craig Colin, ""Whan that Aprill": the influence of the general prologue of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales on John Steinbeck's The Wayward Bus" (1997). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 26.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/26
