The (Forgotten) Significance of Interchapters in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath: From Tenancy to Seasonal Migrant Farm Labor

Abstract

In the wake of the so-called postmodernist turn in literary studies and criticism, Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath has been subjected to a major interpretative revision that has reoriented the focus solely on the chapters dealing with the Joads while leaving out those that provide a detailed analysis of larger socioeconomic forces at work. The latter are laid out in documentary interchapters that constitute the backbone of dialectical montage, a narrative method used by Steinbeck to create a consciousness-raising novel. Documentary interchapters, as this paper argues, shed light on the integrated forms of systemic exploitation that agricultural workers face in capitalism. Overlooking the significance of documentary interchapters results in a reductive reading of Steinbeck’s classic, which in turn also undermines its consciousness-raising potential in our era.

A Corpus-Driven Study of the Style Variation in The Grapes of Wrath

“…These chapters are referred to as the intercalary chapters (Swensen, 2015) or the interchapters (Levant, 2007); they provide the narrative chapters with an epic scope. Burcar (2018) regarded this narrative method as a dialectical montage that juxtaposes the seemingly disparate scenes to reveal the structural interconnectedness in a larger context. This setting leads the readers' attention to the cause of the systematic exploitation.…”