SOURCE: Ditsky, John. “The Grapes of Wrath: A Reconsideration.” Southern Humanities Review 13, no. 3 (summer 1979): 215-20.

In the following essay, Ditsky describes The Grapes of Wrath as “a romantic epic of the U.S. highway.”

It can be argued that the American road provides the major theme of our national literature. Broaden the consideration to include the road's literary counterparts—the river and the sea—and the point acquires further strength. Four decades after its creation, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath begs recognition as the sort of book it really is: a classic of undiminished power that is fundamentally a romantic epic of the U.S. highway. Misguided assumptions stemming from the critical attitudes of the Thirties have kept this book from being seen for what it has always been—a volume in the service of mankind, of course, but not one with a sense of specific doctrinal...