Summary
A characteristic of Steinbeck’s works is the abundant usage of color words. The
connection between Steinbeck’s fiction and colors has been considered from various
points of view. However, there are few previous studies focusing on the relation between
his use of colors and his view of life. In this thesis I focused on the color words “white”
and “gray” which are employed in The Grapes of Wrath, and attempt to indicate thedeep relation between the colors he uses in the novel and his view of life.
The main characters, the Joads, and many others were expelled from the land
where they had lived and farmed, and journey to California as migrants longing to find
new land to start a new life. However, the agricultural system in California wasdifferent from the type of farming they had engaged in for a long time. It wasintensively commercialized agriculture and land owners secured profits by theexploitation of the migrants. The migrants were not treated as human beings but asdisposable tools. In spite of this extremely difficult situation, these migrants had astrong desire to survive adversity and to work for a better future. Steinbeck uses thewhite color to describe their strong will to live in some chapters, including chapter 22.
In addition to “white,” I considered Steinbeck’s use of “gray” and his view of life inchapters in which “gray” appears frequently. In these chapters Steinbeck describes thebusiness practices which exposed migrants to danger, and how the times and society,which migrants could not resist individually, changed. Steinbeck vividly depicts
migrants driven to death by huge powers they could not oppose. Migrants felt bothterror and anger when their efforts to live were unfairly suppressed and their lives werefatally exposed to danger. Steinbeck describes some of the crises the migrants
experienced. One is that migrants were driven to the point that they did not have themeans to live; another is that they were prevented from reproducing and passing life to
the next generation. In addition, he states how the dignity of their lives was denied. He
indicates that the flow of life was obstructed by man’s stupid acts. In his use of the color“gray,” Steinbeck conveys the migrants’ wrath and terror.
When I consider “white” and “gray” from such a viewpoint, it turns out that inthese colors there is a deep connection with Steinbeck’s view of life, which he describes
for us in The Log from the Sea of Cortez. What he wants to express is the immortality
and eternity of life. That is to say, those who receive a life have to live and have to passon their life to the next generation. From the above, I can conclude that Steinbeck’s useof color is a reflection of his view of life.
Many studies about how color influences human emotion and psychology have

been conducted by many researchers, including Newton, Goethe and others. To perceive
colors is an important aspect of man’s psychology; it also plays an important role inman’s physiological function. Johannes Itten who is an authority in chromatics insiststhat color is a vessel expressing a dominant feeling which man may only feel vaguely.
Whether we are conscious or not of a particular color, color has the power to affect us
positively or negatively; color is something which possesses a kind of energy. It is very
difficult to put abstract ideas about human life into words. However, in his works
Steinbeck realizes Itten’s ideas regarding “the power and energy of the color,” and withthe references to color, which has a great influence on man’s mind and psyche, he
effectively expresses his view of life.