The Many Faces of Jesus in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath

Many modern American literary works deal with individual responsibility in tumultuous times; in fact, a considerable number even elevate this accountability to such a level that characters are portrayed as altruistic figures in their choice to care for those suffering around them during times of extreme adversity. Focus on altruistic figures can be found in the works of many quintessential modern authors, such as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and John Steinbeck. (1) But Steinbeck's work, as I will argue in this essay by considering The Grapes of Wrath, takes altruistic characters a step further by aligning them with Jesus. Moreover, in The Grapes of Wrath, the various Christ-like characters seem also to incorporate features of the American romantic movement known as transcendentalism in order to locate them within the distinctively modern, American context of the Great Depression. A principle tenet in nineteenth-century American transcendental philosophy is that anyone can attain spiritual enlightenment akin to that of Christ. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the father of transcendentalism, created much controversy when he stated in his "Divinity School Address" that Jesus was not divine but mortal, and that he believed that all individuals were capable of transcending their humanity to achieve a Christ-like state: "Jesus Christ belonged to a true race of prophets.... One man was true to what is in you and me.... He said ... 'I am divine. Through me, God acts; through me speaks. Would you see God, see me; or see thee?'" (1037). Such a perspective directly contends that Jesus was not the only son of God. Transcendentalist philosophers oppose traditional Christianity by proclaiming that everyone has the potential to gain the heightened spirituality that Christ did. For them, Jesus Christ is merely an example, albeit a very important one, of a historical figure whose mortal self did not prevent him from becoming spirituality elevated. This idea of an individual spiritual transcendence, which is equaled to the spirituality of Christ, directly challenges Christianity's core principle that Christ is the only person who, in human form, is also divine. This view has remained controversial even into the twentieth century, but modernist writers such as Steinbeck readily applied this philosophical enterprise to their writings in order to formulate a more accessible representation of Christ through their characters for contemporary readers. (2) The Grapes of Wrath reveals a connection between the traditional Christ figure and the novel's principle characters, but complicates it with a transcendentalist position that eschews the traditional Christian doctrine of Christ's divine humanity. However, the narrative does not merely offer copies of characters that directly fit into transcendentalism's tenet of the divine mortal, for even this position is repudiated when the narrative insists that "transcendence" is attained not as a result of spiritual pursuit, but of moral obligations to others. In other words, the characters are Christ-like because they deliberately assume an existentialist-inflected personal responsibility toward others. For this, they are also often defaulted from their own existence in the end. These modern "transcendentalist" characters resemble Christ because they fully identify with and embrace the hardships that others are undergoing, but unlike Christ, they do not have recourse to transcending beyond these hardships. Steinbeck's characters remain tied to their struggles and face countless challenges in order to stay true to their existential belief in the importance of personal responsibility. If spiritual transcendence is defined as breaking through one's human limits in order to identify with the divine, then the characters in The Grapes of Wrath, in a sense, cannot be said to have "transcended" anything at all; they simply carry on the best they can in encountering the bleak reality of their modern lives but remain, paradoxically, still Christ-like. …