Steinbeck’s People in Flight: An Analysis of the Transformative Forces of the Road Taken

• Thesis title in Czech: Steinbeckovi lidé v pohybu: Analýza proměnné schopnosti zvolené cesty putování
• Thesis title in English: Steinbeck’s People in Flight: An Analysis of the Transformative Forces of the Road Taken
• Key words: proměna, mobilita, let, útěk, John Steinbeck, Hrozny hněvu, americký sen, naděje, deprese, 30. léta, období Velké hospodářské krize, Dust Bowl, Kalifornie
• English key words: change, mobility, flight, escape, John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, American Dream, hope, depression, 1930s, Great Depression, Dust Bowl, California
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2013/2014
• Thesis type: diploma thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK)
• Supervisor: David Lee Robbins, Ph.D.
• Author: hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 07.04.2014
• Date of assignment: 07.04.2014
• Administrator's approval: not processed yet
• Confirmed by Study dept. on: 12.05.2014
• Date and time of defence: 04.02.2015 09:00
• Date of electronic submission: 14.01.2015
• Date of proceeded defence: 04.02.2015
• Submitted/finalized: committed by student and finalized
• Opponents: PhDr. Hana Ulmanová, Ph.D.

Guidelines

“Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. Tour masters, schedules, reservations, brass-bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip. Only when this is recognized can the blown-in-the glass bum relax and go along with it. Only then do the frustrations fall away. In this a journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” John Steinbeck
This thesis focuses on the theme of journey and the changes that occur in the socio-historical context of the Great Depression as well as in John Steinbeck‘s The Grapes of Wrath. The thesis is an expository piece on road literature, its features and how the chosen novel has earned its rightful place in the American oeuvre, specifically that of road literature. The thesis is separated into two major parts. The former part provides the reader with a socio-historical context of the Great Depression as well as a background on historical patterns of journey in America and how these two aspects are interrelated in the context of this thesis. The latter part constitutes the analysis of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath by including the authorial relation to the novel and the many aspects of the novel as studied through the scope of road literature. The latter part is expanded by a close-up analysis of identity changes of characters from The Grapes of Wrath. The primary focus is on the notion of change and how it is connected to the notion of the road. And between these two notions stands the human being and how he is transformed in the process.

References

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