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摘 要

约翰·欧内斯特·斯坦贝克是 20 世纪美国最著名小说家之一， 斯坦贝克的名著《愤怒的葡萄》出版于 1939 年，是美国 20 世纪 30 年代大萧条时期的一部史诗。作者以深刻写实的笔触，在书中展现了当时美国农民在生死线上挣扎、反抗的情景。

生态整体主义是核心思想是：把生态系统的整体利益作为最高价值而不是把人类的利益作为最高价值，把是否有利于维持和保护生态系统的完整、和谐、稳定、平衡和持续存在作为衡量一切事物的根本尺度，作为评判人类生活方式、科技进步、经济增长和社会发展的终极标准。

本文基于对小说的细致研读、对作家生活经历和价值取向的探索，主要运用生态整体主义理论进行文本分析，通过对小说中体现的自然生态、社会生态和精神生态三个方面为《愤怒的葡萄》的解读提供新的视角，并希望人类能够对目前我们所面临的各种社会危机究其根源，并努力构建一个人与自然和谐相处的文明社会。

关键词：生态整体主义 《愤怒的葡萄》 约翰•斯坦贝克

1. Introduction

1.1 About John Steinbeck

John Ernst Steinbeck is considered as one of them most important writers in modern American Literature History. He is author of twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books, and five collections of short stories. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939), East of Eden (1952) and the novella Of Mice and Men (1937). His long career as a writer reaches zenith when he accepted the award of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962"for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception".

He was born in Salinas, California and lived most of his first forty years in the Salinas Valley, where was later the setting for most of his fiction and moved him deeply. It should be pointed out that Steinbeck’s long residence in the Salinas Valley covered years of both regional and national unrest, changes which he observed and later utilized especially in his most sociologically oriented novel The Grapes of Wrath. His father was a government official, and his mother was a school teacher. Through the influence of his schoolteacher mother, Steinbeck read widely, especially in English classical literature. He supported himself from his youth, working as a farm laborer, a seaman on a cattle-boat, a newspaper reporter, a bricklayer, a chemist’s assistant, a surveyor, and a migratory fruit-picker. These experiences of working-class life were very educational for him because it set the basis of his works, established the characteristic tone of his fiction, and provided firsthand observation of the attitudes, manners and language of the workingman, especially in The Grapes of Wrath. His particular contribution to the American ethos is to make uniquely his own portraits of migrant workers, the dispossessed, dirt farmers, and manual laborers. He provided authentic portraits of a class of people seldom seen in fiction before his time. His pictures of stoop laborers, strikes, and the Depression are, in present day, the standard images by which those things are unknown and unimagined to us.

1.2About the Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939, is an epic chronicle during the Great Depression of the United States in 1930s. When preparing to write the novel, Steinbeck wrote: "I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this the Great Depression and its effects." Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of sharecroppers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, and changes in agricultural industries. Due to their nearly hopeless situation and in part because they were trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other "Okies", they sought jobs, land, dignity, and a future. It was a very tough and costly journey: grandpa and grandma passed away on the road, several other family members left the family due to various reasons. The Joads suffered from hungry, insult, sorrow, and despair. They finally arrived in California. However, it's not the termination of their journey but was rather a new start of their new hardship. When The Grapes of Wrath appeared, it soared to the top of the bestseller lists, selling nearly half a million copies. Although many Oklahomans and Californians reviled the book, considering Steinbeck’s characters to be unflattering representations of their states’ people, the large majority of readers and scholars praised the novel highly. In 1940, the novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and adapted to the screen. Although Steinbeck went on to have a productive literary career, none of his later books, like The Moon is Down (1942), East of Eden (1952), The Winter of Our Discontent (1961) and Travels with Charley (1962), had the impact of The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck scholar John Timmerman sums up the book's impact: "The Grapes of Wrath may well be the most thoroughly discussed novel – in criticism, reviews, and college classrooms – of 20th century American literature."

2. Literature review

Ever since the publication of The Gapes of Wrath in 1939, the book has caused long and sustained criticism. The critical book about The Gapes of Wrath emerged in 1944 which was named The Reception of the Grapes of Wrath in Oklahoma by Martin Staples Shockley. In this book, Martin points out that there are two main arguments about The Gapes of Wrath, one is that it is "an honest, sympathetic, and artistically powerful presentation of economic, social, and human problems"; the other is that it is "a vile, filthy book, an outsider's malicious attempt to smear the state of Oklahoma with outrageous lies" (Shockley 1944) Critical opinions on this book are varied and divergent at home and abroad.

The unfavorable situation for the Steinbeck research lasted from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. With the publication of Peter Lisca's The Wide World of John Steinbeck (1958), there appears a new trend in the Steinbeck studies. Lisca considers that Steinbeck's uniqueness lies in his capacity to examine society in the context of nature, and that "it has enabled Steinbeck, almost alone among the writers of his generation, to give permanent aesthetic values to the materials of the Great Depression." (Lisca 294) Scholarly interest in Steinbeck's works rises to a kind of climax after the writer's death. In addition to the vast number of bibliographical articles and critiques of specific works in academic journal, a great many full-length critical studies and collections of critical essays are published. Steinbeck's non-teleological philosophy, as well as his characterization of men both, as a "religious creature" and a biological being, or "group animal," becomes one of the major critical considerations. Warren French tries to explore the ideological key to the novel, he attempts to reveal Steinbeck's penchant for allegory, his preoccupation with non-teleological thinking, and his affinity with nineteenth-century transcendentalists. According to Mr. French, the ideology is Steinbeck's concept of the mystical union of man and the soi1. Some critics, such as Pizer, claimed that The Grapes of Wrath was the attempt to create fictional forms suitable to their understandings of economic and

social issues in the country. One scholar discussed the work of art and immorality of The Grapes of Wrath from the perspective of literature history.

However, although many researches have been done to study Steinbeck in western countries, there is a big shortage of the research of Steinbeck in China. On February 27, 2012, the 110 anniversary of John Steinbeck's birthday, the Sixth International Steinbeck Conference was held in Steinbeck's hometown. However, there was hardly any event concerning Steinbeck held in China. Compared with other famous writers such as Henry James, Faulkner and Hemingway, Steinbeck, this famous writer, has not received a systematic research in China.

Chen Na, a master student of Shanghai International Studies University, conducts a comprehensive study on Steinbeck's major artistic, all of which exhibit Steinbeck's intentional pursuit of "involvement" and "detachment", endowing the novel with universal significance. The techniques include its juxtaposed structure, narrative technique as well as characterization. Fang Jie（2002）makes a detailed analysis of the previous Steinbeck criticism in the past 60 years, Tian Junwu（2006）relates that Steinbeck is a lover of classic music and poetry and studies the poetic effect achieved by Steinbeck’s narrative language.

However, with the emergence of serious environmental problems, a few scholars have begun to study the work from eco-logical perspectives. For instance, in Gao Xiangyu's The Grapes of Wrath and The Dust Storm in 1930s, he analyzes from the historical point of view and illustrates the negative effect of nature environment and human society caused by agricultural mechanization. Feng Xiaoying's essay Women Strategy and Land Ethic in The Gapes of Wrath claims that women and land are the deep theme of The Gapes of Wrath. There are inner connections between masculine culture and land damage. She reconstructs the harmony between human and nature through women cultural values. What’s more, Wang Xinying（2011）writes a paper named eco-criticism on The Grapes of Wrath using eco-criticism approach to explore the thought root of ecological disasters and interpret the ecological consciousness in the novel. In addition, eco-feminism perspective is used in Xin Yuanyuan’ thesis

（2011）“Eco-feminism in The Grapes of Wrath”, to exlore the common destiny between Joad Ma and the land, showing the double dilemma of Joad Ma and the land. Hu tianfu, a professor from nanyang normal university writes the thesis named The Grapes of Wrath: a great work of eco-liteature to express the idea that human destiny is closed associated with that of future.

Until now, even fewer scholars have studied the work from ecological holism perspective. Inspired by this, this thesis will employ the ecological holism to probe into The Grapes of Wrath. In content, this thesis will explain the ecological holism from three aspects. The first one is natural ecology, mainly focusing on natural environment’s ecological disasters in the novel. The second one social ecology related to socially industrial civilization and the last one is spiritual ecology, that’s to say, mankind’s spiritual crisis, thus hoping that our human beings can reflect on the roots of various problems we are currently confronted with and try to build an ecological civilization of the harmonious coexistence of between human beings and nature. It’s also hoped that this thesis will be beneficial to for the further study of The Grapes of Wrath.

3. Ecological holism in the Grapes of Wrath

3.1 A brief review of ecological holism

Ecological holism is the study of literature and environment from an interdisciplinary point of view. As Cheryll Glotfelty claims, ecological holism is "the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment" (Glotfelty, 1996). In order to distinguish a broader context for literary criticism, Glofelty states, "In most literary theory `the world' is synonymous with society-the social sphere. Ecological holism was expanded the notion of `the world' was include the entire ecosphere" (Glotfelty 1996). As a result, this more expansive perspective provides a methodological bridge between the human and the nonhuman. Similarly, Lawrence Buell in his book Environmental Imagination defines ecological holism as "a study of the relationship between literature and the environment conducted in a spirit of commitment to environmentalist praxis" (Buell 2001). Buell's definition is valid, as far as it goes, and it indicates that ecological holism is not just a means of analyzing nature in literature but implies a more eco-centric world outlook, which extends the environmental ethics.

According to Wikipedia, ecological holism is the ideological basis of eco-criticism the central spirit of ecological holism is: the benefit of the ecosystem is considered of highest value but not the benefit of human beings. The basic rule to judge everything is to see whether it is beneficial to maintain and protect the wholeness, the harmony, the stability, and the sustainable existence of the ecosystem, which is thought to be the ultimate criterion to judge the human living patterns, the development of science, economic growth and social development.

Ecological holism came into being during 1920s, with Aldo Leopold, serving as the representative. As one of the theorist in Ecological Ethics, Aldo Leopold is also a philosopher who initiated the study of ethical holism systematically. The most important achievement of Aldo Leopold is the ecological integrity which is firstly proposed by him and becomes the core idea of modern ecological holism. The birth of his perspective of land integrity indicates the formal establishment of the ecological holism which has surpassed the thought of anthropocentrism, and made people consider with macroscopic visual field of ecological integrity.

In his posthumous work A Sand County Almanac, Leopold put forward many theories of ecological ethics, such as Thinking Like a Mountain, the Value of Wildness, the Land Ethic, etc., expatiating his theory system of ecological holism, and proposing his basic value criterion in the third chapter of The outlook of A Sand County Almanac, that is, “all things are right when they tend to maintain the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community, otherwise, they are wrong.”, which has aroused a tremendous reaction in philosophy. It has many theoretical values and practical significances, because it denies human’s dominant position between human and nature by negating mechanic nature value, and surpass the humanism and liberalism which center on human individual’s dignity, rights, freedom and development. “The basic the presupposition of ecological holism is decentralization and nocentralization” (Wang 2003) ecological holism is not to deny the rights of human existence, but to require the humans to judge all things by the whole interests of ecosystem and themselves within the bounds of ecological laws.

The core content of ecological holism theory explores the relationship between man and nature. In order to fulfill the "harmonious" objective, one has to adjust the relationship between man and nature. The most important is that we have to form a correct viewpoint toward nature. "Nature", as an important category of ecological holism, on the one hand, refers to "outer nature", which includes nature ecology and social ecology; on the other, refers to "inner nature", which means spiritual ecology of human beings. Professor Lu Shuyuan in his monograph Ecological Research in Literature and Apt puts forward a new thinking mode, he divides ecological holism into three parts "Natural Ecology, Social Ecology and Spiritual Ecology."(Lu 2006) The study of ecological holism from these perspectives, which relates to the three basic relationships, namely man-and-nature relationship, man-and-man relationship and man-and-self relationship, becomes more and more acceptable and popular in academic study. Therefore, the thesis will discuss the ecological thoughts in Steinbeck's fictions through his life and the above three aspects.

3.2 Steinbeck's ecological awareness

John Steinbeck's birth place Saunas Valley is the county seat and the largest municipality of Monterey County, California. It is located at the east-southeast of the mouth of the Saunas River. In the first chapter of his famous work The East of Eden, Steinbeck sets the background in his hometown Saunas Valley, he writes: The Saunas Valley in North California is a long mountains, and the Saunas River winds and twists narrow swale between o ranges of up the centre until it falls at last into Monerey Bay... On the wide level acres of the valley the topsoil lay deep and fertile. It required only a rich winter of rain to make it break froth in grass and flowers. The spring flowers in a wet year were unbelievable. The whole valley floor and the foothills too, would be carpeted with lupins and poppies. Every petal of blue lupin is edged with white, so that a field of lupins is bluer than you can imagine. (EE: 3).

Steinbeck shows a life-long and unfaltering devotion to his hometown. In his childhood memory, he wasn't used to the life of high-grade community. Instead he was fond of attaching to nature. He has left his footprints all over the mountain, brook, and ocean. The dense forests, the rolling hills and the brilliant sunshine all leave with memories to last a lifetime. Steinbeck has a dissociable character, but he loves nature extremely. As he noted in his journal of a novel: "I remember the sorrow at not being part of thins in my childhood...something cut me off always." (Jay 1994) When soaking up the atmosphere of the nature, his imagination flies and brings the inspiration for his creation. He develops a passion for all the sounds, scents, and tastes of things in Saunas Valley, both animated life and unanimated world. He chooses his hometown as a background of most of his fictions. Apart from The East of Eden (1952) mentioned above, his works based on the setting of Saunas also include The Pasture of Heaven (1932), To a God Unknown (1933), The Tortilla Flat (1935), In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), and The Grapes of Wrath (1939), etc.

3.3 Natural ecology: nature destruction by anthropocentrism

In ecologist's view, anthropocentrism, which separates the human from nature human over nature, is the core of the global environmental crisis.

Anthropocentricism describes the tendency for human beings to regard themselves as the central and most significant entities in anthropocentrism: "If the Eiffel Tower were universe. Mark Twain comments on representing the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age; and anybody would perceive that that skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would." (Twain 2004) He ironically criticizes the theory that the universe is created specifically for the evolution of mankind. Lawrence Buell puts forward the term "toxic discourse" "as expressed anxiety arising from perceived threat of environmental hazard due to chemical modification by human agency" (Buell 2001). He hopes to arouse people's environmental justice, so as to save the endangered and toxic nature. Anthropocentrism is the main reason of crisis of natural ecology. Oklahoma is a state located in the Midwest Great Plains in United States. The ecological environment of this region was deteriorating ever since 1930s, sandstorms occurred in successive years.

The total area of southern Great Plains is over 100 million arches, and it spans several states of America. American famous poet Walt Whitman (1819一1892) calls this place "the typical landscapes of North America". However, in Steinbeck's works, it is described as a place full of sand and storm.

When the night came again it was black night, for the stars could not pierce the dust to get down, and the window light could not even spread beyond their own yards. Now the dust was evenly mixed with the air, an emulsion of dust and air. Houses were shut tight, and cloth wedged around doors and windows, but the dust came in so thinly that it could not be seen in the air, and it settled like pollen on the chairs and tables, on the dishes. (GW: 3)

The formation of sandstorm only takes over fifty years. When those white people first come, they develop animal agriculture in Great Plains. However, the grass lands are far from enough to meet the growth of animal population. In early 1930s, large number of peasants moved to Great Plains to cultivate the land. Due to their backward agriculture tools, their productive forces are very low. In order to meet the needs of fast growing population, large agricultural machinery are introduced and applied into the production. At the same time, the mode of production changes into industrialized production and commercial process, so that farmers can get more profit from land. Since 1920s, the annual precipitation has kept decreasing for years. The reservoirs are in serious shortage of water, with serious influences on the agriculture production. The over exploitation of land leads to severe desertification, thus finally resulted in the disaster of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl in 1930s.

Seeing from the perspective of ecological value in the exploitation of Great Plains and its reflection in The Gapes of Wrath, we may reach the conclusion that the root cause of Dust Bowl is "anthropocentrism" value, which formed in the process of utilizing and conquering nature. The western civilization thinks one should strive to rule or to conquer the others. We often discuss the farmers on the Great Plains and their ignorant conduct to the nature. However, it is far from enough. Is it the social system, the value system or the economic system that guide them to this place? No other words like "capitalism" can fully summarize these factors. It is under the value system of capitalism that men, for the sake of their own development, take advantage of the nature as best as they can, so as to get the greatest profit. That is the fundamental cause of Dust Bowl in south Great Plains.

3.4 Social ecology: criticism of modern civilization-the hierarchical relationships among people

In The Grapes of Wrath, the author reveals the hierarchical society of the modern civilization and its bad effect on people’s life. He writes not only a book of a thoroughly detailed exposure of dreadful economic conditions, but also a long declaration to show his deep passion for the masses. Because of development of the capitalistic economic system, class distinction becomes more and more obvious. Historical, social, and economic circumstances separate people into the rich and the poor, landowner and tenant. In order to make the largest profits, the landowners rob of the lots of farmers’ possessions and evict them from the land. “Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some them were cold because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold (GW 32)”, but all of them deliver the same message: the farmers must leave. Tractors arrive on the land, with orders to plow the property, crushing everything in their paths --- including, if necessary, the farmhouse. Though the landowners evict the farmers and the former neighbors become the tractor drivers, who roll the farmers’ land and crumble their house, Steinbeck directly vilifies them. He believes that the economic system makes everyone a victim --- rich and poor, privileged and disenfranchised. “And all of them were caught in something larger than themselves.” (GW 32) The displaced farmers yearn to fight back, but the banks are so faceless, impersonal, and inhuman that they cannot be fought against. “The bank is something else than men…. It’s the monster.” (p. 35) However, the “bank” is just the surface phenomena of the “monster”. It is the entire economic structure that has created the division between the victims, stratified them, and turned the upper strata against the lower. Social ecology argues against hierarchy and “the case against hierarchy is not contingent on its uniqueness as a social phenomenon. Because hierarchy threatens the existence of social life today, it cannot remain a social fact. Because it threatens the integrity of organic nature, it will not continue to do so, given the harsh verdict of ‘mute’ and ‘blind’ nature.” In The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck draws a simple line through the population --- one that divides the privileged from the poor --- and identifies that division as the primary source of evil and suffering in the world. He revolts against values and institutions of the hierarchical society. The process of industrialization in America makes the original relations of production change. The developing capitalistic economy has distorted the society, in which the masses are living in the suffering.

3.5 The Spiritual Ecology

3.5.1 The spiritual crisis

Spiritual Ecology is a recent term that refers to "the intersection between religion and spirituality and environment" (Kolandai 1999). Professor Lu Shuyuan defines spiritual ecology as "a discipline that studies the relationship between subjects as spiritual existence (mainly human beings) and the environments in which they live including natural environment, social environment and cultural environment. Spiritual ecology involves not only the healthy growth of subjects, but also the balance, stability and development of an ecosystem under the coordination of spiritual variables."(Lu 2006) Practitioners of spiritual ecology fall into three categories: scientific and academic, spiritual environmentalism, and religious or spiritual individuals who relate strongly to the environment. The deterioration of natural ecology and social ecology may have some impact on individual's spiritual world. Therefore, after the discussion of natural crisis and social crisis, Steinbeck further exposes the spiritual crisis of the immigrants. People become offish and selfish, so human's inner world is distorted.

"Place" is an indispensable concept for ecologist. Place is a "space to which meaning has been ascribed" (Carter 1993). Places are "centers of felt value" (Tuan 1977), "discrete if `elastic' areas in which settings for the constitution of social relations are located and with which people can identity”(Agnew 1993). "A place is seen, heard, smelt, imagined, loved, hated, feared, and revered." (Walter 1988) Therefore, a place is a kind of space that can provide a sense of belongings, keeps people feeling familiar and safe. The culture conquest of American, to some extent, increases the number and forms of displacement. More and more people of the world's population strive to take their places with them as they migrate abroad as involuntary exiles for the right of return.

In The Grapes of Wrath, Joad family is expelled by the industrialized machines. They are forced to leave their land, house, and hometown. Memories of the past continuously occur during their west journey, especially when they meet series of difficulties. They would sigh for the good old days. Land is what those tenant men depend upon for survival. They cry when they are driven out by machines. "But it's our land. We measured it and broke up. We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it's not good, it's still ours. That's what makes it ours-being born on it, working it, dying on it."(GW: 39) Therefore, the fundamental spiritual crisis of immigrants is the loss of their land and house. The state of Oklahoma represents not only their living place, but also their spiritual home.

Once being separated with the original familiar life, they would have a feeling of loneliness. Life is unsettled, just like rootless floating weeds in the river, have nothing to depend on. The memory of past place makes those immigrants fall into place-attachment sentiment. Meanwhile, one also becomes attached to places by the power of imaging alone. Raymond Williams traces in English back to Anglo-Saxon times, "each generation recalling the last as having lived in closer intimacy with our natural surroundings." (Williams 1973)

One typical character is Connie, Rose of Sharon's husband. Connie accompanies his wife Rose all the journey and looks after his pregnant wife. He has a strong presumption that he will succeed. However, after several months' hardship, his resolve begins to waver. Connie's eyes are sullen. "If I'd of knew it would be like this I wouldn't of came. I'd a studied nights `bout tractors back home an' got me a three-dollar job too. Fella can live awful nice on three dollars a day, an' go to the pitcher show ever' night”,(GW: 315) At last, Connie abandons his wife and unborn baby, and leaves the whole family resolutely.

The spiritual crisis in immigrants' mind leave them the disharmony of the society and the only a little ray of hope. They lose land, house, job, even faith. Steinbeck shows deep concern over the destiny of immigrants. Ecological holism, not only should guide people properly to deal with natural and social problems, but also exploit spiritual ecology. Ecological holism calls for people's awareness to the return of inner nature, so that human and nature can form a harmonious relationship.

3.5.2 From individualism to collectivism

Collectivism is a conception that emphasizes the interdependence of every human being. Collectivism is a basic cultural element that exists as the reverse of individualism in human nature, and stresses the priority of group goals over individual goals and the importance of cohesion within social groups. Collectivists usually focus on community or society. It is used and has been used as an element in many different and diverse types of government and political, economic and educational philosophies throughout history.

Throughout the novel, Joad Ma is the most important symbol of love in the book, she instinctively did things by virtue of brotherhood, the writer John Steinbeck portrayed this character with full of flesh and blood. She was fully represented as a person, as a mother's nature.

While whipping the ideological roots of human-centrism, Steinbeck was also trying to build the human and nature-new evaluation standard of harmonious coexistence between the values of criteria based on overall interests. Deep Ecology thinks that "the small I is included in Big I?', when the whole is at risk, "no one individual can be saved, unless all are saved." Each specific part of it depends on the overall situation and by it. Human society is a part of ecosystem, which can only be stable and healthy developed within the overall harmony. When the ecological environment has been damaged, and dangerous, human society, this subsystem is bound to follow the social catastrophic changes. It is not difficult to explore that from the chapters arrangement and plot development in the novel, a series of various conflicts embodied in The Gapes of Wrath between peasant farmers, banks, mobility workers and police and within human society, and the crisis the rich and the poor are facing, which in fact is caused by the deterioration of ecological environment in rural areas of the United States, it revealed values of Steinbeck's holism: human society has inevitably been included in a larger biosphere, all this changes in the circle will have a long-term impact on the circle of all species, ecological destruction will inevitably lead to the whole human society internal unrest.

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