Steinbeck is trying to put a picture into the reader's mind of how life was during the Great Depression of 1929. When The Grapes of Wrath was published on March 14, 1939, it created a national sensation of the devastating effects of the Great Depression of 1929. Steinbeck's varying works during the years of his greatest popularity and power in the 1930s were characterized by precisely this kind of irony. John Ernst Steinbeck began to write The Grapes of …showed first 75 words of 779 total…

…showed last 75 words of 779 total…history, because it was released after the Great Depression of 1929. John Ernst Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California in 1902. His birthplace served as a backdrop for many of his writings. The Grapes of Wrath was criticised with both negative and positive criticism from its release date in 1939 to this very day. Although many critics criticised The Grapes of Wrath for its negativity, the book won the Nobel Prize for Literature and became an instant best-seller.