Steinbeck in Today's Economic Crisis

The economic situation in the United States at the current time is becoming more and more parallel to the economy that John Steinbeck knew. Many writers are discussing how the current economic downturn could be the coming of a second Great Depression, the main subject of many of Steinbeck's works. Steinbeck would react to the economic situation in the U.S. today much the same way he did in the 1930s. He would use the real stories of many of the laborers suffering from the rising unemployment rates. Steinbeck would write about the negative aspects of life that many writers would not be willing to use as subject matter. Although the state of the economy is predicted to remain bad for quite sometime, it is not expected to reach the severity of the Great Depression. Nonetheless, Steinbeck would be influenced by the writers of today much in the same way he was influenced by the famous Realist writers of the 1930s. Steinbeck's subject matter would no longer be about the displaced migrant workers that suffered during the Great Depression, but his works would focus on those individuals left unemployed by the increase in technology that has led to the need for less jobs. Despite being almost a full century later, Steinbeck would react to the economic situation today in the same ways he reacted to the Great Depression, using it as his main subject matter for most of his famous works.