The ghost of Tom Joad : the development of the character’s mythical aura through literature, cinema and music

Abstract

Traballo Fin de Grao en Lingua e Literatura Inglesas. Curso 2015-2016In the research area of literature and other artistic expressions, I have not found many instances of analysis of the exchange between literature and music. Being aware of the relevance of this connection in contemporary cultural studies, I will endeavor to focus my attention in these fields and with that purpose in mind I will regard literature, cinema and music as equally fundamental cultural productions throughout the elaboration of this paper. In order to convey the potential of this interrelation for the construction of works that eventually assimilate into culture, I intend to analyze an artistic creation that has undergone a transposition through these three different manifestations and which, in the process, would have acquired the potentiality each of them can provide. John Steinbeck’s masterpiece novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) seemed a very accurate example. Until the present date, the story has been transposed to the silver screen by John Ford – The Grapes of Wrath (1940) –, to popular music by Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen, and even to the theatre by Frank Galati in 1988. In this dissertation, I will not deal with the latter transposition of the story; instead I have chosen to go deeper into the web of internal influences that has developed among the novel, the film and the songs written out of the story of the Joad family as well as among their different authors

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