Analysis of Focalization: A Case of John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”

Abstract

Modern studies in narratology provide some fine models to study the structure of novels and stories. The modern narratological approaches divide books and stories into story, narrative, and narration. There is also a further division of these units, the focalization of which is very important. Focalization gives the idea of the center of perception, which means who the focalizer is and what is being focalized. The important advancement in this study is that this approach distinguishes between the narrator and the focalizer and states that the narrator is not always the focalizer. The Grapes of Wrath is one of John Steinbeck's best novels, and it won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.