Professional Documents
Culture Documents
By Stephen Bullivant
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Sthepen Bullivant
as you read the book you will realize that the
words have a special meaning in this book. . . .
The title, Battle Hymn of the Republic, in itself
has a special meaning in the light of this book.9
The “special meaning” alluded to is not difficult to divine. The
second line of the song (“He is trampling out the vintage where
the grapes of wrath are stored”) is echoed not just in the book’s
title but also in the cautionary note at the end of chapter 25: “In
the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing
heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.” (363). The following
February, Steinbeck remained adamant that the whole song should
be published as a frontispiece. He writes to his editor and life-long
friend Pascal Covici: “I meant, Pat, to print all all all the verses of
the Battle Hymn. They’re all pertinent and they’re all exciting. . . ”10
Such eagerness on the part of the author warrants a little attention.
The first verse notwithstanding, when read in light of the novel it
is the final verse of the song which seems most strikingly “pertinent”:
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
Against the pious poeticism of the rest of the stanza, the third line
here is especially noteworthy. That one ought to follow Christ
“even unto death” is not, of course, an innovative suggestion
(indeed, it is a frequent theme of the gospel writers). That the
purpose of so doing is “to make men free,” however, is. Such
a concept is wholly foreign to the gospel Jesus, who speaks of
martyrdom as a means to personal salvation, not corporal
liberation (e.g. Mk 8.34b-35: “For those who want to save their
life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for
the sake of the gospel, will save it.”). In interpreting Christian
discipleship in terms of aligning oneself with the cause of temporal
liberation, the “Battle Hymn” adapts Jesus’ example to the
contemporary situation. Or, to put it theologically, the concrete
reality provides the basis for a new christological response.
The christological tradition expressed by (if not, in fact,
originating in) the “Battle Hymn” may be traced in other
American literature right up to the time of Steinbeck’s writing
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The poem was set to music in 1936 by Earl Robinson, and went
on to achieve wide currency—most notably in the fifties and
sixties in the repertoires of Paul Robeson, Pete Seeger and Joan
Baez.
Of particular significance to the arguments of the present
essay are stanzas four and five of the poem/song:
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Sthepen Bullivant
And standing there as big as life
and smiling with his eyes,
says Joe “What they can never kill
went on to organize,
went on to organize.
We need not look very far to find support for the claim that Joe
Hill’s portrayal here is “Christlike.” The mention of him being
“framed” calls to mind the gospel accounts of Jesus’ trial before
the Sanhedrin—which, according to Luke and John at least,
was conducted after Pilate’s cross-examination had found “no
case against him” (e.g. Jn 19.38b; cf. Lk 23.13-5). It should
also be mentioned that Hill’s silence at his trial (although not
mentioned by Hayes) makes his story particularly conducive to
“christologization”: “Pilate said to him, ‘Do you not hear how
many accusations they make against you?’ But he gave no answer,
not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly
amazed.” (Mt 27.13-14).
The strongest parallel between “I Dreamed I Saw Joe
Hill Last Night” and the gospel record is to be found in Hill’s
declaration that he is not, in fact, dead, but may instead be found
wherever working men are organized to “defend their rights.”
In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples “where two
or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Mt
18.20), and his last words to them are: “And remember, I am
with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28.20). Also relevant
here are the Johannine discourses on the coming of the Holy
Spirit which, he says, will “be with you for ever” on the condition
that “you love me, [and] you will keep my commandments” (Jn
14.15-16). Quite how John conceives the role of the Spirit is a
point of scholarly dispute, but on a simple level it may be well to
regard it as being “the presence of Jesus when Jesus is absent.”12
Of course, Jesus makes no mention of working men defending
their rights (as does Hayes’ Joe Hill), but as we saw with the
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recorded by him that Cleghorn primarily bases her christology.
Prefiguring the Latin American liberation theologians by almost
three decades, she draws strongly on Mt 25.31-46 and its claim
that “whatever you did to the least of these my brothers, you did
it me”:
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty
and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger
and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me
clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in
prison and you visited me. (Mt 25.35-6)
This suggestion that Christ is to be identified—and in a sense
more real than the purely figurative—with the poor and afflicted
is paraphrased in the poem.
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hard to imagine.
Jesus’ command to the rich to give their “goods to the poor,”
recalling Mk 10.17-22, receives a fuller expression in the sixth
stanza:
Moreover, Guthrie’s Jesus not only quotes Mt 11.34 (“I come not
to bring you peace, but a sword”) in verse three, but also threatens
in verse eight what, in Steinbeck’s parlance, might be put as “the
grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for
the vintage.” (363):
When the love of the poor shall one day turn to hate,
When the patience of the workers gives away;
“Would be better for you rich if you never had been
born,”
So they laid Jesus Christ in His grave.
In the original version of the song quite who this “they” who
“laid Jesus Christ in his grave” are remains obscure. In other
(later?) versions, however, the mystery is resolved. Aided and
abetted by “a dirty little coward named Judas Iscariot,” the blame
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and the preachers,” “the cops and the soldiers,” and finally,
“the landlord and the soldiers that he hired.” It is interesting to
compare these groups with those groups in The Grapes of Wrath
who conspire against the migrant workers—i.e. precisely those
doing to the Okies now what was done to Jesus two thousand
years before.
The song—in all its versions—concludes with a verse making
it quite plain (as if it was not already!) that Guthrie does not just
have in mind past events:
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Sthepen Bullivant
points during the song, as here:
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Notes
Sthepen Bullivant
1
To Bo Beskow, Pacific Grove, 19 November, 1948—reprinted in
E. Steinbeck & R. Wallstan (eds.), John Steinbeck: A Life in Letters
[hereafter SLL] (New York: Penguin, 2001) 341-44, at 343.
2
Christology being, in the words of eminent Catholic theologian Karl
Rahner: “That part of theology which deals with Jesus Christ, and in a
strict sense with his Person. . . ” See K. Rahner & H. Vorgrimler, Concise
Theological Dictionary (Burns & Oates, 1983) 70.
3
Malcolm Cowley, for example, remarks on Casy’s transformation into
“a Christ-like labour leader.” See “American Tragedy,” New Republic
98 (3 May 1939): 382-3 (reprinted in J. R. McElrath, J. S. Crisler, & S.
Shillinglaw (eds.), John Steinbeck: The Contemporary Reviews [hereafter
TCR] (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996) 166-7. Similarly, Charles Lee
makes fleeting reference to “Christ-like Casy” in “The Grapes of Wrath:
The Tragedy of the American Sharecropper,” Boston Herald (22 April
1939, Sec. A, p. 7), printed in B. A. Heavilin, ed., The Critical Response
to John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath [hereafter Heavilin] (Westport,
CT: Greenwood Press, 2000) 47-9, at 47).
4
An interpretation suggested (tentatively) by C. Kocela (“A Postmodern
Steinbeck, or Rose of Sharon Meets Oedipa Maas,” in Heavilin, 247-67,
at 257).
5
J. Fontenrose, “The Grapes of Wrath,” in Heavilin, 71-86, at 82.
6
Ibid., 82.
7
Page references (given in square brackets) are to the 1967 Viking edition
of The Grapes of Wrath. All Biblical quotations (excepting those quoted
from other authors) are from the NRSV translation.
8
For example, the attempt to wrest meaning from the fact that among
the twelve Joads are two men named Thomas (cf. Fontenrose, 82-3).
The synoptists concur on there being only one Thomas among Jesus’
entourage (Mt 10.2-4; Mk 3.16-19; Lk 6.14-16), although according to
John the Twelve did include two men named Judas (see Jn 14.22). Also,
both Levant and Visser remark on how Casy accepts his martyrdom
“with a phrase that recalls Christ’s last words.” The phrase which they
do in fact recall (Lk 23.34) is not, however, Jesus’ last—cf. H. Levant,
The Novels of John Steinbeck (Columbia : University of Missouri Press,
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24
A. Lomax & P. Seeger (eds.), Hard Hitting Songs for Hard Hit People,
Sthepen Bullivant
Oak Publications 1967.
25
E. Moseley, “Christ as the Brother of Man,” in A. M. Donohue (ed.),
A Casebook on “The Grapes of Wrath” (New York: Crowell, 1968) at
216-17.
26
L. Owens, p. 40.
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