A Novel or Treatise

Is The Grapes of Wrath a novel or treatise? A treatise is a formal writing that deals with or treats a specific subject. Steinbeck goes into detail about the way life was in the 30s. The land was dry and dusty, and the people were out of work. Booth, writes in his book, " The "implied author" chooses, consciously or unconsciously, what we read; we infer as an ideal, literary, created version of the real man; he is the sum of his own choices." The author chooses what he wants his reader to know or not know. It is true that The Grapes of Wrath could be treated as a treatise, I believe that it should still be called a novel. Steinbeck is writing in a way to help us see the hard life of the 30s.

"The surface of the earth crusted, a thin hard crust, and as the sky became pale, pink in the red country and white in the gray country." As Steinbech opens with telling us how the land is dry and crusted, we learn how the land is effected but also how it is effecting peoples lives.  "Three dollars a day, I got damn sick of creeping for my dinner--and not getting it. I got a wife and kids. We got to eat. Three dollars a day, and it comes every day." Through this telling of harshness of life the reader can feel sympathy for the characters, the Joads, and the reality of having to choose between staying and loosing everything or moving west to the "promise land".