Concepts of Style in The Pastures of Heaven
Concepts of Style in The Pastures of Heaven

Summary/Abstract: This article treats John Steinbeck‘s cycle of stories The Pastures of Heaven as a novel, due to its close-fitting temporal, spatial and thematic structure, attempting to read into it a number of narrative techniques that best fall under the heading of stylistic concepts. One of the narrative modes that obsessively permeates the rest of Steinbeck‘s fiction as well and which may be called an acute sense of showing or—as one critic prefers—arabesque, possibly comes to him from cinematography and is counterbalanced by the overall ironic tone of the epic to achieve fictional symmetry. The narrative material is investigated for instances ranging from benevolent irony or parodic depiction to mythical or even grim irony, all infused with the humor of hearsay dissemination techniques. Some sources of irony are identified and a discussion of the rare passages when irony is dropped harmonizes the commentary.

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