Response to Literary Criticism for The Grapes of Wrath

In Ashley's critique of "The Grapes of Wrath," he states that Steinbeck's greatest work finally suited his greatest limitation, that he is not a great thinker, nor are his characters. He supports his opinion with a quote from a great American literary critic, Edmund Wilson, that Stienbeck specializes "not in those aspects of humanity in which it is most thoughtful, imaginative, constructive" but in simple human beings, "almost at the animal level," enduring or fighting to survive. His best subject is "the processes of life itself." One might argue this point in asking if it is not characteristic of a great thinker to have acute insight into the psyche and motivation of the common man; to have a real sense of the human condition. And, aren't the actions of the simple human being, struggling for survival, finding the will and the way to continue through endless obstacles and oppression, thoughtful, imaginative, and constructive? Ashley perhaps contradicts his opinion of Steinbeck when he writes, "Steinbeck is more artist than activist, and he has woven of actual events and biblical allusions what has been rightly identified as "a pattern of dispossession; of nobility achieved by sacrifice necessitated by suffering; of wandering in the wilderness of exile; of struggle, defeat, hope, and eventual victory; of decadence and renewed struggles--here is an allegory of humanity itself."