The book, An Ideology of Crisis and Identity: Learning about ¿Life under the Rocks of the Tide Pool¿, includes three chapters with the focus in each section on one specific aspect of the ideology of naturalism and how it applies to the texts under examination. Steinbeck's examination of a people in crisis is a scathing criticism of the exploitation of the Okies in the 1930's, and it is a tribute to the strength of the human community that unites in body and spirit. It is an example of the strength of individual identity ¿ experiencing oneness with another. The absurdity in Faulkner's fiction creates a humour that veils a profound disparity in Addie Bundren's and the tall convict's condition leaving them alienated and isolated. An Ideology of Crisis and Identity: Learning about ¿Life under the Rocks of the Tide Pool¿ discusses the symbolic whisper of the old man as being representative of communication and strength between people and will appeal to all readers interested in the complex and sensitive issues that implicate upon the polarity of individual crisis and idenity in The Grapes of Wrath, As I Lay Dying and Old Man.