A novel of the soil:
It is a work of fiction in which the lives of people struggling for existence in remote rural sections are starkly portrayed. So the main theme is the struggle of human beings against the natural forces of the earth.
Examples:
Some of the most famous examples of this section are Ellen Glasgow’s Barren Ground (1925), the Norwegian O. E. Rolvagg’s Giants in the Earth (1927), Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road (1932), and God’s Little Acre (1933), John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath (1939) and Patrick White’s The Tree of Man (1956).
It also include D. H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow (1915), the novels of Mary Webb and some of the work of Thomas Hardy, as well as Jean Giono’s descriptions of pastoral life in Provence (e.g. Colline, 1929; Un de Baumugnes, 1929; Regain, 1930; Batailles dans la montagne, 1939).
Also read: A short note on Comedy of humours and its characteristics