INTRODUCTION - Bharathidasan University Central Library

INTRODUCTION

And this I must fight against: any idea, religion or govt.

which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am

and what I am about. – John Steinbeck

It is universally known and acknowledged that pen is mightier than

the sword. The mighty and sustaining power of pen has often been proved

since the ancient times by a multitude of writers and thinkers. Right from

Aristotle the master of all subjects, up to the present writers, pen has been

the potent weapon both for exposing the conditions of the prevailing

society and also for finding remedial steps for getting rid of the ills which

beset therein. The writers by virtue of their vision and mission were able

to set right the social order then and there whenever the wheels of society

got out of their ruts. This kind of social responsibility and the

commensurate action on the part of the writers was construed as the very

purpose and poise of literature. It is obvious that literature itself is nothing

but the mirror of human life, the society and the age in which it was

created.

Writers had the option to choose any one or more of the genres of

literature up to their interest, experience, and talents and find suitable

footings in which they could express themselves with flair. The genres or

forms of literature did vary with the passage of time. Resultantly we come

2 to have poetry, prose, drama, short story, novel, epic and the like based on

the calls of time. Novel is defined as the prose story of book length about

imaginary people and events. Choosing novel as the fitting vehicle of

expression, a number of British, French, German, Russian, and American

novelists have accomplished their creative endeavours and brought laurels

to their countries and their native languages.

It is deemed that literature itself is a kind of protesting tool which

kindles people to grasp and form opinions on a subject or an prevalent

social condition. The manner in which words are employed in literature

charges the people with stimulating ideas, fiery rage and intensive

emotions leading even to violent outburst at times. Expression of

discontent with the existing inhuman conditions in a society through

literary accomplishments pave the way for finding concrete solutions by

means of resorting to protesting measures. Protest literature has therefore

a decided and definite aim of changing the social set up with a view to

achieving the desired goal. The Satanic revolt in Paradise Lost is of

a protesting kind though the underlying motive is egocentric and the

purpose of protest is meant for personal gratification by power seizure.

Social protest involves larger scope for human consideration and

welfare. The Machiavellian Policy that “means do not justify the end, but

the end justifies the means” may look rather a fair dictum where there is

a kind of eruption among the protestors for something good or bad.

3 Whatever it be, these kinds of tenets and tendencies have been identified

in literature as belonging to a separate and marked genre namely social

protest literature. Neither are they kept underrated nor relegated to

forgetfulness as they involve themselves with human causes irrespective

of gain or loss in the process.

Many a definitions are put forth as to the nature and motive of

protest literature. The one by Ethelbert Stauffer holds good when he

defines it as having a language that changes the society and self. He

regards

protest literature as catalyst; guide or mirror of social change

presupposing three needs namely empathy shock value, and

symbolic action. Empathy encourages. Shock value inspires

emotions and desires. Symbolic action promotes interpretation. (6)

Protest literature has an eye on social change or change in the individual.

There are varied nomenclatures for social novel such as problem novel,

propaganda novel, working class novel, industrial novel, thesis novel,

sociological novel and young adult problem novel, the last one being the

latest addition. The earliest origin of social protest novel may be traced

back to the first century England. Since then many countries took interest

in this literary genre.

A social novel as defined by M.H. Abrams “which emphasizes the

influence of the social and economic conditions of an era on shaping

4 characters and determining events” (256). If it also embodies an implicit

or explicit thesis recommending political and social reform, it is often

called a sociological novel. Examples of social novels are Harriet Beecher

Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852); John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of

Wrath (1939); Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1979); Nadine Gordimer’s

Burger’s Daughter (1979) and etc., A Marxist version of the social novel

representing the hardships suffered by the oppressed working class, and

usually written to incite the reader to radical political action, is called the

proletarian novel. Proletarian fiction flourished especially during the great

economic depression of the 1930s in America. An English example is

Walter Greenwood’s Love on the Dole (1933). American examples are

Grace Lumpkin’s To Make my Bread (1932), about a mill strike in North

Carolina and Robert Cantwell’s Laugh and Lie Down (1931) about the

harshness of life in a lumber mill city in the northwest.

Encyclopedia Britannica defines social novel or social protest

novel as a work of fiction in which a prevailing social problem such as

gender, race, or class prejudice is dramatized through its effect on the

characters of a novel. Social problems addressed generally in literary

works include poverty, violence against women, plight of the workers in

factories and mines, conditions of child labour, criminal activities raising

heavily, dearth of sanitary facilities and the consequent epidemics.

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Social novel or social protest novel is said to have its origin in the

nineteenth century though we come to understand that there were

predecessors in this regard in the eighteenth century itself. Instances are

numerous. Henry Fielding’s Amelia, William Godwin’s The Adventures of

Caleb William, and Elizabeth Inchbald’s Nature and Art are some among

them. There is a marked difference between social novel and social protest

novel. Social novel places its importance on social change while social

protest novel lays its emphasis on revolution. A peep into the nineteenth

and the early twentieth century novels in Britain, America and Europe

would reveal the significant thematic outputs of the novels.

Thomas Carlyle in his Condition of England Novels (1839) sought

to engage directly with the contemporary social and political issues with

a focus on the representation of class, gender, labour relations, social

unrest, growing antagonism between the rich and the poor, and the plight

of the working class. Benjamin Disraeli in his novel Sybil or the Two

Nations (1845) dealt with the horrific conditions under which the majority

of the working class lived in England. Charles Kinsley’s Alton Locke

(1849) set out to expose the injustice done to the workers in textile trade

in addition to dealing with the tribulations of the agricultural labourers.

In the novel In North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell (1854-58) deals

with the pathetic condition of the workers and their relationship with the

industrialists. The industrial depression resulting from the Napoleonic

6 wars in the early part of nineteenth century has been the focus of Jane

Eyre a novel by Charlotte Bronte. Charles Dickens was unparalleled in the

portrayal of poverty, exploitation, and the unhygienic living conditions

prevailing in the Victorian society. The words of Karl Marx eulogizing

Dickens deserve special attention at this juncture. He pointed out that

“Dickens issued to the world more political and social truths than have

been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists

put together” (321).

The European literary scene is no different from that of Britain and

America in the matter of writing social protest novels. Victor Hugo’s Les

Miserable’s was the acme of the social protest novels of the nineteenth

century. Upton Sinclair considered it as one of the half dozen greatest

novels of the world. The degradation of man by poverty; the ruin of

women by starvation; the dwarfing of childhood by poverty - all these

should altogether be done away with, according to Hugo. Yet another

significant social protest novel is Emile Zola’s ‘L’Assommoir. Margaret

Harkness’ Out of Work (1988) had taken upon itself the task of social

degradation, poverty and oppression of women. Mark Twain’s

Huckleberry Fin is an early American social protest novel (1884). The

Jungle a novel by Upton Sinclair (1906) is acclaimed as the Uncle Tom’s

Cabin of wage slavery. It is based on the stockyard worker’s strike in

Chicago. Richards Wright’s Native Son (1940) is a protest novel on

7 racism. Theodore Dreiser’s novel Sister Carrie (1900), a major American

novel exposes how industrialization affected the American people.

Literature served as an important instrument at the hands of

protesting groups in the bygone centuries in the world arena. It fringes to

the forefront that some of the reputed protest literatures have come from

the American authors like Thomas Paine, Thomas Nast, John C. Calhan

and Martin Luther King. These writers became the spokesman of protest

literature. Born in England Paine invited controversy and rebellions trends

where ever he travelled by his telling writings. He stood for the three great

causes viz., American Revolution, religious reformation and the natural

rights of man. He out rightly denounced government saying that “we

furnish the means by which we suffer.” His famous pamphlet named

“Common Sense” (1775) was one of the pioneers in protest writings. In

which he wrote that government is like, dress is the badge of lost

innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of

paradise. His scintillating prose style stirred the blood of the people.

Thomas Nast by his political cartoons did yeoman service to the

cause of protest literature. He revolutionized the art of political caricature.

He attacked corruption in government and the political lobbying groups.

John C. Calhan is considered to be one of the American giants in the

genre of political literature. He wrote for the nullification of

unconstitutional federal laws.

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According to Martin Luther King, there are two types of laws

namely just laws and unjust laws. Unjust laws ignited the emotions of the

American people towards the goal of granting equal rights to the Negroes

on par with the whites. Since then many a writers have taken upon

themselves the trash of giving exposure to social problems by means of

their powerful writings, so as to ameliorate the sufferings of humanity up

to their might.

We came to understand that the protest writers of the European

contexts laid emphasis on individuality and the social structure. But the

American protest literature had for its task the political issues such as

slavery, corruption in governmental spheres, women’s equality,

distribution of we all and the like. Certain instances in this regard are

having the thematic output, Mark Twain’s Hackle Berry Finn (1885) and

Edward Bellamy’s Looking Forward (1988) pronouncing social changes.

Historical facts and figures reveal around ten prominent protest

movements that shook and change the face of America. The movements

are mentioned below

1. The Anti Tax Movement (1765)

2. The American Revolution (1775 - 1783)

3. The Abolition Movement (1830 - 1865)

4. The Women’s Right Movement (1848)

5. The Temperature Movement (1851 - 1938)

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6. The Labour Movement (1930)

7. The Environmental Movement (1950)

8. The Civil Rights Movement (1955 - 1968)

9. The Anti-War Movement (1965 - 1973)

10. The State’s Rights Movement (2008)

The nineteenth century is considered to be the efficacious period

for the harvest of protest literature in Europe. Its aftermath can be

witnessed in America and other countries in the said and the subsequent

centuries. Charles Dickens, in his novel Bleak House had a critical

exposure of the inefficient English legal system. Russian novelist Fydor

Dostoevsky’s novels Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov,

House of the Dead are all criticisms of government policies and the

resultant social factors. French writer Victor Xiao’s Les Miserable’s

(1862) is the most powerful and popular depiction of corruption and

depravity. George Eliot unfolded the degraded face of political dispute in

Felly Hall (1866). Degradation poverty and oppression of women were

the thematic elements in Out of Work by Margret Harkens (1888).

Theodore Dresser’s Sister Carrie had for its task the evil efforts of

industrialization. The evils of capitalism have been delineated by James

T. Ferrel in the novel Judgment Day (1935). The Invisible Man written by

Ralph Ellison (1952) dealt with problems of the Afro-Americans in the

mid twentieth century (1952). Nadine Gardiner’s Burger’s Daughter

10 (1979) was exclusively concerned with the apartheid on individuals in

South Africa. There are many other writers in the international arena who

have contributed themselves to the mighty stream of social protest

literature with committed aim and end. It is obvious that while the

European writers concentrated themselves on the philosophical questions

of individual and social spheres, the American protest literature laid

emphasis on issues related to slavery, bureaucratic corruption, and

equality of women and distribution of wealth.

James Baldwin’s Go Tell it on the Mountain (1953) is regarded as

his best known novel and which had protesting theme that is,

homosexuality. It is said that protest novels do directly deal with the

experiences of working class life’ and are essentially an intended device

of revolution. Michael Gold was identified as a proletarian writer with his

publication of Jews without Money (1930), U.S.A Triology by John Dos

Passos saw the United States as two different nationsnamely one rich and

one poor. The decline of the American progressive spirit into avarice is

depicted in the above novel. Evils of capitalism are the central theme of

James T. Ferrell’s Triology. Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have not

(1936) is a novel committed to be a social commentary. Harriet Beecher

Stowe’s monumental novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin had set a new literary

record in the genre of social protest novel dealing with the problem of

slavery. Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1857) the first of this kind made its debut as

11 a moving literary document against the practice of slavery in America.

This novel dealing with the laborious and pathetic life of a Negro by name

Tom was instrumental in mobilizing Abraham Lincoln to wage war

against slavery.

For humans’ the greatest enemy throughout history has not been

disease nor hunger, but humans themselves. Humans have been

profoundly cruel towards each other throughout the ages, from the

persecution of Hebrews in ancient Biblical times to the ‘Jim Crow’ laws

of the pre-Civil Rights era. Nowhere has this discrimination been more

evident than in the United States. Ever since the beginning of the nation,

there have been Americans persecuting others, either for land, money, or

simply prejudice. The many ways that humankind can be cruel towards

itself is sometimes astounding and even shocking.

There are many more novels in the world literary arena geared

towards exposing social problems with a genuine consideration towards

alleviating the prevailing sufferings of the have-nots, burst of anger,

heated verbal outbursts, assemblage instigated by the thought of safe

guarding ‘the group men’, strike, lock out, and so on. Fearing excessive

elaboration they have not been brought into the purview of this study.

Being a socially responsible writer with an originality of his own in

the matter of theme, style, message and manner, vision and verbal

delineation, Steinbeck, the twentieth century American writer unlocked

12 the capabilities of literature more than ever and extended its bourns of

social commitment through his tireless and timeless verbal expressions

spanning about four decades. It is therefore immensely useful to delve

deep into his labyrinthine mind concerned with the themes of social

protest as they are found represented in some of his select novels herein

taken up for the purpose.

It is clear that literary writings alone do not serve as the panacea for

all the evils existing in the human society. Yet it cannot be denied that

they have certain positive and plausible roles to play. The Aristotelian

dictum that “Poetry instructs by pleasing” may well be applied to other

genres of literature also as well. It is obvious that ‘novel’ as a pleasing and

instructive literary form has had its say and sway on literary endeavours

since the past centuries.

In the World arena, American novelists are not lagging behind in

discharging their literary duties taking into consideration the call of time,

social milieu prevailing then, and the progress of humanity overcoming all

obstacles. Many American novelists in their works have translated the

pleasures and bitterness of the people of their time. It is history that

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel has been hailed as a milestone which was

instrumental in bringing about the American Revolution and the resultant

emancipation of slavery. In fact the social, political and economic

conditions of the society got reflected in the fiction of abler writers.

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Novelists in fact, have gone further in discharging their social

responsibility not only by means of imaginative representation of people

but also of actual realities as and when they were happening. Steinbeck

once put forth that he wanted to write history while it was happening and

definitely he would not go wrong. He handled the weapon of literature

particularly fiction, with all its potentials in an uncompromising manner

for the awareness and well-being of the society and for the benefit of

humanity at large. With an enormous sympathy for the people, he in his

novels had projected their life as it was and thereby he held a faithful

mirror up to his times in his creative works which still have their lingering

effect and efficacy in the minds of the multitudes throughout the world.

Among the novels of John Steinbeck the theme of social protest is

markedly manifest in some of his novels such as, Tortilla Flat, In Dubious

Battle, Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, The Pearl, East of Eden,

and The Winter of our Discontent, though other novels contain the above

trait in a lesser degree. Therefore the above seven novels have been taken

up as primary sources for the present study. Further the biography of

Steinbeck, reviews, remarks, criticism, explanatory notes, on him and his

works written by a host of writers ranging from his times to the present,

have been resorted to as secondary sources for the purpose of

substantiation, illumination and exemplification for this study.

14 An understanding and insight into Steinbeck’s novels will

therefore be of considerable use to the present day society pitted against

petty quarrels, mounting tensions and chauvinistic tendencies. Even the

very human existence itself is being turned into a kind of

“Androhumanoidic” insipid exercise wherein sympathy, kindness,

understanding, mutual help and all kinds of noble and desirable qualities

and values of life have been lost substantially.

It has therefore been attempted in this study to discuss the theme

of social protest in the aforesaid select novels of Steinbeck in the light of

various factors at the background, and thereby to arrive at certain useful

findings combined with necessary suggestions which it is hoped would

augment the horizons of human understanding and good will, in

a substantial level. The fundamental motive of dealing with the above

novels is that they contain the themes and expressions pertaining to social

protest considerably and in a virulent manner more than other works of

this writer.

A number of writers have dealt with Steinbeck, his letters,

achievements, techniques, critical outlook, his times, his personality, entry

into film medium, and his works. Numerous books have seen the light of

day on the novel The Grapes of Wrath alone. Many were the critics and

biographers of Steinbeck who made a considerable contribution to the

study and understanding of Steinbeck and his writings in myriad ways.

15 Among them Warren French, Peter Lisca, Joseph Fontenrose, Howard

Levant, John H. Timmerman, Frederic Carpenter, Chester Eiseinger,

Louis Owens, Jackson Benson, Thomas Kiernan, Richard Astro,

Tetsumaro Hayashi, Pascal Covici, Jay Parini, and Sylvia Cook need

special mentioning. It is but natural that some of Steinbeck’s novels had to

undergo bitter critical onslaughts as witnessed in the case of In Dubious

Battle, Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath. The pith of such

attack was along the following lines: Jackson J. Benson remarks that

“Steinbeck had created an artificial world, of which his knowledge was

little and indirect” (78).

And there are other critical pronouncements by very many critics

which are also to be taken into consideration in the light of healthy

dialogue essential for the betterment of the novel, mechanism, mode and

its creative mission. However, time the ruthless preserver of truth,

disproved Lewis’ remarks, and the novel The Grapes of Wrath turned out

to be a remarkable success as the “layers of the novel continued to offer

them up to careful study.” Angry business men and politicians called the

book a pack of lies and the controversial novel was banned by a number

of school boards in states from New York to California. Edmund Wilson

declaimed that

Steinbeck’s character were highly melodramatic and excessive,

unwarranted of them. Steinbeck always in his fictions is dealing

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with human beings so rudimentarily. He is at the bottom of the

relative un-success at representing human beings. (64)

He also criticized him for having animalized human beings. This

critical remark has been dismissed by subsequent critics on the ground of

being shallow and not based on truth. Warren French observed that “there

is one thing that Steinbeck’s admirers and detractors agree upon is that

there is a marked decline in artistry of Steinbeck’s works after 1945”

(“Introduction” v-xi). Levant voices out against attributing these causes

for the decline to the events in the author’s private life.

It is known from the critical mass of writings that has appeared

since 1940 that some more exclusive attention has yet to be paid towards

unearthing Steinbeck’s protesting tenor as gleaned from his fiction. His

artistic representation of the social protest has found brilliant expression in

his novels. It has therefore become imperative to concentrate on this

dimension so as to have a comprehensive and deeper understanding of

himself and his works, which is conducive towards understanding

humanity greatly.

Nothing was remarkable concerned with the birth of John

Steinbeck, the man who carved a niche for himself in the annals of

twentieth century American literature, except that he was born on 27 Feb.

1920 at Salinas, California. His father John Ernest Steinbeck was the

treasurer of Monterey county, and his mother Olive Hamilton Steinbeck

17 was an amicable and informed lady in the society. Monterey was the first

capital of California which originally was the land of Indians, Mexicans

and Spaniards and a land of great forests, mountainous ridges hiding

mines of gold and silver, and fertile valleys that eventually yielded the

richest load of all-vegetables (Timmerman 133).

John Steinbeck was a common man’s man. “I never wrote two

books alike”, once said John Steinbeck (qtd. in Gray 10). He often

focused on social problems, like the “haves” verses the “have nots”, and

made the reader want to encourage the underdog. Steinbeck’s back ground

and concern for the common man made him one of the best writers for

human rights. John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California and spent

most of his life there or around Salinas, because of that he often modelled

his stories and the characters around the land he loved and the experiences

he encountered. He lived in Salinas until 1919, when he left for Stanford

University, he only enrolled in the courses that pleased him-literature,

creative writing and majoring in Marine Biology. He left in 1925, without

a degree. Even though he didn’t graduate his books showed the results of

his five years spent there. His books display a considerable reading of the

Greek and Roman historians, and the medieval and Renaissance fabulists

and the biological sciences (Benson 11). He then moved to New York and

tried his hand as a construction worker and as a reporter for the American.

Steinbeck then moved back to California and lived with his wife at Pacific

18 Grove. In 1934, he wrote for the San Francisco News, he was assigned to

write several articles about the 3,000 migrants flooded in at Kings county.

The plight of the migrant workers motivated him to help and document

their struggle. The money he earned from the newspaper allowed him to

travel to their home and see why their reason for leaving and travelled to

California with them, sharing in with their hardships. Because John

Steinbeck was able to travel with the “Okies”, he was able to accurately

portray them and their struggles. Each book that he wrote had settings in

the places where he has either lived or wanted to live.

Being a vagrant boy Steinbeck developed innate interest in nature

but did not fare well in his educational pursuits. Even though he left his

academic career without obtaining a degree, his passion for creative

writing did not diminish. He dabbled his hands variously at literature and

his stories did appear initially in ‘Stanford Spectator’ a prestigious journal

at that time. He took upon sundry jobs to support himself which

substantially left open the gates of human experiences to him in no less

efficacious manner and which was conducive towards his calibration in

fiction.

Steinbeck married Carol Henning and developed friendship with

Edward Rickett and the latter to a certain extent shaped his writings. Right

from his boyhood “he was sensitive to every feature of his region.” He

puts in his novel East of Eden, “I remember my childhood names for

19 grasses and secret flowers. I remember where a toad may live and what

time the birds awaken in the summer - and what trees and seasons smelled

like” (7).

He was such a passionate lover of nature and humanity, the love of

which blossomed into powerful delineations in his literary works with the

passage of time. He had also interest in books, music, science, religion

and sports which all shaped his sensibilities and paved the way for

scintillating verbal renderings in his fictions. He had already widely read

in English, American and European literature and he had greater interest

in Milton, Browning, Thackeray, George Eliot, Hardy, D.H. Lawrence,

Jeffers, Flaubert, and Dostoevsky. He had tasted intensely the bitter fruits

of poverty but later, settled well in life when his writings brought him

immense fame and material benefits.

Steinbeck travelled widely, in Europe, England, United States,

Israel and etc., Many of his novels were filmed. He became prominent

when he was awarded the much coveted Nobel Prize though he was

already in receipt of many prizes including the Pulitzer, President Medal

etc., This celebrity of American literature was not an exception to bitter

criticism relating to his themes, treatment and style. Having gone through

all such vicissitudes, he breathed his last on 20 Dec. 1968 in New York

“a continent away from the place of his birth and settings of his greatest

fictions!”

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Steinbeck’s unflinching creative fervour spanned around forty

years- a saga in American Literature. He tried his hands variously at

various genres of literature namely fiction, short story, plays, film scripts,

travelogue etc., Though his writings are extensive in output and outlook,

he is forever remembered for his extraordinary fictions the names of

which are arranged chronologically and given as under:

S. No. Title Year

1. Cup of Gold 1929

2. The Pastures of Heaven 1932

3. To a God Unknown 1933

4. Tortilla Flat 1935

5. In Dubious Battle 1936

6. The Red Pony 1937

7. Of Mice and Men 1937

8. The Long Valley 1938

9. The Grapes of Wrath 1939

10. The Log from the Sea of Cortez 1941

11. The Moon is Down 1942

12. Cannery Row 1945

13. The Wayward Bus 1947

14. The Pearl 1947

15. Burning Bright 1950

16. East of Eden 1952

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S. No. Title Year

17. Sweet Thursday 1954

18. The Short Reign of Pippin IV 1957

19. The Winter of our Discontent 1961

20. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights 1976

In the words of John H. Timmerman, a notable Steinbeck’s scholar,

“Writing was an instinct with him like breathing” (1). He had a clear

vision of the literary road he wanted to take. In his fictions, interest

centers on the thematic content, then characters and other connected

elements. A born story teller, his writings are nourished by first hand

experiences with men and matters combined with the environmental

conditions prevailing in his country during his time. It was the firm belief

of this writer that a novelist not only puts down a story but he is the story.

He is each one of the characters in a greater or lesser degree. As he is

usually a moral man in intention and in honest approach, he sets things

down as truly as he can. In Steinbeck’s ideology, a novelist is a teacher

and his duty is to lift up; to extend and to encourage. Steinbeck unlike

other idealistic writers had a clear-cut vision, purpose and poise about the

very aim and end of fiction writing.

The experiences ingrained in his mind right from his early age

would have certainly catered to the blossoming of his self into a fruitful

22 and truthful writer. Further his own involvement and entrepreneurial

efforts towards getting access to the labyrinthine living conditions of the

common people of his country might have brought him rich dividends in

the field of his creative writings especially connected with the problems of

the people pitted against penury and unexpected natural calamities. John

H. Timmerman observes,

At a time when the Americans were all engrossed into their own

self, Steinbeck was exceptionally un-autobiographical in his

writings, as he was a lover of life and life in the very fallibility of

the act. (81)

A journal note made by Steinbeck in 1938 brings forth to the limelight his

mental make-up and his avocation as a committed writer: “Try to

Understand man. If you understand each other, you will be kind to each

other. Knowing a man always nearly leads to love” (qtd. in DeMott x). He

was not an active communist. In fact he sympathized with the oppressed

migrant labourers. He had even possessed inimical thinking about

corporate agriculture. Steinbeck created men and women whom we can

never forget. In Jackson J. Bensons’ words,

Tom Joad and Ma, Cal and Cathy, Joady and Billy Buck, Lennie

and George, Danny and Pilan, Doe and Mack- They live with us,

and for some of us they are a part of what we are. This man wrote

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a lot of good books and that after all, is what a writer

should do. (1)

He had broad perspectives. He never used his works to declare his own

superiority. He claimed himself not even as an author but a writer only.

His humanitarian qualities are exposed greatly in his work. He took each

and every thing as wonder, as a child. A sense of fun, a curiosity, and

wonder all these lasted throughout his career. The Child in Steinbeck, as

the child in Mark Twain, was very often the writer’s best part.

Animistic features find accurate and brilliant expressions in many

of his novels. An instance in this regard is given from Of Mice and Men as

follows

On the sandy bank under the tree, the leaves lie deep and so crisp

that a lizard makes a great skittering if he runs among them.

Rabbits come out of the brush to sit on the sand in the evening, and

the damp flats are covered with the night tracks of coons and with

the spread pads of dogs from the ranches and with the split wedge

tracks of deer that come to drink in the dark … For a moment the

place was lifeless and then two men emerge from the path. (3)

Quotes from Joseph Fontenrose, John H. Timmerman,

To the animist, sky and earth, wind and storm, tree and rock are

living entities. Out of animism springs myth and so Steinbeck‘s

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biological interpretation and his mythical interpretation of the

human conditions flow from one and the same source. (18)

Having innately imbibed the sense of Pantheism, Steinbeck was able to

look at the whole world with all its animate and inanimate entities as

belonging to one and the same creative force and having one and the same

living linkage. Animism itself is part of his interest in animate beings and

inanimate objects. Throughout the novel The Grapes of Wrath, animals

and animal tropes permeate every paragraph. The proliferation of figures

of speech involving animals is inevitable. He writes about the farming

people who live with animals and earn their livelihood with animals.

Steinbeck makes use of animal earth and vegetable imaginary to identify

his characters either as complementary to or, ironically contrasting with

the nature of the character.

One is reminded of Rousseau’s familiar dictum that ‘man is born

free, but everywhere he is found in chains’. Aspirations for freedom from

political, social, economic, communal and religious shackles have found

extensive expressions in the writings of many visionary minds since the

ancient times. However still the goal is not reached substantially. Writers

may come and writers may go. But the problems persisting in the midst of

the populace are not mitigating at all. Poverty is not eradicated. Prejudices

are not wiped out. Ill treatment of fellow beings has not been reduced.

25 Hunger is not given good-bye. Exploitation is not put an end to. Hatred

and vested interests are not altogether given death blow.

Suppression of the ill-fated, ill equipped, common mass by the

haves and autocratic forces continues and the humanity at large is devoid

of fair and reasonable dealings and living conditions. These and other

related issues would normally be the pivotal points for the verbal

expressions by socially conscious and committed writers. And Steinbeck

a socially conscious and committed writer wielded his mighty pen to do

something good to the ill fated people. He had unshakable faith in the

potentials of literature to bring about the desired result if it has definite

motive and honest means of expression. When asked in Berlin as why he

had turned from being a Marxist to a Puritan, Steinbeck replied, “I have

never been either! My novels of social reform were stories of people-not

political treatises!” (qtd. in Owens xv).

Steinbeck’s association with his friend Edward Ricketts,

stimulated his interest in biology, out of which came the biological view

of man which pervades his best novels. Ricketts was the model for

important characters in Steinbeck’s, In Dubious Battle, Cannery Row, and

Sweet Thursday. According to Peter Lisca,

Steinbeck’s works exhibit his persistent interest in biology and also

myth, forming part of human heritages. He has drawn from

Arthurian legends and tales from Bible. Faust, Troy and Helen,

26

Virgin whore – Legends of city founding, all these and more have

had their poetic and semantic uses in his fictions. (140)

In Steinbeck’s novels biology takes the place of History, mysticism takes

the place of humanism. He was to a certain extent influenced by the

vedantic ideas of India as evident in his novel To a God Unknown.

Steinbeck developed a taste for scripture during his school days which left

an impact upon his literary works. Fairy tales, myths and legends have

influenced his imaginative powers greatly. His work experiences in his

early years had a considerable impact upon his writings (Benson 53).

Mythical usage has been a favourite matter to Steinbeck. His

novels contain mythological influences and references, the motive of

which has been to have effective aesthetic and interesting interaction with

method and mode of character delineation in addition to having more

semantic bearings to his writings. The following fictions have resorted to

mythological treatment in a lesser or greater degree depending upon the

exigency. Cup of Gold has the influential reminiscences of Henry Morgan

the Pirate. Fisher King are the Fables of King Arthur have left their

influence on the novels To a God Unknown and the Tortilla Flat plus

Cannery Row respectively. We find the traces of the Biblical story of the

Fall of Angels from Eden in In Dubious Battle. Profuse Biblical

references crisscross in The Grapes of Wrath. The Cain and Abel Story

have found its concrete traces in East of Eden.

27 A renewed awareness about class consciousness was prominently seen

among the Americans during the beginning of the twentieth century and

the intellectuals had imbibed an intense interest in Marxism or

Communism. Certain remarkable factors which were responsible for

shaping the mind and the creative faculty of Steinbeck should be

noticeable. The Dust Bowl otherwise called the ecological terror that blew

across fifty million acres of the midwest and southwest which sent around

four lakhs Americans in search of new lives in California left an indelible

mark on the impressionistic sensibility of Steinbeck, the result of which

culminated into his arduous and authentic creative capabilities. Further,

Steinbeck’s soft natured warp of mind and its sympathetic realization of

humanity at large had its own say on his outlook and his creative output.

Joseph Fontenrose points out that

The writing of Steinbeck was meant to help people understand one

another. He endeavoured to enlist our sympathy for men of all

degrees be they wise or feeble minded; beggars or kings. His

enduring themes happened to be the superiority of simple, human

virtues and pleasures to the accumulation of riches and property; of

kindness and justice to meanness and greed; of life asserting action

to life denying. (141)

Many of his novels deal with the family that is, relationship

constituting husband, wife, parents, children and etc., he has written

28 continuously on the transplanting family-with all its beauties and

gruesome aspects as evident in the case of Joads, Joseph Waynes and

Adam Trasks. Steinbeck looks at human beings in their fray, from

a different angle. In him the individual entities submerge into the ‘group

organization.’ Joseph Fontenrose observes:

Here is life as it is lived by hurrying, fighting, feeding, breeding

animals – valuable just because they are alive. Every creature is

related to every other in the act of living. In the struggling mass,

not only cruelty and terror are exhibited but also symbiosis, sexual

attraction, and rudimentary intelligence which are the sources of

love, friendship, mutual aid and wisdom. (139)

Steinbeck is not a Saviour to redeem the common people from the

clutches of bitter elements in their day to day affairs, but he is a wielder of

words so as to throw sumptuous light on the gloomy spots of human

existence especially when a notable section of migrants was subjected to

utter penury, substandard living conditions, ruthless exploitation by the

land owners and the insurmountable natural calamity in the form of “Dust

storm.” This is witnessed in his novel The Grapes of Wrath. He always

stood with the side of the sufferers. He gave vent to their plight. His

indignation found expression in the form of protest.

Being a creative artist of high caliber, Steinbeck had an unshakable

faith in the responsibility of an artist. He thought that an artist could or

29 should be very much involved in his subject matter. A strong conviction

like the above and the continuous and concrete output in writing, would

have paved the way for his development as a fine novelist of first order.

Steinbeck’s mind seems to have been rife with a fascination for selecting

meaningful and attractive titles to his novels. He believed that naming was

knowing. Many of his novels namely, The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden,

In Dubious Battle, and Cannery Row are titled accordingly. The titles

besides being scintillating with sensuousness are also laden with deeper

semantic nuances.

A compassionate human being will not fail to take part in the distress of

the fellow beings. Possessed with a remarkable group consciousness,

Steinbeck identified himself with the toiling masses. This element found

its brilliant verbal expressions even when he was dealing with persons

who were well off in life. Evidently Danny, the protagonist of Tortilla

Flat is depicted by the author differently. Though a landlord, Danny

always takes sides with the miserly. In the words of John H. Timmerman,

When acting as a group, men do not partake of their ordinary

natures at all. Some unique force empowers group so that it

becomes a new living organism which subsumes its individual

parts. (24)

30

This group consciousness with which Steinbeck was obsessed with,

right from his early age reveals in an exemplary manner the background

for his identification with the masses more than the individuals.

In his younger days Steinbeck did sundry jobs on ranches, road

gangs, and sugar mills. He thereby acquired knowledge of the lower strata

of the American society. He could get on well with all sorts of persons,

and discovered the genuine human qualities of humble people. While

working with them he had no snobbery in him. Steinbeck campaigned for

the rights of the little people. He has been described by Carlos Baker as an

extraordinary writer who has earned esteem unparalleled in American

Literature.

Steinbeck cared about language and he cared about people; he did

not want to be popular or famous; he just wanted to write books. He wrote

largely out of his own experiences and unlike many of his contemporaries

wrote very little about himself. He avoided answering mostly questions

about his personal matters. On many occasions he was accused of being

a communist, a fascist, a puritan and one of the most immoral men that

ever brought out a book in America. Benson points out that he was none

of those things. In fact he loved writing and he lived for writing. He was

a lover of life and environment. He wrote about what interested his nature,

both human nature and natures’ nature. He felt a kind of “boisterous joy”

in the objects of nature.

31 What bothered Steinbeck most about was that, out of society,

a plenty–so visible in California – large numbers of people could still go

hungry. At a relatively early age he had broken out of the mould of middle

class sensuality; had lived among those who actually did lack food and the

means to, and had developed a strong sense of social justice, giving vent

to the same indignation he had to express so forcefully in The Grapes of

Wrath two decades later. Once in retortion to the preaching of a priest in

a church, he exploded

Yes you all live satisfied, while outside the world begs for a crunch

of bread or a chance to earn it. Feed the body and the soul will take

care of itself … I don’t think much of preaching … goon … you’re

getting paid for it. (Lisca 23)

This pronouncement is a clear-cut indication of his realistic and practical

thinking and appropriate action warranted by the society more than

sermons.

A distinctive feature of Steinbeck’s novels is that he has taken upon

himself the task of glorifying ‘nature’ and ‘human nature’. Nature

becomes a character with all its exuberance and extinctive aspects. His

reputed novel Tortilla Flat brought permanent glory as one of the

outstanding classics in American literature. Being the author of

‘California Experiences’ he has exalted the eye catching landscapes of

California, wildlife of Monterey- his own hometown, and Carmal, by his

32 life like delineations. He glorifies the Paisanos - people hailing from the

town of Tortilla Flat above the Monterey, a village noted for its scenic

beauty. His portrayal of nature in its grim and lackadaisical aspects is

without any prejudicial interception and interpretation but out of his

genuine desire for a graphic and honest description with the aim of

achieving accuracy and honesty in communicative endeavours. Speaking

of the Paisanos, he exhibits his humanistic outlook more than any other

writer. He referred to them as drunkards, thieves, ruffians, vagabonds etc.,

requiring little more from life than from friendship and a little wine.

Few Mexico Americans of Monterey today see themselves as in

Tortilla Flat any more than their predecessors saw themselves in it thirty

four years ago. Steinbeck’s language is also wrong. Mexican Americans

don’t speak as Steinbeck’s characters do, either in Spanish or in English

(Fensch, “Introduction” xiv). Steinbeck struggles through an ‘alien’ milieu

the voice of the narrator, the question of ethnic identification becomes

important and crucial in determining the reliability of the representation.

Steinbeck does not offer a great deal to multi-culturalism. His interest in

the paisanos is in part psychological - the study of group man - and in part

realistic - the “history” of a subculture–and finally in part aesthetic -

wrestling with the contours of artistic expression (Owens 53). Petit

viewed that Steinbeck’s treatment of the paisanos arouses suspicion of

ethnically based distortions. Steinbeck’s Anglo misfits are usually genuine

33 freaks-idiots, cripples and outcasts teetering on the edge of their own race.

The emotions his works solicited, were excessive and melodramatic,

certainly too intense for his simply drawn characters.

A novel’s ultimate anchorage lies in its thematic perspectives. As

a novelist Steinbeck was interested in employing definite themes for his

novels which often times got expressed at least in the very titles of the

novels themselves. A perusal of them would reveal that the themes

revolve round human concern, forces of exploitation, protest and

humanitarian voices and the like. Given below are some of the thematic

designs woven into the textures of his novels.

Devastation by nature,

Migration of the dispossessed Americans,

Exploitation of the people by the ruthless landowners,

Starvation and the connected human distress,

Social Protest,

Combined endeavours,

Alleviation of other’s Sufferings,

Ideological Transformation of ‘I’ to ‘We’,

Death and renewal,

Individual freedom and social constraints,

Loneliness and tragedy of the dispossessed,

34

Growing violence between corporate agriculture and migrant

labourers.

Being a writer with a clear cut social commitment, Steinbeck could

not but help himself giving expression to his thoughts in the choicest

words exhibiting the plight of the common people at times of distress,

natural havocs or manmade disasters. The Grapes of Wrath has for its

theme, the conflict of rich versus poor and Jim Casy in this novel becomes

a spokesman for the movement from “I” to “We” and assumes a degree of

leadership in it before he is severed by the land owners men. He has

attained the acme of achievement through this novel and acknowledged as

the greatest classic during his times and subsequently. He has been

a ceaseless experimenter and a socially responsible writer throughout his

career, His Travels with Charley in Search of America brought him the

Nobel Prize, for his realistic as well as imaginative writings, distinguished

by a sympathetic humour and a keen social perception.

Steinbeck has got extraordinary daringness to approach social

themes apparently. This aspect of Steinbeck as a fiction writer brought

him remarks. But he took upon himself writing as his sacred profession

rather than retaliating the meaningless cries. He viewed the group more

than the self. Here is a writer carried away by the thoughts of social good,

even at the expense of individual gain. In fact he was a class apart in the

35 sense that he had uniform code which did not allow any conflict between

the life one leads and the literature he makes.

His novel The Grapes of Wrath was banned and burned in many

localities in Buffalo, New York, East Saint Louis, Illinois, and California

for its being profane, offensive and vulgar. But Steinbeck faced such

untoward happenings boldly stating that he was truthful and faithful to his

writings and it was none of his duties to appease the readers going against

his conscience. His steadfast conviction is exhibited in this sort of self-

defending replies. When the above novel incurred bitter attack from critics

who dubbed it as coarse, Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Franklin

D. Roosevelt then President of the United States came to the rescue of

Steinbeck. She pronounced thus: “the book is coarse in spots, but life is

coarse in spots” (qtd. in Owens 122). Consequently the waves of

antagonism subsided and a genuine appreciation of the novel started

intensely. It is evident that Steinbeck possessed remarkable individuality

which continued throughout his literary career. As a retaliatory reply

given to his critics he put forth as, “I try to write what seems to me true. If

it is not true to other people, then it isn’t good art. But I have only my own

eyes to see with. I won’t use the eyes of other people” (Steinbeck and

Wallsten ed. 90).

Steinbeck was always concerned with the common labourers of whom

he had firsthand knowledge through his observations and work as

36 a labourer, a seaman, surveyor and migratory worker among other jobs.

Even the titles of Steinbeck’s novels are the symbolic representations of

social evils social laid problems prevalent in society. Titles were often

a matter of large significance. Steinbeck wanted titles that somehow

suggested at once the narrative accounting, and its symbolic significance.

Each and every one of his novels bears a novelty which tells many more

than the outer expressive appearance than expected. As an instance

The Grapes of Wrath (Though the title supplied by his wife)

In Dubious Battle

Of Men and Mice

The Moon is Down …

A perusal of such titles of his novels brings forth kaleidoscopic

meanings to the mind of the readers. Some are suggestive; some are

symbolic; some are philosophical; and some other are charged with poetic

fervor. As an instance, “He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes

of Wrath are stored!” encapsulates the rage of the oppressed, prophesies

the one through the suppression, visions of a strong freedom”

(Timmerman 105).

Grapes are used symbolically as prefiguration of divine retribution

upon the oppressor. As has been pointed out by critics that the primary

impetus of Steinbeck’s fiction was always to tell the story-before the

crafting, before the technique, form or rhythm of the artistry.

37

Prose proved to be a fitting vehicle of expression for Steinbeck to

describing social evils. He endeavoured to present a clipped and accurate

prose in his works. He declared that he has not lost the love for sound nor

for pictures but only tried to throw out the words that do not say anything

towards effective revelation. Great fiction provided people with the

opportunity to experience themselves through their identification with

characters and events. Steinbeck had an immense fascination for effective

characterization and narration of events in a life-like manner.

His characters are neither more in mould nor less in reality, but

always life-like and appropriate to the calls of a novel concerned. Female

characters occupy a remarkably important place in his fictions. If

Steinbeck had in his mind a movable place for freedom, constraints and

individual dreams of fulfilment, the female characters pitted against good

and bad values serve as standing instances in this regard. Some among

them are jotted down:

Ma Joad - The Grapes of Wrath

Juana - The Pearl

Fauna Suzy - Tortilla Flat

Molly Morgan - The Pastures of Heaven

Curley’s wife - Of Mice and Men (selfish but not evil).

Through the character delineations Steinbeck’s ideological bent of

mind gets expressed. In East of Eden, Lees reflections are worth noting:

38 “I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man particularly if she

happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is almost

indestructible” (214). Steinbeck portrays many of his female characters

with the following psychological traits.

1. Endurance through adversity

2. Ability to sail along the conditions without losing individuality

3. Loving kindness.

Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath stands as a towering example for all the

above qualities.

As a writer of social protest Steinbeck maintains individuality in

the selection and choice of stylistic devices. M.H. Abrams remarks that

“style has been traditionally defined as the manner of linguistic expression

in prose or verse – as how it is they say” (384-385). Style identifies an

author. Alexander Pope pronounces that style is the man! As for literary

texts, style of an author is analyzed in terms of rhetoric, diction, syntax,

figurative use of language and the like. A large number of loosely

descriptive terms are generally in currency to classify kinds of style. Some

of them are: pure, simple, ornate, florid, lucid, obscure and so on. There

are distinguished and identifiable styles in Literature namely Ciceronian,

Baconian, Shakespearean, Miltonic, Johnsonian, Wordsworthian each

with its own perceived literary qualities. Personal, objective, familiar,

classical, prophetic, meditative are the types of styles associated with

39 prose or poetry. The matter for writing determines the manner of writing.

As an instance scientific texts call forth simple, straight forward and clear

cut style. Steinbeck has chosen a different style of his own so as to

express his thoughts in a telling, original and appealing manner through

the use of effective characterization combining both ‘realistic naturalism

and moral optimism’ His novels are acclaimed for their combination of

the above noted two qualities not generally found together. Steinbeck

delineated the pain, wickedness, and poverty of the world with unsparing

details. He, at the same time had a firm belief in the perfectibility of man.

This optimistic note is discernible even in his gloomiest account of the

Great Depression, in a clear cut manner.

His style of writing adhered to certain distinctive features which

are well noted. A perusal of them through his fictions reveals that the

author has a fondness for the use of conversational prose, which has well

served his purpose of delving deep into the minds, attitudes and activities

of his characters. “We have got to use whatever material come to us!”

(DB 47).

The style of the novel The Grapes of Wrath has compliance to

Third-person omniscient point of view. His style is noted for lyrical

beauty and appealing with minute details as in “Every moving thing lifted

a thin layer as high as his waist and a wagon lifted the dust as high as the

40 fence top, and an automobile bolted a cloud behind it. The dust was long

in setting back again” (GW 3).

Shelley has pointed out that a poet should not be striving hard in

search of words. In fact, words should come flying at his command. This

literary exigency has turned to be an ethical hold and an intrinsic habit to

Steinbeck. He did not rest content until he found suitable words to express

himself. He did not hesitate to revise and re-revise his drafts even for

twenty or more times. He loved the words; the shape, the sound, the

history of meaning; he delighted in the magical properties of language; he

even got satisfaction from the touch of pencil and paper. Behind nearly

everything that he wrote, there is a man enjoying himself, surprised and

delighted that words work the way they do (Benson 1). Further Steinbeck

developed a taste for scripture during his school days which had

a profound effect upon his literary style (Fontenrose 3). Self-revelation is

the only end in his mind through the course of his writings. At the same

time he was well aware of the fact that a novelist is not an exception to

faults, virtues, fears and braveries which beset common people.

Resorting to symbolism though simple in nature, is another stylistic

feature of Steinbeck. Objects and places get symbolic meanings in his

works. Evidently a simple cup of coffee stands for wealth and well-being.

Burning candles refer to promising life, and guttering does symbolize

death. Crowing roosters envisage fresh beginnings. Owl flying over one’s

41 head is the indication of impending death. Tinned expensive foods are to

be taken as symbol of nourishment. Besides containing lyrical beauties his

style has with it the prophetic tone carrying the burden of sympathetic

humanism throughout the work. Steinbeck was of the firm belief that

fictional prose should not be a course in ‘interior decoration.’ “His own

Prose is generally marked by a spare, yeoman like rhetoric that relies on

verbs and imagery rather than ornamentation” (Timmerman 11).

We come across with the ‘matter of fact voice’ in his narratives as

something like ‘man speaking to men’ enunciated by Wordsworth in his

poetic creed. It comes to light that Steinbeck has always nurtured

a predilection for romanticism even though he himself was subjected to

bitter realities of life. Confluence of Epic voice, Biblical voice and the

Idiomatic voice of the people is a notable feature in the writings of this

author. For the first time in his writings he used the ‘over voice’ narrative

technique that sprang into full power in the intercalary chapters of The

Grapes of Wrath.

Steinbeck has been endowed with an extraordinary descriptive skill

set for immersing into minute details and for vivid portrayal. Everything

in his fiction is dealt with utmost care namely, human beings, animals,

plants, earth, environment and so on with vivacity and dexterous details.

For an instance the highway 66 in The Grapes of Wrath is described as the

long concrete path across the country, weaving gently up and down on the

42 map from Mississippi to Becker’s field. Referring to California he writes

that

the spring is beautiful in California. Valleys in which the fruit

blossoms are fragrant pink and white waters in a shallow. Then the

first tendrils of the grapes cascade down to cover the trunks. The

full green hills are round and soft in. (GW 123)

Steinbeck has developed a unique style as for as his novels are

concerned. Though he did not opt for writing poetry, his style at times

does not miss the mark of poetry, drama, film, music and the like. He

writes a cacophony of prose as evident in “square noses, round noses,

rusty noses, shovel noses and the long curves of stream lines and the flat

surfaces before streamlining” (68). Louis Owens observes “when

Steinbeck wants to suggest the joy of life caught up in delirious motion,

the prose style metamorphoses into pure poetry” (94). The dance scene in

The Grapes of Wrath of chapter 23 may be cited as an instance in this

regard, “Texas boy and the Cherookegirl, pantin’ like the dogs an’

a –beatin ‘the ground.’ Of folks stan’ a–pattin’ their hanes. Smilin’ a little

steppin’ their feet” (344).

His other stylistic methods and modes constitute the lyrical,

prophetic matter of fact, objective, the epic biblical, and the idiomatic

voice of the people. Peter Lisca quotes on Louis Owens, has stated that

“No other American novelist has succeeded in forcing and making

43 instrumental so many prose styles” (89). The style has become an

effective tool in the hands of Steinbeck for exhibiting as well as

condemning the “enormity of the national error” besides other purposes

concerned with the thoughts and actions regarding the characters in his

fiction. For Steinbeck, one of the most important ingredients in writing

was “sound.” Jackson J. Benson stated that “On a large scale he wanted to

create overall musical impressions that would carry out or reinforce the

dramatic sequence, setting or theme” (152-153).

Steinbeck’s novels generally start with a high definition setting

which is remarkably conducive towards the projection and highlighting of

the theme and texture of the same. Environment becomes a character and

man becomes subsidiary and at times powerless before the epic forces that

blow across the country. Paradoxically it is man who is in a sense

responsible for the discrimination and the destruction of land for which he

is subjected to paying too heavy a price. He also has an essential ear for

the music of the word. He liked his novels to be read so as to enjoy the

innate musical potentiality. In the Nobel Prize citation, Steinbeck was

lauded in glowing terms for his realistic as well as imaginative writings

distinguished by a sympathetic humour and a keen social perception. He

once explained to his agents that he was trying to write history while it

was happening and he did not want to be wrong. Actually his novel The

Grapes of Wrath created history in the realm of publications. It was said

44 that no novel since Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin had the

combined popularity and social impact of ‘The Grapes of Wrath’, a novel

that sold more than 400,000 copies during its first print. Joseph

Fontenrose observes that “for a quarter century Faulkner, Hemingway,

and Steinbeck were the three names that usually come to mind when one

was asked who were the greatest American novelists” (12).

Out of seven novels selected for this study, Steinbeck’s In Dubious

Battle takes its title from Milton’s Paradise Lost, This novel dealt with

a fruit-workers’ strike in a California valley and the attempts of

communists to organize, lead, and provide for the striking pickers. It is

a novel describing the war between labour and capital in 1930s America,

where local sheriffs threaten striking workers with marauding teams of

machine gun wielding men, and it does not have a happy ending.

Steinbeck's novel simmers with a rising tension that can only be the

prelude to horrific acts of violence. Even though In Dubious Battle ends

with a bloody murder, nothing is resolved one way or another. It’s simply

one act in a cycle of violence. It concentrates more intensely on what is

basically an all out war between labour and capital. It closely examines

the tough-minded ideology of labour organizers deeply influenced by

communist thought, and shows how utterly unscrupulous their methods

could be. The capitalists - those in control of the fruit orchards and the

price they will give for labour - are portrayed as being outright thugs who

45 think nothing of murder to scare off any agitation for fairer wages. The

origin of this novel, Steinbeck wrote to Louis Paul on February 1936 like

this, “I had planned to write a journalistic account of a strike, but as

I thought of it as fiction, the thing got bigger and bigger...! I have used

a small strike in an orchard valley as the symbol of man’s eternal

strength” (Steinbeck and Wallsten ed. 143). The novel is adjudged as one

of the best of Steinbeck. According to Carlos Baker “Steinbeck is

supremely interested in what happens to men’s minds and hearts when

they function not as responsible self-governing individuals but as

members of a group” (216). It is remarked that Steinbeck had attempted to

root his writings in real people and places.

Steinbeck’s another novel Of Mice and Men tells the compelling

story of two outsiders trying to find their place in an unforgiving world. It

is considered as one of the greatest tales of the last century, both in

moralistic storytelling and personal achievement in the real world. It was

written by John Steinbeck in 1937 and revolves around the difficult lives

of migrant ranch-workers George Milton and Lennie Small who travel

around Depression-torn California looking to earn their keep. The idea is

largely based on Steinbeck’s own life as a bindle staff during the 1920s.

Featuring many issues which are now considered to be racist and

offensive, the piece appears on the American Library Association’s list of

the ‘Most Challenged Books of the twenty first century. It teaches the

46 moral ‘try to understand men, and if you understand each other, you will

be kind to each other’. Knowing a man will never lead to hate and nearly

always lead to love. This has become the very social guideline for

Steinbeck. As Susan Shillinglaw in his “Introduction” has pointed out that

Of Mice and Men was considered to be remarkable in the history of

American letters for its success as a book, a play, and a film … for

its direct force and perception in handling a theme genuinely rooted

in American life, for its bite into the strict quality of its material;

for its refusal to make this study of tragic loneliness and frustration

either cheap or sensational: and finally for its simple, intimate and

steadily raising effect on the stage. (xxvi)

This novel  is a powerful and vivid depiction of life in rural America. It

recounts the tragic story of two lonely itinerant farm workers who

belonged nowhere and to no one but themselves, who try to escape

homelessness, economic poverty, and emotional and psychological

corruption.

Considered to be the American classic of twentieth Century and the

undisputed masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath is set against the

background of Dust Bowl Oklahoma and the migrants of California. It

tells about the Joad family who like the thousands of others are forcefully

driven to the extent of travelling west in search of the ‘Promised Land’.

Their story is one of false hopes, thwarted desires and shattered dreams.

47 But out of their sufferings Steinbeck created an intense human drama and

dignity, majestic in scale and memorable in purport. It comes to be known

that the novel The Grapes of Wrath has had its thematic genesis from the

series of certain articles which Steinbeck wrote on the migrant labourers

from the Midwest in California agricultural industry. The inner mind of

the writer gets expressed with more force and fidelity as evident in the

following fiery verbal representation: “And in the eyes of the hungry there

is a growing Wrath!” (GW 365)

The novel The Pearl portrays a message about life. In it Steinbeck

tells about a great pearl that is found and lost by a Mexican villager. The

value of the pearl is great, and with the value comes much greed from

others and troubles for the villager. This is a tale that depicts human

nature and the way of humanity. It is concerned with the ‘class conflict’

expressed in an artistic manner. It deals with an ordinary fishing family

consisting of Kino, his wife Juana, their son Coyotito. The parents want to

rear their son in the best possible manner but for want of money it

becomes a distant dream. Luckily Kino gets a precious pearl, for

disposing of which he and the family undergoes untold sufferings at the

hands of the greedy bureaucrats and Capitalists leading to the death of his

son Coyotito. As the purpose for which Kino did taste the bitter fruits of

life was not solved, he and his wife decided to get rid of the evils caused

48 by the pearl. They threw back the pearl into the deep sea. As Howard

Levant points out

the corrupting power of the town is pervasive and more powerful

than the organic life of a village … The pearl fulfills the best

literary possibilities of Is thinking; a parable realized in objective

imagistic detail, the abstract fleshed by the particular. (185, 191)

This novel has a strong moral that one should be content with one’s life

and that greed invites misfortune. The novel presents this view through

the character of the Priest, who participates in continuing the oppression

of the indigenous people (Kino's race). In the end, Kino looks at the pearl

and sees it as something evil. The pearl has changed throughout the story

from a sign of hope, to a sign of greed, death, and deceit. He sees the man

that he had killed reflected on the surface of the pearl, as well as a vision

of his baby Coyotito with his head shot off. In his rage, Kino flings the

pearl back into the sea, where it settles into the sand and disappears. The

book also conveys messages of oppression and racism in a way that

suggests they are negative elements in life.

An indirect reference to the significance of East of Eden has come

from Steinbeck’s tongue as such: “There is only one book to a man” and

obviously it is East of Eden. The book is said to be his ambitious work.

It deals with the destinies of Franks and the Hamilton’s which re-enact the

fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Able.

49 As New York Times review reads, “the book records the mystery of

identity the inexplicability of love and the baneful consequences of love’s

absence” (qtd. in Lisca 212). In it Steinbeck portrays the struggle of good

and evil in siblings, spouses, and within individual characters. Steinbeck

utilizes the story of Adam and Eve and their sons, Cain and Abel,

extracted from the Book of Genesis in the Bible, to illustrate the theme of

good vs. evil in life. In the Bible story, Adam and Eve are created to live

in paradise in the Garden of Eden but their sin casts them out. Their sons,

Cain and Abel, take different paths, and Cain ultimately kills Abel and is

banished to live in Nod-a land in east of Eden. Steinbeck believes that all

men have both good and evil in them and, although most do not commit

the heinous crime of fratricide, all men live east of Eden, where they must

struggle with the human condition.

Tortilla Flat is the story of Danny and of Danny’s friends and of

Danny’s house. It is the story of how these three form an entity. Danny is

a Paisano. He values friendship more than money. He inherits two houses

all of a sudden. He offers shelter to his fellow beings whose love of

freedom and hatred for property make them indulge in daring adventures

until Danny disappears unawares. Tortilla Flat has been worded by critics

as his prominent critical work and commercial success. It is the funniest

of Steinbeck’s fictions. Steinbeck narrates the stories of these lovable

thieves and adulterers with a poetic purity of heart and of prose.

50

The Winter of our Discontent is considered to be the last novel of

Steinbeck wherein he has attained the same standard set in The Grapes of

Wrath. Steinbeck wrote to his friend that he wrote the novel in order to

address the moral depravity of American culture during the latter half of

the twentieth century. The title of the book is taken from Shakespeare’s

play Richard III, the line being

Now is the Winter of Our Discontent

Made glorious summer by this son (sun) of York. (1.1.1)

The novel is about Ethan Allen Hawley, who is working as a clerk

and his family members do not pay any heed to his honesty and morality

which he valued more than money in this society noted for corrupt

practices. But due to the pestering of his wife and children Halley now

manages his store successfully but at the expense of his integrity and

morals. Though he has accumulated wealth, he has lost his happiness once

for all. The novel is the symbolic representation of American affluence

without ethical standards.

Steinbeck attempted to elevate his social narratives to mythic status

in order to create more powerful and more universally accessible figures

who could serve as moral examples for all Americans By creating worlds

which are steeped in allegory, ultimately reaching toward the mythical, he

bridge the gap between individuals and imagined communities to show

the potential for reform on the societal level through the lessons learned

51 by his characters. He presented the land as it was. The characters in his

stories experienced floods, drought, and other natural disasters, while in

the Salinas Valley. What Steinbeck wrote was very factual and in depth.

He exhibited his awareness of man and his surroundings, in his early

books, before people ate, a pig had to be slaughtered, and often that and

before they ate, it had to be cooked. Also when a car broke down, the

characters had to find parts, and fixed it themselves. Many people

consider that John Steinbeck novels are records of social history. His

books are the history of plain people and society as a whole, many of his

books focused on the Great Depression, Social Prejudice, religion, and the

automobile. He may be considered as a Sentimentalist, because of his

concerns for the common man, human values, for warmth and love and

understanding. The social relevance of his writings reveals him as

a reformer (Covici xxii).

Steinbeck can rightly be called the writer par excellence. His

writings though rooted to a specific American region and people, have

transcended the geographical and ethnic barriers by virtue of their themes

of protest, fundamental humanistic perspectives and artistic effects. The

attributes generally warranted of a good writer namely humanistic

approach, sincerity, narrative power, introduction of novelty, social

responsibility-all these are amply possessed by him and they have got

deeper expressions in his works. He stood as the staunch spokesman for

52 the cause of the working class and he missed no opportunity to raise and

record his voice of protest to do something positive when the people were

confronted with injustice and psychological predicaments.

CHAPTER II

SEMANTICS OF SOCIAL PROTEST

I am actively oppose to any man or group who … is able to

dominate the lives of the workers. John Steinbeck

A protest is an expression of objection by means of words or actions

to particular events, policies or situations. Protests are of many forms and

they do vary from individual statements up to mass demonstrations.

Protesters, with a view to making their cause known publicly and to

influence the concerned party or parties (either government or private)

resort to direct action so as to bring the desired changes themselves.

Protests are not generally allowed by bureaucratic set up. Attempts would

be made to quell them either for good or bad. Instances in the history of

the world speak considerably about protests, protesters and the

accomplished tasks in addition to the achieved ends in this regard. When

protests become the part of a campaign bent upon national interest and

with an eye on the methods and modes of persuasion and peaceful

pressures they come to have the nomenclature of ‘civil resistance’ as in

the case of Gandhiji’s non-cooperation movement for securing Indian’s

independence.

A total exclusion of violent methods and a wish to undergo all sorts

of ordeals mark the obstinate character of the protesters in the

54 above-stated form of resistance. In fact the restrictions imposed upon the

incumbents by many factors such as governmental measures, social

structure, religious repercussions and in addition to the above, the

monopoly executed by the media-these would be leading towards civil

disobedience and the consequent resorting to virtual action.

World history has got recorded protests by various sections of

people, protests by civilians in general, military personnel, students,

agrarians, government employees, working class, service organizations,

bank men, political parties, religious groups, ethnic tribes, prisoners,

media persons and the like. The underlying motive of protests would be to

squeeze the required benefit or advantage or result from the persons,

parties or organizations concerned. To express it in other words, protest is

meant for getting the demands fulfilled either partially or fully either for

temporal or for permanent ends.

The forms of protest are multifarious which are furnished as below:

Public demonstration or political rally.

Written demonstration.

Civil disobedience.

Residential protest.

Destructive demeanors.

Resorting to direct action.

Protest against Government.

55

Protest in the military.

Government employees protest.

Unemployed persons staging a dharna.

Malpractices in the world of sports.

Consumers protest against adultery, substandard goods and unfair

Practices on the part of the merchandise.

Protest in the media sphere –a recent one.

Protest against the release of a film affecting the sentiments of

a section of a social or religious group.

Women protesting against male chauvinism.

Students protesting against the imposition of an unwanted language

in curriculum.

Protests by minority people against the autocratic attitudes and

activities of majority.

There are many more forms of protests based on the call of

necessity and the quantum of benefits sought for, or at least for getting

relieved of a prevalent irksome affair or law or compulsion or

anti-democratic litigation. A bipartite distinction is generally made in the

very form of protest there are addressed and unaddressed. Addressed

protests naturally involve the factors and procedures as detailed earlier in

this chapter whereas unaddressed protests include riots, revolts, dissent,

activism and insurgency. There are many examples related to unaddressed

56 protests in the annals of world history. The Reformation by the Protestants

during sixteenth century Europe is the leading one with regard to

unaddressed protest. The American Revolution civil war in the year 1770

is another remarkable anecdote. The French Revolution in 1789 which not

only shattered the Bastille prison and released the prisoners; but also

disseminated the eternally noble ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity

throughout the nook and corner of world as its ideological contribution. In

fact it has become an eye opener to all the subsequent insurgences or

revolting models. The Haymarket Riot (1886) led by Anarchist movement

is described as a violent labour protest. Martin Luther king’s march 1963

on Washington seeking jobs and freedom is another milestone related to

the protest for the common good. Anti- globalization protest in Prague in

2000 and the Occupy Wall Street protest is some of the significant

protests in the world arena.

Protests are multifarious in manifestations. Notably among them

are protest march, picketing, lockdowns, protest song, radical

Cheerleading, mass bike rides, and so on. Employees or Civilians

tonsuring their heads and indulging in public protests for certain specified

causes are common in India. Public Fasting, rallying, shouting at the

entrance of government or company buildings, raising slogans are often

witnessed in democratic countries as a means of getting the demands

fulfilled. Fasting unto death either singly or in mass is another means of

57 attracting the attention of higher authorities so as to get redressed of the

grievances concerned.

Protest songs are aimed at perceived problems in the society. Songs

are made use of with a view to obtaining the desired end in connection

with the issues like emancipation of slaves, suffrage to women, restoring

civil rights, highlighting labour movement, feminist causes, environmental

issues, anti-war sentiments, eradication of injustice, social or racial

discrimination, economic problems with inflation, economic inequality

and such causes. Curiously we come to know that Zimbabwe South

African Dance form named Toyi-toyi was used in the political protest

against apartheid in South Africa. A Tamil poet like Subrahmaniya

Bharathi, in many of his poems has protested against the tyrannical rule of

the British Government in India. Bharathi’s poems contains vehement

repudiation of the British authority.

Protest songs are generally meant to be sung in public places so as

to kindle the spirit of the people and accumulate their wrath against

a particular person, group, business concern, institution, antagonistic

political force, or rival nation etc., Strike, Walkout, Lockout, door

demonstration, work to rule, boycott, riot, self-immolation, suicide,

hunger strike, tax resistance, petitions, signed letter writing campaigns,

are other forms of protests which are in vogue in the world substantially.

58

Steinbeck who has achieved an immortal place in the history of

social protest literature took novel as a vehicle of social reformation. The

novel by its very captivating and quintessential attributes has been found

to be the suitable form for portrayal of social conditions, the ideas,

attitudes, and aspirations, the emotional outburst concerned with

an individual or a society at large in the social, political, psychological,

religious or cultural spheres. Novel is considered as a social document

meant for delight through instruction. Novel has been invested with

broader, wider, and deeper scope for delivery into the labyrinthine layers

of human mind and bring out the experiences of people in individual and

social planes by virtue of its story, characters, style, message and above all

by its prospect of interesting reading.

We have an array of British, French, German, Russian, American,

Indian, Scandinavian, and African writers who have attained name and

fame in the sphere of novel writing by virtue of their compatibility with

this form not to speak of their outlook and output. Social and economic

conditions shaping characters and determining events led to the birth of

social novel. If it involves social or political reform either directly or

indirectly it comes under the category of sociological novel. Instances are

varied in this regard. Harried Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)

Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (1906) John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of

Wrath (1939) and Nadine Gardimer’s Burger’s Daughter stand as

59 appropriate examples for social novel involving protests. Uncle Tom’s

Cabin is held as the first social protest novel in America. It narrates the

story of a Negro slave “Uncle Tom” who deals with his captors with

utmost tolerance and forgiveness until he was brutally killed. This novel

has been instrumental in the American history towards the abolition of

slavery by Abraham Lincoln. A Marxist version of the social novels,

representing the hardships suffered by the oppressed working class, and

usually written to incite the reader to radical political actions is called the

Proletarian Novel. According to M.H. Abrams “Proletarian fiction

flourished especially during the great economic depression of the 1930s”

(256).

Steinbeck’s seven novels that had been selected for the present

research are abounding in varied aspects of social protest literature.

Steinbeck as a novelist had longer and deeper association with his land

and the people to delve deep into the problems of the masses and voice

out their grievances in writing. As one who always took sides with the

common men he could not but sow the seeds of protests in his writings

whether fictions or any other literary forms. An analysis of his novels

could make this clear in addition to understanding the protesting forces

lurking in this novelist noted for inexhaustible humanistic concerns.

Steinbeck in his novels selected for the present study ignites considerably

the minds of the people towards the paths of revolution though he himself

60 does not have any positive determination as to its successful harvest. In

the Nobel Award acceptance speech, William Faulkner made the

following remarks:

I believe that man will not merely endure; he will prevail. He is

immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an

inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of

compassion and sacrifice and endurance. (84)

The possession of such an inexhaustible voice, soul, and compassionate

spirit reinforced with sacrifice and endurance-all these endearing qualities

find expression in the characters of Steinbeck especially the Joad family,

which represents the macrocosmic humanitarian attributes, even amidst

undergoing inexpressible tribulations and critical conditions.

Steinbeck dramatizes the entire situation whereby the readers of the

novels themselves would have a feel for the immigrant’s plight and the

exploiters ruthless attitudes and activities arising out of the mammon

worship by crooked and selfish persons. The protesting mechanisms on

the part of the people take up varied modes in his novels herein selected

viz., Tortilla Flat, In Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of

Wrath, The Pearl , East of Eden, and The Winter of Our Discontent.

The consequences of the Great War knew several upheavals and

agitations in America in terms of race, politics, and society. Anti-foreign

attitudes attained their climax in the years just after the Great War.

61 Spokesmen for hundred percent Americanism’ influenced the enactment

of anti-immigration laws. In addition, the revival of the Ku Klux Klan

triggered a racist atmosphere all over the country. Moreover, the outburst

of the Red Scare also coincided with the post-war era. Communists,

radicals, anarchists, and labour figures were pursued and condemned

throughout the nation.

Another milestone issue during the post-war era in America was

the Great Depression. The latter began in 1929 after the Great Crash of

Wall Street. A severe drought led to massive agricultural failure in parts of

the southern Great Plains, particularly throughout western Oklahoma and

the Texas panhandle. These areas had been heavily over cultivated by

wheat farmers in the years following World War I and were covered with

millions of acres of loose, exposed topsoil. In the absence of rain, crops

withered and died; the topsoil, no longer anchored by growing roots, was

picked up by winds and carried in billowing clouds across the region.

Huge dust storms blew across the area, at times blocking out the sun and

even suffocating those unlucky enough to be caught unprepared. The

afflicted region became known as the “Dust Bowl.”

It was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced by

America. The economic crisis left millions of homeless families and

unemployed all over the country. The depression era also experienced

another catastrophe. The latter concerns the “Dust Bowl” that struck the

62 Great Plains very heavily. Thousands of American families migrated to

California in order to find a more decent life. A literary work that summed

up the bitterness of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl was John

Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939). John Steinbeck as a Californian

was a direct witness of the arrival of these migrant workers to California.

The Grapes of Wrath belongs to what literature is known as the “social”

protest tradition.

As the drought had crippled countless farm families, America had

fallen into the Great Depression. Unable to pay their mortgages or invest

in the kinds of industrial equipment now necessitated by commercial

competition, many Dust Bowl farmers were forced to leave their land.

Without any real employment prospects, thousands of families

nonetheless traveled to California in hopes of finding new means of

survival. But the farm country of California quickly became overcrowded

with the migrant workers. Jobs and food were scarce, and the migrants

faced prejudice and hostility from the Californians, who labeled them with

the derisive epithet “Okie.” These workers and their families lived in

cramped, impoverished camps called “Hoovervilles”, named after

President Hoover, who was blamed for the problems that led to the Great

Depression. Many of the residents of these camps starve to death, unable

to find work. When Steinbeck decided to write a novel about the plight of

migrant farm workers, he took his task very seriously. To prepare, he

63 lived with an Oklahoma farm family and made the journey with them to

California. When The Grapes of Wrath appeared, it soared to the top of

the bestseller lists, selling nearly half a million copies. Although many

Oklahomans and Californians reviled the book, considering Steinbeck’s

characters to be unflattering representation of their states’ people, the

large majority of readers and scholars praised the novel highly. The story

of the Joad family captured a turbulent moment in American history.

The Grapes of Wrath was set in a crucial period of the United

States. America witnessed one of the greatest traumas in its history. The

great financial crash of 1929 resulted in widespread financial ruin that led

to unemployment and homelessness. The economic crisis brought a spirit

of social and political revolution all over the country. Americans were

deeply disillusioned by Capitalism after the financial collapse. It is worth

emphasizing that Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath stands as a record of

the painful experience of the 1930s. By presenting a vivid picture of the

social conditions, it is inscribed in what Gorky and Lukacs call “social

realism.”

The basic function of art according Steinbeck is to provide society

with a focus in its own social, moral, economic, and political conditions.

Though he employs modernist techniques, he can be regarded as realist in

his choice of themes. Steinbeck consider that it is his social and political

responsibility to use his literary creativity and skill to inform, reform,

64 raise, and enhance social consciousness. Steinbeck was hostile to the

devastating effects of capitalism. He express sympathy with the outsiders,

alienated, the defeated, the oppressed, and the working-class. Through his

works he seeks to denounce the capitalist doctrine that celebrates profit,

greed, and materialistic instincts. Therefore John Steinbeck reflected the

issues of his age throughout his novels.

The Grapes of Wrath recounts the odyssey of the Joad family from

Oklahoma to California, so it can also be referred to as an epic. It is also

a novel of escape from the terrifying socio-economic conditions of

Oklahoma just after the Dust Bowl. The social message of the novel is

reinforced by references to biblical stories of suffering and sacrifice. For

instance, the initials of Jim Casy, i.e, the preacher who renounced his

calling and travelled to California with the Joads to listen to people and

help them, ‘J.C’ echoes the name of Jesus Christ. The Joads travel to

California to enhance their social status and to live a decent life. This idea

is reinforced by Jim Casy’s assumptions about the motives of the

migrant’s flight. Casy said,

I been walkin’ aroun’ in the country. Ever’body’s askin’ that. What

we comin’to? Seems to me we don’t never come to nothin’.Always

on the way. Always goin’ and goin.’ Why don’t folks think about

that? They’s movement now. People moving. We know why,

65

an’we know how. Movin’cause they want somepin better’n what

they got. An’that’s the on’y way they’all ever git it. (GW 320)

The ‘social’ story of the Joads begins in the summer of the mid-

1930s. The novel begins in an era of lethal drought, just after dust storms

have ravaged the Great Plains. Throughout their long journey they cross

several towns and roads. The most symbolic road in the novel is highway

66 which is known as the ‘Migrant Road.’ It is referred in the novel as

being the “path of a people in flight.” According to Malcolm Cowley The

Grapes of Wrath belongs to, “very high in the category of the great angry

books like Uncle Tom’s Cabin that roused a people to fight against

intolerable wrongs” (119).

Through the works of Steinbeck we are given a looking glass that

allows us to be present in a time in which the world was changing, a time

when inexperience and innocence succumbed to knowledge and maturity.

Two of his greatest works Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath

both reflect greatly on the social economical and political climate of

America in the 1930s. There characters speak of the common man and his

struggles, his small triumphs but mostly of his defeats. Steinbeck writes,

“… and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of

the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing

heavy for the vintage” (GW 365).

66

In fact the repetition of a partial utterance in the above is apt to be

construed as the device of effective semantic connotation in the manner of

issuing a cautionary note to the exploiters. Steinbeck is all set for

ruthlessly exhibiting the inhuman treatment meted out to the labourers due

to exploitation. The conflict of rich verses poor becomes as well the

thematic climax of the novel The Grapes of Wrath. The ingredient of this

protest finds its culmination in this novel especially in the act of Rose of

Sharon’s breast feeding of a man too sick out of starvation and unable to

eat solid food. Louis Owens states that “The Grapes of Wrath created

uproar of controversy and was one of the banned books of his time

because of Steinbeck’s socialist sympathies” (13). The novel, in spite of

the fact remains one of the most studied works of social protest fiction of

the twentieth century. Steinbeck is spoken of as the leading exponent of

the proletarian novel and a prominent spokesman for the victims or the

Great Depression.

Cultural exponents raised their voice against this sort of

unimaginable feministic “philanthropy” but viewed up from the harsher

realities of life lived by the dispossessed community driven away from its

native soil relentlessly, due to the ecological devastation and especially of

an unprecedented industrial progress, this delineation gets justified. This

theme though an endearing one to many of the western writers has found

its ample and appropriate expression at the hands of John Steinbeck,

67 especially for its startling expression of lyrical beauty of recording the

underlying social protest in one form or other.

In the novel The Grapes of Wrath, the movement of the migrants is

from the ‘I’ to ‘we’ where people partly out of desperation, are driven to

a unit. John H. Timmerman states that “the two sides of the ‘I’ and ‘we’

clash dramatically-not just land owners versus migrants but the migrants

among themselves so that the unity is threatened from within” (115). The

father as worker - provides the mother as nourished who serves as source

of spiritual as well as physical nourishment. With the starvation-raging

among the migrants-the feeder attains a significant role. A guide by

Timmerman from Collins manuscripts brings out things not only clear but

also terrific and tragic in nature. Steinbeck describes this in his The

Grapes of Wrath as

Everything under the fit of canvas was dry – Everything – the

makeshift stove, was without heat; all shapes of cans were empty;

pans, pots and kettles all were dry. Everything, for there was not

a morsel of food, not a crumb of bread! (370)

It is pointed out by political exponents that “poverty anywhere is

a threat to prosperity everywhere.” Poverty rings out the autocratic and

exploiting forces in order to ring in the new ideals of common welfare and

universal brotherhood.

68

A writer with a sense of social commitment will not fail to give

expression to the toils of the multitudes due either to unforeseen natural

calamities or man-made economic disasters, the later witnessed in the

form of exploitation, plundering and deprivation. Both happen in the

novel The Grapes of Wrath in a considerable scale. Taking undue

advantage of the alarming Dust Bowl, land owners, bank men and the

bureaucratic personages plunder the hapless people leaving them in utter

penury. Steinbeck frequently used his fiction to delve into the lives of

societies most downtrodden citizens.

Steinbeck consistently and woefully points to the fact that the

migrants’ great suffering is caused not by bad weather or mere misfortune

but by their fellow human beings. Historical, social and economic

circumstances separate people into rich and poor, landowner and tenant,

and the people in the dominant roles struggle viciously to preserve their

positions. In his brief history of California, Steinbeck portrays the state as

the product of land-hungry squatters who took the land from Mexicans

and, by working it and making it produce, rendered it their own. Now,

generations later, the California landowners see this historical example as

a threat, since they believe that the influx of migrant farmers might cause

history to repeat itself. In order to protect themselves from such danger,

the landowners create a system in which the migrants are treated like

animals, shuffled from one filthy roadsides camp to the next, denied

69 livable wages, and forced to turn against their brethren simply to survive.

The novel draws a simple line through the population-one that divided the

privileged from the poor-and identifies that division as the primary source

of evil and suffering in the world. Steinbeck portrayed the pathetic

condition of the people in his writing “We’re half starved now. The kids

are hungry all the time. We got no clothes, torn and ragged. If all the

neighbors weren’t the same, we’d be ashamed to go to meeting” (GW 35).

Steinbeck portrayed the Joads as exemplary figures in their refusal to be

broken by the circumstances that conspire against them. At every turn,

Steinbeck seems intent on showing their dignity and honor; he emphasizes

the important of maintaining self respect in order to survive spiritually.

Nowhere is this more evident than at the end of the novel. The Joads have

suffered incomparable losses: Noah, Connie and Tom have left the family;

Rose of Sharon gives birth to a stillborn baby; the family possesses neither

food nor promise of work. Yet it is at this moment the family manages to

rise above hardship to perform an act of unsurpassed kindness and

generosity for the starving man, showing that the Joads have not lost their

sense of the value of human life.

Steinbeck makes a clear connection in his novel between dignity

and rage. As long as people maintain a sense of injustice-a sense of anger

against those who seek to undercut their pride in themselves-they will

never lose their dignity. This notion receives particular reinforcement in

70 Steinbeck’s images of the festering grapes of wrath, and in the last of the

short, expository chapters, in which the worker women, watching their

husbands and brothers and sons, know that these men will remain strong

as long as fear (can) turn to wrath. The women’s certainty is based on

their understanding that the men’s wrath be speaks their healthy sense of

self-respect.

According to Steinbeck, many of the evils that plague the migrants

stem from selfishness. Simple self-interest motivates the landowners and

businessmen to sustain a system that sinks thousands of families into

poverty. In contrast to and in conflict with this policy of selfishness stands

the migrants’ behaviour toward one another. Aware that their livelihood

and survival depend upon their devotion to the collective good, the

migrants unite-sharing their dreams as well as their burdens-in order to

survive. Throughout the novel The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck constantly

emphasizes self-interest and altruism as equal and opposite powers,

evenly matched in their conflict with each other. Steinbeck presents both

greed and generosity as self-perpetuating, following cyclical dynamics.

We learn that corporate gas companies have preyed upon the gas station

attendant that the Joads meet. The attendant, in turn, insults the Joads and

hesitates to help them. Then, after a brief expository chapter, the Joads

immediately happen upon an instance of kindness as similarly

self-propagating. Mae, a waitress, sells bread and sweets to a man and his

71 sons for drastically reduced prices. Some truckers at the coffee shop see

this interchange and leave Mae an extra-large tip.

When Tom killed Casy’s murderer, he chose to take over Casy’s

mission to organize the workers. Tom says:

I been thinkin’ a hell of a lot, thinking about our people livin’ like

pigs, an’ the good rich Ian’ layin’ fallow, or maybe one fella with

a million acres, while a hundred thousan’ good farmers is starvin’.

An’II been wonderin’ if all our folks got together. (371)

The readers never discovered whether Tom was successful in

getting all the “Okies” together, but John Steinbeck was successful in

making the readers “think about our people livin’ like pigs an’ the good

rich Ian1 layin’ fallow.” Tom represented the militant ‘Okie’, one of the

ones who were harbouring the grapes of wrath. Tom’s friend, Jim Casy

held a position in The Grapes of Wrath similar to that held by Doc Burton

in In Dubious Battle. He improvised Steinbeck with a mouthpiece;

someone in the narrative who could propound Steinbeck’s philosophy.

In The Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck portrays that the Oklahomans

are driven to the extreme limits of fleecing. Finding no scope and hope for

food, shelter and fair living conditions, their plight turns to be

indescribably worse than ever. Having collected firsthand and full-fledged

information combined with his own personal experiences, Steinbeck was

able to give appropriate verbal portrayal to the unprecedented human

72 tragedy befalling the people during a particular period of American

history. The story of The Grapes of Wrath is a story of a community of

immigrants. The novel does not focus exclusively on the Joads, but it

gives a multi-dimensional’ portrait of all the Okies through using the

Joads as a vivid instance of the socio-economic tragedy of the 1930s. For

this reason, the people at power, especially the large ranch owners,

regarded the novel as a ‘mere’ piece of propaganda, and Steinbeck as one

of the most threatening men in America. Steinbeck places his criticism of

the American system of capitalism by resorting to American ideas

developed by Jefferson and other ideologists of the time. So if we look at

the idea of the dispossession of the small farmers by the banks, it is the

idea of Jeffersonian democracy and agrarianism that comes first to mind.

Marxist ideas are evoked only when they fit in with American ideas. The

secular ideas of Jefferson are further supported by the social gospel

philosophy.

No novel since Harriet Beecher Stows’ Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in fact

has had the combined popularity and social impact of The Grapes of

Wrath, the reason being his realistic and imaginative rendering of the

living conditions of the down trodden people exploited by the heartless

capitalists, at a particular period concerned with specified area in

America. While discussing about the title of The Grapes of Wrath,

Steinbeck had mentioned once that it had a large meaning. He had

73 believed sincerely that the banks and the large growers were sowing the

seeds of their destruction, and that the migrants were being aroused to

mass resistance against their brutal oppressors. He prophesied disaster.

This prophecy might well have come true, but the Second World War

produced a rise in food prices, created a labour shortage, and brought

badly-needed industry to California. The fact that the grapes of wrath

were not gathered for the vintage, detracts nothing from what may well

remain as America’s most outstanding social novel.

Steinbeck both opened and closed The Grapes of Wrath with

sadism. In the beginning, the owners found the destruction of the farmers’

houses very pleasant. In the end, the ‘okies’ chased by floods did not

arouse solidarity but rather animosity. Also their march on the streets

offered a spectacular scene that the owners could enjoy through the

windows of their comfortable palaces. As usual, the owners accomplices-

the policemen-were involved not in assisting the disaster victims, but in

harassing them. Steinbeck related:

… and in little towns pity for the sodden men changed to anger,

and anger at the hungry people changed to fear of them…then the

hungry men crowded the alleys behind the stores to beg for bread,

to beg for rotting vegetables, to steal when they could…The

sheriffs swore in new deputies and ordered new rifles, and the

74

comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then

distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people. (458-459)

Exploitation has its demoniac hands in the novel The Grapes of

Wrath. The migrants depriving all their natural possibilities and

attainments either in the matter of food, shelter or decent living

conditions. Each and every activity of the land owners and bankers added

new woes to the poor people. The hopes of the people were shattered

whereas the purses of the big business mongers were stuffed. Harassments

and a provocation went on side by side in the resettlement camps. The

alluring of the workers by party men without rhyme or reason to join

unions added fuel to the fire.

In The Grapes of Wrath, however, the oppressed workers are seen

clearly through the adventures of one family. Although the Joads were

meant to represent all the migrant families, they were not the type of

family which would be familiar to most readers. To ensure empathy

between the readers and the Joads, John Steinbeck drew clearly the two

children, Ruthie and Winfield, whom anyone would recognize as typical

youngsters. The other migrants, whom the Joads met, both on the way and

in California, such as the Wilsons and the Wainwrights, are also clearly

sketched. There are no shadows here. Even the casual characters like

Lisbeth, Sandry, arid the members of the ‘Ladies’ Committee of Sanitary

Unit Number Four’ are described in detail. This clarity of presentation

75 encouraged the readers to visualize what was occurring, and permitted

them to feel the abuses to which the migrants were subjected. In order to

ensure that the whole sordid episode was not rejected as ‘just another

story’, John Steinbeck inserted the powerful, factual inter chapters which

left no doubt in anyone’s mind. While the Joads might be fictional

characters, the conditions which they encountered were far from fiction.

These conditions were familiar to the tens of thousands of migrants for

whom John Steinbeck had so much compassion.

Steinbeck was familiar with all phases of the problem, and in this

novel he touched on such subjects as the home, the family, the

community, motherhood and fatherhood, as well as the political and

economic atmosphere. The Joad family was forced by the dust-bowl

conditions to borrow from the bank. When continuing conditions made

repayment impossible, they were “tractored out” of their Oklahoma home

and joined the great march to California where jobs had been advertised.

Complete at the beginning, the family almost immediately begins to lose

members, and is altered somewhat with each loss.

The situation in California was clearly illustrated as the Joads

encountered border patrols, migrant shantytowns, strike-breaking, police

brutality, native hostility, the greed of the landowners, and the only bright

spot, a government camp. They experienced the whole range of

agricultural oppression, and John Steinbeck exposed it for all to see. He

76 was particularly shocked by the use of brute force with pick-handles, tear

gas and shotguns. His descriptions of such incidents were sharp and

brutal. He did not, however, depict all the migrants as helpless victims;

some of his more important characters were dangerous men. Tom Joad

had killed once, and was to kill again, while the ex-preacher, Casy was not

altogether a man of peace. Unlike the actions of their oppressors,

however, it is noteworthy that the violence of these heroes is in

self-defence, or the defence of their friends.

Steinbeck registers his voice of protest prompted by his own innate

humanitarian considerations. That Steinbeck’s theme of protest finds its

multifarious expressions through the characters, and their thoughts jotted

down in apt syntax and in the actions performed by the persons. The

events themselves described by him do smack of the sense and essence of

protest. Referring to the exploiting men In Dubious Battle, Steinbeck’s

anger gets exploded like this:

They don’t produce anything.

What right they got to the profits? (15)

The only orders that really stick

Are the ones that come, down after a vote? (19)

The damn fools think that

They can settle strikes with soldiers. (25)

77 If taken externally these protesting voices come under the unaddressed

category but the emotions and the righteous ‘indignation’ reveal their

relevance and significance in the course of actions of the novel. Steinbeck

once spoke to his agents that he was trying to write history while it was

happening and he did not want to be wrong (Timmerman 97).

It has been established that the conditions under which the

migratory farm workers in California existed prior to the Second World

War were almost beyond belief. John Steinbeck demonstrated that they

were not beyond description. Although the most violent criticisms of his

two novels that is The Grapes of Wrath and In Dubious Battle concerned

the validity of the conditions which he described, ample corroboration has

been produced to confirm that Steinbeck wrote the truth. In his In Dubious

Battle, John Steinbeck attacked different facets of the same problem. His

first attempt, In Dubious Battle, although one of the finest strike novels in

American literature, did not achieve wide popularity. The Grapes of

Wrath, on the other hand, was tremendously popular, and drew world-

wide attention to America's shameful problem. The difference in the

reception accorded these two novels of migrant workers is due to

Steinbeck’s methods of presentation. The story of In Dubious Battle is

told by means of the actions of two Communist labour organizers. The

actual people whom they are trying to organize, the migrant workers, are

never brought forward. Except for a few non-representative leaders, the

78 mass remains in the shadows. Nearly all the activity and all the violence

revolve around the two organizers. The readers never get to know the

downtrodden multitude, nor do they appreciate their grievances.

Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle has a suggestive title. Steinbeck

herein encapsulates his views regarding the need of communism though

he himself was not beyond skepticism as to its definite goal. Inhuman

extraction of work and exploitation of the workers were at the peak during

the days of Steinbeck in his country. Struggle for equality and survival

with dignity happened to be the crucial issue for the migrant labourers

who had been paid paltry sums for their labour. They in fact had to live

and work amidst ruthless and unhealthy environments. This novel appears

to be radical going against the traditional American values as it is

concerned with highlighting the pitiable plight of the poor workers in

California who were exploited by all possible means during the Great

Depression. This novel not only brings attention to capital working class

issue: it is also grapples with the universal, endless and abstract topic of

human nature. It is easy to understand why many readers would dismiss

this novel as mere socialist propaganda. The setting, characters and plot of

the novel revolve around topical socialist issues of the age. The novel

takes place during the Great Depression. The main characters are

members of the party, and the plot revolves around a working class strike.

So it was labeled as socialist propaganda.

79

In Dubious Battle is really a struggle between good and evil and

the self destructive behaviour that lives in all man kinds. It focuses on

how characters represent the various ideas, held by capital and labour in

1930s. It is fully deals with a fruit workers strike in California valley, and

the attempts communists to organize, lead and provide for the striking

pickers. Through the character Jim Nolan the protest portrayed. The strike

of nine hundred migratory workers is led by Jim Nolan devoted to his

cause. It was a strike novel set in a Californian apple country. It is another

version of the eternal human fight against injustice. The migratory

workers rise up in dubious battle against the land owners. The protest

forms against the low wages given to all the workers. The central figure of

the story is an activist for “the party” which also is a name for the

American communist party although it is never specifically named in the

novel. The communist party is organizing a major strike by the workers,

seeking this to attract followers to his cause. The writer’s sympathies were

clearly with the strikers. He pictured them as exploited by the capitalists

and the communists. Steinbeck stood by the side of truth and reality

related to humanity. Steinbeck also dealt with the problems of labour

unionism in this novel.

Although the strike is the owner’s inadequate treatment of the

workers, the law enforcement, newspaper and local government officials

denounce the Strike as a communist uprising. Not only do the owners

80 reduce wages, but they also take advantage of their workers destitution.

Steinbeck portrayed the situation through the character Jim as: “women

work all day, men work all day; and the owner charges three tents extra

for a can of beans because the men are too damn tried to go into town for

groceries” (DB 71).

The owners exploit the workers; they know that the workers are too

damn tried to go town, and they take advantage of them by overcharging

them: Additionally the owners take advantage of them through the

provision of store credit. Considering the fact most of the workers arrive

with little or no money; they have little choice but to use the stone credit

provided to. And as a result of the overcharging they become indebted to

the store, resulting in an endless cycle of exploitation. Mac, the

spokesman of Steinbeck brings this to light when he tells Jim:

Most of them are n’t going to have any pay when they settle up

with the store. One man tonight in the store got two big jars of

mincemeat. Probably eat both jars tonight and be sick tomorrow.

They get awful hungry for something nice. (75)

In the above passage Steinbeck addresses the problems of credit.

By offering credit and overcharging for products, the owners exploit

workers; they take advantage of the workers hungry. The presentation of

the owners by Steinbeck in this novel reveals the inequality and

81 exploitation that mark the working class experience in the early twentieth

century.

The value of unity is at the centre of socialist intellectual influences

on the working class movement; in order to survive and change social

awareness about injustices, the working class must raise their voices in

united rebellion. Steinbeck explains in In Dubious Battle about the

essence of this working class and socialist mentality as:

Group men are always getting some kind of inspection. This seems

to be a bad one. I want to see, Mac, I want to watch these group-

men, for they seem to me to be a new individual, not at all like

single men. A man in a group is n’t himself at all; he’s a cell in an

organism that isn’t like him any more than the cells in your body

more than the cells in your body are like you. (144)

The doctor is explaining the noticeable changes happening among

those in the working class in this novel. He has perceived their coming

together as a unified source, and he draws comparison between the

individual (cell) and the working class (organism). If one thinks of the

great struggle and deaths common among migrant workers at the time this

seems a very fitting parallel. If a cell die, a new cell is born. It is not

individual that matters; it is the whole organism. Unity is connected to

survival, and thus, it is one of the most important values of socialist ideals

to influence working class culture. Toward the end of the novel, the

82 migrant workers fight together and figuratively they become one

beginning: the narrator tells, “No lone cries came from lonemen. They

moved together, looked alike. The roar was one voice, coming from many

throats” (315).

In coming together as a unified source and overcoming the

barricade, and they illustrate the working-class conviction that the power

of one. However Steinbeck creates doubt about the outcome of this

socialist out look. In the end, Jim is killed and Mac uses his death to fuel

working-class anger. As a result, one is left wondering about the negative

consequences of communist thought. For, Mac’s final action is heartless

and calculated; and he is able to perform the act became the socialist

theory he subscribe to places the community above the individual.

In Dubious Battle is a condemnation of the techniques that

Steinbeck believes to be employed by the labour organizers, and their

corruption of group-man as a whole. Warren French says,

In Dubious Battle is the best novel about a strike ever written

because Steinbeck refused to become a blind partisan and rather

showed how struggles between labourers and employers - however

provoked or justified - can inevitably prove only destructive and

demoralizing to both parties. (Steinbeck 99)

Yet, this novel does far more than that. Steinbeck does not merely

critique the situation between labourers and employers, but between

83 labourers and labour leaders as well. The “dubious battle on the plains of

Heaven” (book 1) John Milton depicts in Paradise Lost, from which

Steinbeck draws his title, is a futile engagement effortlessly concluded by

the Son of God. John H. Timmerman suggests the allusion to Milton is

designed to emphasize the, “hazy battle of the strikers” (87), which is

never truly a battle between black and white as much as it is

a confrontation between shades of gray. The uncertainty as to which side

is justified in their actions is as debatable in Paradise Lost as it is in

In Dubious Battle, because this is just the beginning of a much greater

narrative progression that unfolds in Steinbeck’s writing over the next

decade. The phalanx has only just begun to be explored. Thus In Dubious

Battle is much more than a piece of period propaganda; it is a novel that

presents a picture of its time while creating an abstract presentation. It

would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we

invented them.

Steinbeck’s The Pearl is a symbolic tale of a Mexican Indian pearl

diver Kino. He finds a valuable pearl which changes his life, but not in the

way he did expect. It focuses on a conflict of values prevents a reduction

of the novel to social protest for its own sake. Kino is clearly exploited by

the town, but that is not the isolate theme, it is relate to the conflict of

values. As a man (Kino) he demands justice, thereby he endangers his

family. The central image expressed as a conflict of values. Imaged

84 objects define values. This novel connotes a false standard of value. It

suggests various meanings to different people to different times. Kino’s

character justify complicates the basic simple narrative, pride, idealism,

greed, strength, despair and horror all are contained in the precise focus of

the man’s actions. It is the story of pitting the individual and his dreams

against the threat of social power structure. Through this novel Steinbeck

exposes that riches are exploiting the poor. Here Steinbeck describes the

pearl dealers thus:

They did not know, it seemed a fine pearl to them, but they knew

they never seen such a pearl before, and surely the dealers knew

more about the pearl than they did. “And mark this, they said.

Those dealers did not discuss these things. Each of the three knew

the pearl was valueless.” “But suppose they have arranges this

before?” “If that is so, then all of us have been cheated all our

lives.” (P 52)

They taking advantage of the condition of the poor also described.

When the pearl dealer who tries to tell Kino that the pearl was not of much

value, Kino replied that “It is worth fifty thousand. You know it. You

want to cheat me” (50). The theme of solidarity being on the poor

people’s side and sadism on the rich people's is recurrent in Steinbeck's

writings. The Pearl, in which Indians were considered as non-humans, is

a good example. While on their side Indians showed solidarity with Kino

85 whose son had been bitten by a scorpion, the rich doctor to whom he ran

for help responded with much arrogance and sadism. Here is an excerpt

from the dialog between the doctor and his Indian servant. The latter said:

It is little Indian with a baby. He says a scorpion stung it … - Have

I nothing better to do than cure insect bites for “little Indians?”

I am a doctor, not a veterinary … Has he any money …? No they

never have money … See if he has any money … (17)

At that time money gave someone the human status and poverty

withdrew it. In his ‘philosophical analysis of the human soul’s needs’,

Henry David Thoreau indirectly pointed out money as one of the worst

enemies of man. Steinbeck also maintained the same theme in this novel.

Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men genuinely rooted in American

life, for its bite in to the strict quality of its material; for its refusal,

tragical loneliness and frustration either cheap or sensational. Steinbeck

present an unbiased picture of a strike and he has done justice to his task

and resultantly it has flourished into a prominent proletarian strike novel

of 1930s. It is a touching and perennially popular tale of two migrants and

their mutual dependence and shared dreams. It vividly exposes the

miserable situation of the peculiar class. There are obvious elements of

social protest in the novel: the plight of migrant workers, a theme that is

developed more fully in The Grapes of Wrath; racial discrimination,

reveals in the abuse and ostracizing of Crooks, the black stable man, by

86 the other ranch hands; the insensitive treatment of old Candy and the

social prejudice towards women, exposed through Curly’s wife’s unhappy

married life.

The Southwest as a “multi-racial” land included the presence of the

black community. The majority of the blacks who arrived to the West

coast settled in California before the Civil War. At the end of the sectional

conflict in 1865, a new ‘influx’ of blacks arrived to the Southwest mainly

to cultivate the ‘Southwestern’ lands. It is worth noting that the black

population in the Southwest was small in comparison to the general

population of the area. In a nutshell, blacks were not drawn to the West in

great numbers. The blacks were exploited discriminated, and considered

as ‘inferior’ people. At that time, they became targets in a society.

These historical facts prove that racial discrimination against

Crooks in the ranch is a continuation of a ‘racist’ tradition. He is

introduced as “Crooks, the Negro stable buck, had his bunk in the harness

room” (MM 19). Crooks lives in the harness room because he is

segregated and isolated from the ‘high born’ white members of the ranch.

One can advance the idea that George, Lennie, and Curley stand for the

concept of the white supremacy. So, Crooks is the unique ‘non’ white man

on the ranch as he affirms to Lennie “now there ain’t a colored man on his

ranch” (70). Crooks keeps his distance from the others and when Lennie

‘dares’ to enter inside the harness room, he exclaims “you got no right to

87 come in my room. This here’s is my room. Nobody got any right in here

but me” (72). Then, Crooks permits Lennie to enter the harness room.

Their brief interaction reveals the complexity of racial prejudice in

California.

In the south segregation is historical and it is a legacy, so it has

become natural whereas in California, that is, the land of dreams and of

a new world, racial segregation is supposed to be hardly acceptable. Thus,

this ‘Californian genre’ of racial segregation is spatial. In other words, the

idea of segregation was re-affirmed in California through the same codes

and practices that were “in vogue” in the rigid and segregating South.

Moreover, Crooks asserts his ‘Californian’ identity when he says “I ain’t

a southern Negro … I was born right here in California” (70). Even if

Crooks was born in California, unlike many southern blacks who had

migrated, he is still treated like an “outsider” in his “homeland.” In one of

the most poignant passages of the novel, Crooks says,

A guy sets alone out here at night, maybe readin’ books or thinkin’

or stuff like that. Sometimes he gets thinkin’, an’ he got nothin’ to

tell him what’s so an’ what ain’t so. Maybe if he sees something,

he don’t know whether it’s right or not. He can’t turn to some other

guy and ast him if he sees it too. He can’t tell. He got nothing to

measure by. I seen things out here. I wasn’t drunk. I don’t know if

88

I was asleep. If some guy was with me, he could tell me I was

asleep, an’ then it would be all right. But I jus’ don’t know. (73)

From this passage, we realize that Crooks’s loneliness is

a ‘by-product’ of the racism that is exerted on him and Steinbeck

vehemently protest the racial discrimination towards the black people.

Because of their lower social economic position, proletarians have

no strong political power; they are weak in every aspect. Capitalists are

seemed to be strong, because their economic position. From the very

beginning, it is evident that the capitalist world is cruel to poor migrant

workers, especially to characters like Lennie and Candy. There is simply

no place for this lower classes, non self sufficient people in this man-

eating man society. The pattern of George’s character develops from hope

and optimism and end to despair, is the fate of the migrants. Just as

Crooks said that the dream of getting a ranch is in the minds of hundreds

of migrants, but nobody ever gets it

I see hundreds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches, with

their bindles on their back an’ that same damn thing in their

heads … every damn one of ‘em’s got a little piece of land in his

head. An’ never a God damn one of ‘em ever gets it. Just like

heaven everybody wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of

books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no

land. (73)

89

Discrimination affects most people in this novel. They are all

discriminated against for certain reasons. One characters old and crippled,

one mentally slow, one is black and one is women. All of these characters

have a hard life, as the other characters discriminated against them. There

is no place for the black in the racial discrimination society, too. The black

stable man Crooks not only suffers to poverty and the lack of home as the

other migrants, but also suffers from the lack of companionship. He is not

even permitted to play card with the white hands. Steinbeck depicts

Crooks with significant sympathy. Crooks suffer a lot at the hands of the

racist people surrounding him and is the victim of oppressive aggression

and discrimination. Everyone who read the novel understands how

immoral the treatment of Crooks is, and in this, Steinbeck succeeded in

helping people to recognize racism.

Steinbeck sensitively dealt with the issue concerning “cat houses”

handling the facts of the life style in a frank and unequivocal manner. He

relates events as they were at that period of time passing no judgment and

showing no protest. He was merely concerned with telling it like it is, as

they say. These are the qualities that earn him such a worthy reputation as

an author, and yet he is so much more. Bringing to the forefront issues

that have previously been pushed to the back and hidden as taboo subjects

helped many to realize the state of society.

90

In Of Mice and Men Steinbeck pictures many examples of the

cruelty of the world. Candy’s old sheep dog is an example of what

happens when one is out grow its usefulness. Carlson wants Candy to let

him kill his dog. He tells him it will be quick and painless. He even offers

to give him one of the new puppies. In the end he allows them to kill his

dog. Candy fears that he too will soon out grow his usefulness and not be

welcome at the ranch any more. This exemplifies the cruelty of the world

that people think a man is like a fruit; you eat the fruit and then throw

away the peal.

Although George and Lennie have their dream, they are not in

a position to attain it. In addition to their own personal limitations, they

are also limited by their position in society. Their idealistic dream is

eventually destroyed by an unfeeling, materialistic, modern society. The

tensions between the characters are inherent in the nature of American

capitalism and its class system. Curley, the son of the ranch owner, is

arrogant and always looking for a fight. This is not merely a personality

trait. His position in society has encouraged this behaviour; his real

strength lies not in his fighting ability but in his power to fire any worker.

Similarly, Carlson, the only skilled worker among the ranch hands, is

arrogant and lacks compassion. Carlson would be difficult to replace in

his job as a mechanic; therefore, he feels secure enough in his status to

treat the other workers sadistically. This trait is seen when he orders

91 Candy’s dog to be shot and when he picks on Lennie. The other workers

go along with Carlson because they are old or afraid of losing their jobs.

Lennie’s mental retardation also symbolizes the helplessness of people in

a capitalistic, commercial, competitive society. In this way, Steinbeck

illustrates the confusion and hopelessness of the Depression era. The poor

were a class of people who suddenly had captured the imagination of

American writers in the 1930s. This was an example of the shift in

attitudes that occurred during the Depression. Previously, American

fiction had been concerned with the problems of middleclass people.

Steinbeck’s novel was a sympathetic portrayal of the lives of the poorest

class of working people, while exposing society's injustices and economic

inequalities in the hope of improving their situation.

Certainly Of Mice and Men contains unpleasant attitudes; there is

brutality, racism, sexism, economic exploitation. But the book does not

advocate them; rather it shows that these too-narrow conceptions of

human life are part of the cause of human tragedy. They are forces which

frustrate human aspiration. Lennie and George have a noble dream. They

are personally too limited to make it come true, but they do try. They try

to help each other, and they even enlarge their dream to include old one-

handed Candy and crippled black Crooks. Theirs is the American Dream:

that there is somehow, somewhere, sometime, the possibility that we can

make our Paradise on earth, that we can have our own self-sufficient little

92 place where we can live off the fat of the land as peaceful friends. What is

sad, what is tragic, what is horrible, is that the dream may not come true

because we are each and all of us-too limited, too selfish, too much in

conflict with one another. In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck has shown us

something about the pain of living in a complex human world and created

something beautiful from it. In true great literature the pain of life is

transmuted into the beauty of art.

His novel Tortilla Flat introduces a notion of “multi-culturalism”

or a commingling of races when he described the paisanos:

Who is a paisano? He is a mixture of Spanish, Indian, Mexican,

and assorted Caucasian bloods. His ancestors have lived in

California for a hundred or two years. He speaks English with

a paisano accent and Spanish with a paisano accent. When

questioned concerning his race, he indignantly claims pure Spanish

blood and rolls up his sleeve to show that the soft inside of his arm

is nearly white. His color, like that of of a well-browned

meerschaum pipe, he ascribes to sunburn. He is a paisano, and he

lives in that uphill district above the town of Monterey called

Tortilla Flat, although it isn’t a flat at all. (10)

In 1935, Steinbeck published Tortilla Flat, whereas his two first

novels simply include Mexican-American characters, Tortilla Flat is

articulated and built around this ethnic group. The novel has a humorous

93 tone; it tells the story of a group of paisanos who are very poor inhabitants

of an “underground” district of Monterey, ironically labeled as Tortilla

Flat. The paisano is a mixture of Hispanic cultures and origins. John

Steinbeck in his Tortilla Flat depicts and portrays with a sober irony and

a grain of humour the daily life of the “non-privileged” pole of the

American post-war society. Throughout the novel, this ethnic community

is presented as being isolated from society and as dissenters because they

did not validate the capitalist system. They are at odds within the wasp

ideology. In other words, they are economically “offside.”

The paisanos are clear of commercialism, free of the complicated

systems of American business, free of the complicated systems of

American business, and, having nothing that can be stolen,

exploited or mortgaged, that system has not attacked them very

rigorously. (25)

From this passage, one can affirm that any ‘materialist’ form is

perceived by the paisanos community as a threat or a dangerous disease.

These Hispanics that are portrayed by John Steinbeck are facing a society

that is materialistic, oppressive, and racist.

The novel is articulated around the ‘Arthurian’ brotherhood.

A leader is chosen by the people and dies during the dissolution of

brotherhood. John Steinbeck used the Arthurian brotherhood model to

demonstrate that “the problems of the 1930s in America could be solved,

94 although he knew that ultimately the brotherhood solution would not

work” (Marilyn 4). To make a new historical parallel, one can also

advance that the Arthurian idea was reaffirmed within John Steinbeck’s

novel. In Tales of King Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory portrays the ups and

downs of a “brotherhood of knights” who attempt to preserve and

safeguard peace during the early history of England. In Tortilla Flat,

Steinbeck presents the paisanos’s brotherhood trying to improve the basic

conditions of their lives in Monterey during the depression era. Like the

knights of the “Round Table”, Steinbeck has his own ‘knights’ drawn

from the under classes and unprivileged “pole” of the American nation to

look for an impossible grail.

A protesting voice in terms of religious conditions, coming out

from Steinbeck’s bottom of the heart reveals his everlasting apathy for his

fellow men confined not only to California but to the world wherein

uncertainty, threat, and deprivations precipitated the affairs of the people.

A point has been reached from where no further ray of hope was seen.

Steinbeck under this context gives expression to the prevailing doleful

conditions of the people through his character “How can you frighten

a man whose hunger is not only in his own crampled stomach but in his

wretched bellies of his children. You can’t scare him. He has known a fear

beyond every other” (GW 248).

95

The anger and the unrest of the labourers strike at the root of social

inequality brought about by the selfish ends of money lenders and the

rapid growth of industrialization at the expense of indigenous ways and

means. According to Travis Matteson “Though the language of labour

protest is almost universal, Steinbeck’s portrayal of festering anger is

unique” (16). The anger is toward the king heads, the white collars, the

stuffed shirts, the damning metonymic as expressed in “them Goddmn

okies got no sense and no feeling. They ain’t human” (GW 221). Further,

we come across exploding comments as follows: “a red is any son of

a bitch that want thirty cent an hour when we are paying twenty five”

(298).

The protesting voice has found an exemplary expression in the

novels particularly in The Grapes of wrath which has been praised as

a triumph of proletarian writing. John Timmerman observes this novel as

On one level it is the story of a family’s struggle for survival in the

promised level. On another level it is the story of a people’s

struggle, the migrants. On a third level it is the story of a nation,

America. On still another level through the allusions to the Christ,

Israelites and Exodus, becomes the story of mankind’s quest for

profound comprehension of his commitment to his fellow men and

to the earth he inhabits. His stories are historically rooted in life

itself – they are of people and places. (272)

96

Steinbeck was very much enamoured of what is termed as the

American myth - the myth of his continent as the New Eden and the

American as the new Adam (Owens 9). In his novel Cup of Gold the

golden cup stands as the symbol of purity, promise and innocence. But the

new world - America lose its innocence in the process of being

discovered. Greed for power and expansion of land, resulted in the

damnation of this Edenic bliss. In his other novel, The Pastures of

Heaven, the author dreams of yet another place devoid of flaws. But he

has to come to grips with the harsher realities among which such dreams

could not be realized. To put in the words of Owens “Fallen man brings

his own flaws into Eden” (50). In the East of Eden the novelist creates an

explicit American Adam in the character of Adam Trask. But he finds his

American myth of the Eden shattered, the dangers of the myth exposed.

He had to identify a new path toward a new consciousness of commitment

instead of displacement (55). East of Eden is the saga of two families

living in the Salinas valley in California and Connecticut in the late 1800

and early 1900s. The novel symbolizes the Biblical story of creation and

the subsequent human travails inflicted after the commission of original

sin. The novel is rife with metaphors and allegories related to the story of

Cain and Abel, and good versus evil as the characters struggle with the

human condition in an imperfect world.

97

Steinbeck utilizes the story of Adam and Eve and their sons, Cain

and Abel, extracted from the Book of Genesis in the Bible, to illustrate the

theme of good versus evil in life. In the Bible story, Adam and Eve are

created to live in paradise in the Garden of Eden but their sin casts them

out. Their sons, Cain and Abel, take different paths, and Cain ultimately

kills Abel and is banished to live in Nod, a land east of Eden. Steinbeck

believes that all men have both good and evil in them and, although most

do not commit the heinous crime of fratricide, all men live east of Eden,

where they must struggle with the human condition. The sweeping

California epic East of Eden is considered Steinbeck’s most ambitious

work and the masterpiece of his later artistic career. Indeed, although The

Grapes of Wrath is more famous and widely read, Steinbeck himself

regarded this novel as his greatest novel. This novel does delve into the

world of Steinbeck’s childhood, incorporating his memory of the Salinas

valley in the early years of the twentieth century, his memories of the war

era, and his memories of his relatives. The title East of Eden referring to

the fallen world. It is a long family novel, is set in rural California in the

years around the turn of the century. In the center of the saga, based party

on the story of Cain and Abel, is two families of settlers, the trasks and the

Hamiltons, whose history reflect the formation of the United States, when

the church and the whorehouse arrived in the Far west simultaneously.

98 East of Eden re-emphasizes that the pursuit of wealth does not lead to

fulfillment.

Writing from the perspective of the Christian tradition, Steinbeck

contends that every human individual since Adam and Eve and Cain and

Abel has struggled with the choice between good and evil. Thus Steinbeck

writes that each person when looking back on his or her life. “Will have

left only the hard, clean questions: was it good or was it evil? Have I done

well or ill?” (EE 164) The struggle is an individual one. Steinbeck implies

that no progress is made through the generations. Each person must

respect the ancient story and grapple with the same ancient problems.

John Steinbeck was always ahead of his time. He was encouraging

new forms of literature, such as the ‘play-novelette’, when most were

content to mimic Hemingway. The same is true of the artistic process by

which The Winter of Our Discontent was created, at an age when many

authors compile their memoirs, Steinbeck engaged in writing process that

personified the idea of “contemporariness.” Putting aside his work on the

Arthurian Cycle, Steinbeck began a novel exploring the same themes of

national and individual corruption. In order to tie ‘Winter’s’ theme of the

loss of moral integrity to its immediate context, John Steinbeck wrote the

novel and admits, something “I … (had) never done … before” (Steinbeck

and Wallsten ed. 633). It is an exploration of the condition of the

cotemporary Americans. Many Americans still remain oblivious.

99 Steinbeck most fully describes this condition in an intimate letter to the

head of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjold, in 1959:

I arrived at home for the culmination of the TV scandal. Except as

a sad and dusty episode, I am not deeply moved by the little

earnest, cheating people involved, except insofar as they are

symptoms of a general immorality which pervades every level of

our national life and perhaps the life of the whole world. It is very

hard to raise boys to love and respect virtue and learning when the

tools of success are chicanery, treachery, self-interest, laziness and

cynicism or when charity is deductible, the courts venal, the

highest public official placid, vain, slothful and illiterate. How can

I teach my boys the value and beauty of language and thus

communication when the President himself reads westerns

exclusively and cannot put together a simple English sentence?

(612)

Steinbeck stood up to his pronouncements. He as far as he could set

down his times in his novels; turned himself to be the watch-dog of the

American society at a specific period concerned with certain regions;

exposed the silliness, and injustices of the selfish people especially the

money lenders and the exploiters as we come across in the novel The

Grapes of Wrath. He did articulate either positively or negatively all that

came under his conscience. He played manifold roles-as a social protest

100 writer, a naturalist, realist, journalist, essayist, short story writer,

dramatist, film script writer etc., The prominent themes of his novels are

found to be the impact of environment on man, strength of the family, and

social protests. His mission had been to declare and celebrate man’s

proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit, for gallantry in defeat,

for courage, compassion and love. Steinbeck once stated in unequivocal

terms in the Anthology of American Literature, that “writer’s first duty

was to set down his time as nearly as he can understand it, and serve as

the watch-dog of the society, to satirize its silliness, to attack its injustices

and to stigmatize its faults” (qtd. in Lisca 217).

The sinister effects of industrialization and the consequent

treatment meted out to the migrants of Californian central valley has been

uniquely brought out in the novels of Steinbeck. He had always cared for

the have-nots and the persecuted. In Steinbeck’s ideology, the individual

was noble. But it was the collective activity of an impersonal economic

group that caused the oppression. Jim Casy, a Christ figure and a former

preacher voiced out Steinbeck’s conception that religion was neither

a solace nor an answer for the sufferings of the people. These kinds of

loud thinking are omnipresent in Steinbeck’s novels.

Reality defeats the dream. Steinbeck translates myth and legend

into twentieth century realism, showing what paradise, curses, oracles,

ghosts, knights, Robin Hoods and gnomes amount to in everyday terms. In

101 his novel Cup of Gold myth is used ironically. But in The Pastures of

Heaven it is set not only in contrast to reality, but also serves to sublimate

the reality, making us aware that ordinary people are interesting”

(Fontenrose 29). Steinbeck was not satisfied with radical ideas alone. He

lays stress on the necessity of humanity for adapting itself to the changing

conditions and also puts under interrogation the semantics of ownership.

The relationship of the land to the tillers is vital to him as found an

exuberant expression in

but it’s our land. We measured it and look it up. We were born on

it, and we got killed on it. Died on it. Even if it’s no good it still

owes. That’s what makes it owes – being born on it, working it,

dying on it. That makes ownership, not a paper with numbers on

it.! (GW 35)

It is but natural to surmise that the Jeffersonian agrarianism had

done a lot in shaping Steinbeck’s ideology as well as some of other

writers in the twentieth century American writing. Protest novels exhibit

their protesting demeanour not only in content but also in the form.

John Steinbeck was a success as a social reformer. He saw

conditions which he deplored; he, almost alone, spoke out against them in

a fictional protest; he aroused world-wide attention to the problem; and

his writings resulted in the adoption of reform measures. While there are

other writers of social protest in the United States, John Steinbeck is the

present leader in that field, and he will not be surpassed easily.

CHAPTER III

ECO-SOCIAL CONTEXTS AND CONSTRUCTS

I was filled with certain angers … at people who were doing

injustices to other people. John Steinbeck

Depicting human situation imbibed with social problems has been

the quest of Steinbeck who in his writings has indicated concern and

compassion. He has brought before the public conscience the intolerable

injustice; social blindness or brutalizing conditions as he had an innate

feeling regarding the social responsibility of the writer, sense of

brotherhood and integrity of the self. Being a versatile writer Steinbeck

was also a realistic journalist, naturalist and playwright. He used many of

his personal experiences as materials for his novels. According to Paul

P. Reuben,

… he studied firsthand the struggles of the migrant workers; he

celebrates their labour in ritualistic terms and shows the

downtrodden overcoming their adversities through courage and

dignity and compassion for fellow sufferers. (1-2)

John Steinbeck will be evaluated as a social reformer in the field of

labour relations on concerning the migrant agricultural workers in the

State of California. A biographical sketch of John Steinbeck will be

presented to demonstrate his knowledge of this subject, A history of

103 migrant labour in California will be followed by a description of the actual

conditions which John Steinbeck deplored. These must be known if the

veracity of his writings is to be accepted. In order to evaluate John

Steinbeck as a writer of protest, his motives will be considered and his

novels will be studied in detail. Because most of the attacks on these

books have been based on the accuracy of Steinbeck's descriptions of

events, the events described will be related to actual incidents which

occurred in California.

Steinbeck’s humanism is an important factor which conditioned his

image of man. It is the king pin of his artistic vision. His humanism

manifests itself as an undiscriminating love for man and all for his work.

This love also makes itself explicit negatively as protest, moral

indignation and a tragic sense of failure, beside in its constant and even

present form of compassion. Born out of this instinctive love in his and

a fond faith in a millennium while contemporary literature wallowed in

despondency and scepticism Steinbeck maintained a sturdy faith in

abiding human values. Steinbeck’s humanism made him a bitter critic of

the establishment and this made many mistake him for a communist. The

only intelligent interpretation is that he was more far sighted than many.

He observed the simmering discontent of the day and saw it in the

symptoms of a more serious melody, which has blighted the life pattern of

present day America. As James Gray notes:

104

Steinbeck accepted as early as the 1930’s the obligation to take

a stand in his writings against tendencies in the American way of

life to which the campus repels of the present have been making

vigorous objection. (6)

He pictures with genuine love of the daily life and habits of the

American people. A period in American history from the westward

migrations for the latter half of the nineteenth century to the Dustbowl

tragedy of the Twentieth is what he delineates through his novels. This

was the most formative period in the history of the nation. By recreating

fictionally that crucial epoch, Steinbeck succeeded in isolating major

trends and tendencies. He was seriously disturbed by the injustice and

false morality of commercial civilization. Some of the problems are

identified by him are still relevant, that explains his growing popularity

with the youth of today.

A perusal of the select novels of Steinbeck would reveal a number

of causative factors responsible for shaping his sensibility and the creative

faculty in addition to his expressive patterns and the poignant portrayals

especially those concerned with the themes of social protest. Such

causative factors may be identified as belonging to social, political,

economic, cultural, and psychological domains. The classification though

intermingling in nature, would serve its own purpose in the sense that it

105 enables one to arrive at a clear understanding regarding the workings of

Steinbeck’s creative mind.

Steinbeck loved the people inhabiting the American region as much

as he was fascinated by it. Like Wordsworth he loved nature and man, or

to be precise, man in nature. To such a love is incidental the love right

causes especially those concerning the expropriated and indigent sections.

Such a love and solicitude for a common man is what informs his most

characteristics works. This makes him valid even today. His sympathy for

the underdog and his sense of justice and fair play were probably imbibed

from his home environment. His father was a treasurer of Monterey

country and was fairly a well to do person. At home young Steinbeck

enjoyed all the advantages of an enlightened and cultured domestic

background. His mother, prior to her marriage, was a school teacher. This

probably gave him the right kind of introduction to books. Instead, he

seems to have read widely; much of his knowledge was gathered that way.

During his schooldays, Steinbeck used to work in the forms of

neighborhood. This threw him in to the lap of the lush, green valleys and

brown grassed hills of central California. Salinas, his birthplace, had

a mixed and colourful population-a cross section of the American nation.

Among them he choose his friends, who later became his unforgettable

characters in fiction.

106

The social factors that constitute Steinbeck’s novels include:

(i) The call of time which was instrumental for the emergence of

a particular type of novel namely the social protest novel. (ii) The poise

and purpose of the writers in the immediate past. (iii) Group

consciousness. (iv) Naturalistic propensity. (v) Humanistic considerations

in terms of universal brotherhood.

The Grapes of Wrath is a novel of the migrant farmers who were

forced to leave their homes during the mammoth natural calamity called

the Dust Bowl in mid-west states in America during 1930s, to seek a better

fortune in California. The migration of the Joad’s family unfolds both the

personal and universal traits of triumphs and failures as the family endures

the ravages of the Great Depression. As Louis Owens pointed out, The

Grapes of Wrath is one of the great novels. It is mature, extra ordinarily

ambitious and a balanced statement of the major themes that dominated

Steinbeck’s life’s work” (20-21), It is said that while the novel deals with

timeless themes, the experiences of the Joad family and other ‘Okies’

illustrate these themes concretely. Seen from the backdrop of the

complicated social forces at work during the Great Depression Steinbeck

filled the reader’s minds with the bitter taste of the sweep of economic

devastation during a particular period. But the theme is both macrocosmic

and micro-cosmic, Alfred Kazin, “Steinbeck’s critic held ‘In Dubious

Battle’ and the ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ as Stein’s most powerful books”

107 (87). Steinbeck’s journey from Oklahoma with the migrants resulted in

great desperation. His letters to Elizabeth Ottis in February and March of

1938, reveal his growing awareness of the plight of the dispossessed.

Four thousand families drown out of their tents are really starving

to death ... The death of the children by starvation in our valley is

simply staggering ... If I can sell the articles, I’ll use the proceeds

for serum and such ... The floods have aggravated the starvation

and sickness. I went down for Life ... The paid my expenses and

will put up money for the help of some of these people ... The

suffering too great for me to cash in it ... It is the most heart

breaking thing in the world. (Steinbeck and Wallsten ed. 159)

This explains the origin of The Grapes of Wrath and perhaps this is

one of those rare books of which have created great national controversy.

Steinbeck’s characters were not figments of his imagination but

living, breathing, suffering Americans. The British photographer for Life

magazine vouchsafed the above fact in connection with the photographs

taken from the field. When charged with profanity by some heartless

critics, Steinbeck openly refuted saying that he did not write for satisfying

the prejudices of people and hence he could not approve of their whims

and fancies. This reveals that he was guided by firm convictions and not

by flimsy ideas. Susan Shillinglaw, a Steinbeck’s scholar has remarked

that, “like many 1930s intellectuals, Steinbeck sympathized with

108 community’s concern for the working class though he himself was never a

community” (Ethnicity 87). His novel The Grapes of Wrath is an authentic

document in the genre of felt anger of the people of Oklahoma and

California evidently identified as the key factors for social protest. He to

Elizabeth Otis that “I want to tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are

responsible for this” (Steinbeck and Wallsten ed.162).

It is beyond any skeptic expression that political factors play

a pivotal role in determining the destiny of the people in a nation. In the

Twentieth century America, particularly the period between 1920-40

witnessed colossal natural calamities besetting California valley far

beyond any geo-physical speculations. Added to this were the avaricious

human exploiters who began to fleece the unfortunate migrants to the

core. The policy of industrialization followed by the American

Government, proved more disastrous to the already affected populace

namely the Okies. Machines rendered the agricultural mass landless,

homeless and helpless. Vested interests under the guise of bankers and

bureaucrats did their best to drive away the poor people towards further

predicament. The disastrous state of affairs went hand in hand. Though

the dictates of nature was beyond human prediction, an anti-human drama

was staged under the names of Dust Bowl and Depression the result of

which was the overwhelming pathetic conditions to which the migrant

labourers were subjected. The health and wealth of the Oklahomans were

109 looted and their trials and tribulations intensified. All these kindled the

fire of protest lying dormant in the minds of the poor people. When the

stock of patience and forbearance was exhausted, the migrants had no

option other than indulging in protest against their exploiters and the

perpetrators of evil designs. This sort of protest attitudes culminated in the

form unionization.

The economic aspects of the protesting temperament involve the

concept of “Class Struggle” and its varied propagations along with the

Marxian ideologies.

The novel The Grapes of Wrath demonstrates how labour

organizations or unions take their genesis from the desperation and

degradation of the labouring class, and how Capitalism in its quest

for the profit that keeps the machinery going, will oppress and even

destroy the labourers. (Owens 9)

It is said that the above novel serves as a powerful reminder of the

struggle to organize the working class during the twenties and thirties of

the bygone century.

Steinbeck has clearly broughtout the psychological aspects of the

workers due to industrialization. Industrialization has brought out sinister

effects. The workers were alienated from the workplace produce, and their

age old wanted, and they struggled to find out new identities in the form

of new land and amicable living conditions. The labourers were deprived

110 of getting even the fundamental necessities of life. The Oklahomans came

to realize that their Paradise was Lost altogether. Instead they have landed

on the veritable hell without possible redemption. But they have had the

firm belief that it was the spirit of oneness, tolerance, co-operation,

sacrifice and better understanding of one another that alone would deter

them from further deterioration. The essence of “we” became their key to

unlock the glory and might of the common people.

John Steinbeck was not, primarily, a labourer. The young

Steinbeck did not experience poverty until he set out to earn his living as

a writer. In 1919, he entered Stanford University, where he took courses

in English and history. Although he attended intermittently for five years,

he did not graduate, probably because he insisted on choosing his own

courses. During those periods when he was not in attendance at Stanford,

Steinbeck worked on ranches, and on a road gang. Here, again, he gained

an intimate knowledge of the attitudes, habits, and speech of the

workingman. In the mid-twenties he went to New York, where he had

a short career as a writer for the New York Journal. He also spent some

time as a free-lance writer before returning to California to write his first

book. In an autobiographical glimpse of Steinbeck’s youth, There's

Always Something To Do In Salinas, may be found some of the material

which later found its way into The Grapes of Wrath.

111

The publication of The Grapes of Wrath resulted in self-righteous

objections, not only in California, but in Oklahoma, as well. Much of the

so-called criticism of this novel in Oklahoma has been no more than

efforts to prove or disprove the accuracy of Steinbeck's story. There is

little question that Steinbeck had experienced the conditions of which he

wrote. While driving home from the East, he joined a band of migrant

workers in Oklahoma. He lived with them in their makeshift camps, and

worked beside them when they got to California. During this period, while

writing The Grapes of Wrath, he lived in one of the federal migrant camps

in central California, and performed farm labour with the migrants. He

avoided neither troubles nor hardships to gain first-hand knowledge of the

conditions about which he was writing.

John Steinbeck was born and raised in the agricultural area of

California in which his novels are set. He had observed the evolution on

the land, from grazing to vegetable farming, and with it, the growing

demand for large numbers of transient workers on the great farms. He had

worked beside farm labourers, and had seen their attempts to organize,

and the resultant punitory action. Significantly, because of his family's

social position in Salinas, he had been exposed, as well, to the viewpoints

of the employers and the townspeople. Surely, John Steinbeck knows

where of he writes; he writes from experience. He was familiar with the

conditions of which he wrote, but a broader knowledge of these conditions

112 is essential. To evaluate Steinbeck as a social writer, it is necessary to

know and understand the conditions which existed during his period.

There are three unique characteristics have been observed in the history of

agriculture in California. The first is the phenomenon of the tenure of

great tracts of land by a few wealthy owners, which has been inherent in

California agriculture since the Spanish occupation. The second

characteristic is the great variety of crops. Due to a combination of

different soils and a two-season year, over one hundred and eighty

specialty crops are grown; crops are maturing in one place or another

throughout the year. The combination of these characteristics, i.e., large-

scale farming with crops maturing at different times, produced the third

characteristic. This is the requirement for a large floating labour force

which will move from crop to crop, and then when no longer needed,

disappear until the next harvest. There had been little change in these

characteristics since their inception, and this fact resulted in the shocking

circumstances of farm labour in California in the 1930’s.

After World War I, economic and ecological forces brought many

rural poor and migrant agricultural workers from the Great Plains states,

such as Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas, to California. Following World

War I, a recession led to a drop in the market price of farm crops, which

meant that farmers were forced to produce more goods in order to earn the

same amount of money. To meet this demand for increased productivity,

113 many farmers bought more land and invested in expensive agricultural

equipment, which plunged them into debt. The stock market crash of 1929

only made matters worse. Banks were forced to foreclose on mortgages

and collect debts. Unable to pay their creditors, many farmers lost their

property and were forced to find other work. But doing so proved very

difficult, since the nation’s unemployment rate had skyrocketed, peaking

at nearly twenty-five per cent in 1933.

Steinbeck’s novels dealt intimately with the plight of desperately

poor California wanderers, who, despite the cruelty of their circumstances,

often triumph spiritually. Always politically involved, Steinbeck followed

Tortilla Flat with three novels about the plight of the California labouring

class, beginning with In Dubious Battle in 1936. Of Mice and Men

followed in 1937, and The Grapes of Wrath won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize

and became Steinbeck’s most famous novel. Steinbeck sets Of Mice and

Men against the backdrop of Depression-era America. The economic

conditions of the time victimized workers like George and Lennie, whose

quest for land was thwarted by cruel and powerful forces beyond their

control, but whose tragedy was marked, ultimately, by steadfast

compassion and love. Just as George and Lennie dream of a better life on

their own farm, the Great Plains farmers dreamed of finding a better life in

California.

114

Certain cultural factors also seem to be working at the background

of social novels selected for the present purpose which determine the very

course of actions concerned with the characters. Evidently in The Grapes

of Wrath, the breast feeding act of Rose of Sharon at the end of the novel

incurred the worldwide bitter criticism staking the claims of culture. But

the course of events in the novel justifies such transgressions and one is

convinced of Steinbeck’s honest intention in this cultural contravention.

Steinbeck once remarked that his primary aim of writing novels was to

help people understand one another. Regarding the selection of the central

themes of his novels Joseph Fontenrose says:

his most persistent theme has been the superiority of simple human

virtues and pleasures to the accumulation of riches and property; of

kindness and justice to meanness; greed of life ascertaining action

to life denying. (141)

A renewed awareness about class consciousness was prominently

seen among the Americans during the beginning of the twentieth century

and the intellectuals had imbibed significant interest in Marxism or

Communism leading towards the upliftment of the oppressed workers.

The staunch belief of the intellectuals in Marxism as the means of getting

rid of the social and economic ills prevailed in America. The Dust Bowl

otherwise called the ecological terror that blew across fifty million acres

of the Midwest and Southwest which sent around four lakh of Americans

115 in search of new lives in California, left an indelible mark on the

impressionistic sensibility of Steinbeck leading to arduous and authentic

creative endeavours. Further, his naturalistic warp of mind and its

sympathetic realization of humanity at large had its own impact on his

writings.

A writer is the product of his age. Resultantly he holds a faithful

mirror up to his time and the society in which he lived. He gives

expression to the social milieu, the ups and downs of the folks, the general

conditions of the people, their dreams, desires, depressions, triumphs,

aspirations and other related aspects through the vehicle of writing, be it

prose, poetry, drama, fiction, short story, travelogue, or other forms of

literature. We have a number of poets and writers who represented their

age and the society in their powerful creations. For an instance, Geoffrey

Chaucer, eulogized as the “Well of English undefiled”, portrayed the

fourteenth century England in no less effective manner in his Canterbury

Tales. Shakespeare did wield his magical wand namely the drama in order

to get into the full fathom of the ins and outs of humanity through his

powerful portrayal of the Elizabethan age. A host of writers in the

succeeding times carried out the literary tasks in their own levels and

manners through their self-chosen literary forms. French, American,

Russian, writers have gained universal currency, and popularity in the

sphere of literature in a prominent level by virtue of their comprehensive

116 and deeper understanding of the human society at large seen through their

native genius. Whatever it be, the underlying note of literary works proves

to be nothing but the humanitarian concerns. The American literary

spectacle has already in its ambit eminent names such as Robert Waldo

Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, Ernest

Hemingway, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, William

Faulkner, E.E. Cummings, O’Neill, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams

and so on. John Steinbeck has risen to the firmament of Modern American

Literature by means of his innate interest, involvement, serious thoughts

about the suffering masses, poor condition of labour, commitment to the

prevalent social issues, unparalleled imaginative faculty, sympathetic

understanding of men and matters, brilliant acquirement of verbal

command and above all his all-encompassing awareness as to the

environment and its linkage with human beings both in its good and bad

aspects.

A compassionate human being will not fail to take part in the

distress of the fellow beings. Possessed with a remarkable group

consciousness, Steinbeck had identified himself with the toiling masses.

This element found its brilliant verbal expressions even when he was

dealing with persons who were well off in life. Evidently, Danny the

protagonist of Tortilla Flat is depicted by the author in a different manner.

117 Though a landlord, Danny always takes sides with the miserly. In the

words of John H. Timmerman,

When acting as a group, men do not partake of their ordinary

natures at all. Some unique force empowers group so that it

becomes a new living organism which subsumes its individual

parts. (24)

This group consciousness with which Steinbeck was obsessed,

right from the inception of his career gets revealed in all his novels.

Steinbeck cared about language and he cared about people; he did not

want to be popular or famous; he just wanted to write books. He wrote

largely out of his own experiences and unlike many of his contemporaries

wrote very little about himself. He avoided answering mostly questions

about his personal matters. On many occasions he was accused of being

a communist, a fascist, a puritan and one of the most immoral men that

ever published a book in America. Jackson J. Benson points out that

Steinbeck was none of those things. In fact he loved writing and lived for

writing. He was a lover of life and environment. He wrote about what

interested his nature, both human nature and natures’ nature. He felt

a kind of “boisterous joy” in the objects of nature. What bothered

Steinbeck most about was that, out of society, aplenty-so visible in

California-large numbers of people could still go hungry (184). At

a relatively early age he had broken out of the mould of middle class

118 sensuality, lived among those who actually did lack food and the means

to, and had developed a strong sense of social justice. He gave outlet to

his indignation so forcefully in The Grapes of Wrath two decades later.

Louis Owens observes

The Dust Bowl and the ensuring flood of displaced Okies, the

national economic depression of the thirties, and the growing plight

of the oppressed worker, all converged in the thirties to powerfully

affect the direction of Steinbeck’s thought and art. (5)

Once in retortion to the preaching of a priest in a church Steinbeck

exploded saying “Yes you all live satisfied, while outside, the world begs

for a crunch of bread or a chance to earn it. Feed the body and the soul

will take care of itself” (Lisca 23). This outburst is a clear-cut indication

of his realistic and practical thinking, his naturalistic approach and

appropriate action warranted by the society and time more than sermons.

A distinctive feature of Steinbeck’s novels is that he has taken upon

himself the task of glorifying man and “nature.” He believes that man is

the unit of society. Nature becomes a character with all its exuberance and

extinction aspects. His reputed novel Tortilla Flat (1935) is an example

for his interest in glorification of man and nature that brought him

permanent glory. Being the author of California experiences he has

exalted the eye catching landscapes of California, wildlife of Monterey-

his own home town, and Carmal by his life like portrayals. He glorifies

119 the Paisanos - people hailing from the town of Tortilla flat above the

Monterey, a village noted for its scenic beauty. His description of nature

in its grim aspects is without any prejudicial interception and

interpretation but out of his genuine desire for a graphic and honest

description with the aim of achieving accuracy and reliability in

communicative enterprises.

Steinbeck has given expression of Emersonian concept that

“everybody is a part of one big soul” which seems to be the steering force

of in his writings. The quality of owning, freezes one for ever into ‘I’ and

cuts him off forever from the ‘We.’ In fact the sense of belonging namely

‘I’, ‘me’, and ‘mine’ are the root causes for all the evils which plagued

human society in general and Steinbeck was prompted by the thoughts of

generosity, sacrifice and mutual help which have found forceful

expressions in the family Odyssey of the Joads in the novel The Grapes of

Wrath. The sense that we succumb ourselves to something greater is one

of the fundamental elements of humanism. Steinbeck’s characters

generally subscribe to the idea that ‘we’ is superior to’ ‘I.’ This realization

is the stepping stone towards getting access to further developments of

man as an invaluable entity in the world.

It may be put forth that the voices of protest loitering in the novels

of Steinbeck are the outcome of his attitudes replete with humanistic

dimensions. He had always a soft corner in his mind for the people

120 afflicted with poverty and undergoing all sorts of tribulations in life. As

Ma Joad expressed it: “If you’re in trouble or hurt or need-go to poor

people. They’re the only ones tha’'ll help -the only ones.?” (GW 513-514)

John Steinbeck's sympathies were with a traditionally exploited

group - the migrant agricultural workers. The humanism exercised by him

is not the one which is associated with “Maudlin tears”, but that which is

nurtured by his genuine understanding of the plight of those destined to

devastating conditions. A perusal of his outlook on humanism will reveal

its multifarious aspects. A glance at the verbal structure and the semantic

texture of Steinbeck will not miss revealing the fact that his heart was

brimming with the “milk of human kindness.” The outcome of this, finds

its echo in his delineations of characters in The Grapes of Wrath.

The moving, questing people were migrants now. Those families

who had lived on a little piece of land, who had lived and died on

forty acres, had eaten or starved on the products of forty acres, had

now the whole west to rove in… (90)

Louis Owens refers to Steinbeck’s literary technique in narration of

the pathetic migrants. According to him, his voice is “deeply accusatory

and often morally outraged” (91). The battle mentioned is this novel is the

class struggles for equality and the struggle of the working men, in

particular the migrant workers to survive with health and dignity.

121

In the big picture chapter of The Grapes of Wrath, the author

portrays the pitiable predicament of the itinerant labourers, ill-treated and

dehumanized.

In 1933 the gigantic dust cloud rose over an area of the United

States, stretching from Texas to South Dakota and rendered around

four hundred thousand Americans, homeless, jobless and almost

rootless. (Owens 1)

The aftermath started in their surging towards California in search of new

lives. The dust cloud brought out untold sufferings to the people in the

dimensional forms such as drought; top soil lifting; failure of crops; small

farmers losing their lands to bank men; replacement of horse drawn plods

by tractors owned by economically well off; eviction of marginal farmers

from their lands; exodus causing a heavy burden on the already existing

population growth in California; the feelings of prejudice and its resulting

ill treatment of the fellow beings though divided by the thin layer of

regional demarcations far beyond human considerations; growing violence

in Steinbeck’s own hometown; labourers being put into insurmountable

starvation and disease besides getting paltry sums as wage etc.,

The torrential rainstorm, the factor for suffering and starvation

concerned with the migrant people has left them without employment and

without food. They were forced to steal, which was to meet the repressive

measures by the law enforcing authorities. Though the comfortable people

122 were compassionate at first, they ultimately developed hatred towards the

migrants a natural psychological phenomenon for which they alone

were not responsible. Women expected break in the men. But as Steinbeck

put forth, break would never come as long as fear could turn to wrath.

And obviously wrath is the bedrock on which protest either personal or

social, gets strong footage.

Rose of Sharon like her mother, brother, and Jim Casy the martyr

believes that not an individual but humanity as a whole is the Centre of

life. This realization proves to be ultimately the result of repeated bitter

and painful experiences. And social protest which beset the multitudes in

the said region reveals itself in the form of the bursting out of repressed

feelings concerned with the individuals which affected the mob. The urge,

to do away with this sort of, prevailing injustice is a natural development

of it.

Steinbeck’s sympathy was with the working class during the

depression. He developed hatred towards the middle class materialism

which resulted in his resentment of corporate agriculture in California. He

wrote while preparing for writing of the novel The Grapes of Wrath as

“I want to put a Tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible

for the Great Depression and its ill-fated consequences.” (Steinbeck and

Wallsten ed. 162)

123

He did not mislead his statement. He gave prompt expressions in

his works according to the dictates of his inner voice, as he wanted to

write history while it was happening. Louis Owens, remarks that “the

1930’s proved to be the era of proletarian novel in America” (7). The

writings had to express the oppression of the down trodden masses. Many

writers influenced by communist ideologies took upon themselves the

cause of the oppressed. Henry Roth, John Dos Passos, Tillie Olson, Daniel

Fuchs, James Agee, Edmund Wilson, Robert Cantwell are some among

them. The writings of pronounced Americans like Stephen Crane, Upton

Sinclair, and Frank Norris also were conducive towards highlighting the

altogether sad affairs of the people in urban slums, patching houses and

wheat fields. But they did not rise to the heights of John Steinbeck.

Being a place of extremes with diverse geographical attributes

ethnic variations, and abundant affluence rife with challenges, California

was construed to be both a land of promise and destitution. At the same

time it has been a contested place wherein the sugar of one group was the

poison of another. The populace constituted native Indians, Spanish Land

owners, and Anglo Squatters. Railroads, corporations, large scale ranches

and migrant labourers which formed the major features of the region. It is

described as the golden state, a bit unreal, replete with promises of

congenial weather, graceful living, and enormous wealth. Paradoxically

California had not extended its munificent hands to many people hoping

124 to reap its resources. The historical perspectives of the region have

presented very often the traits of exclusion by people displaced from their

homes or determined from possessing land of their own. In spite of the

fabulous wealth, vastness and fertility the settlers both the old and new

had to depend upon the impoverishment of another. Steinbeck’s

understanding of the conditions of the migrants has been a penetrating one

and it has suitably found its narrative fervour in the words such as:

The ragged man had children that died because wages were too low

and work was too scarce to afford food for his children and wife.

His story was one of Pain and Despair and was evidence of the

cruel and inhuman treatment. (GW 204)

One is prone to find the genesis for the seeds of social protest

strewn indirectly in such concrete statements given at the select novels of

the present author, in tune with the course of actions.

Karl Marx pointed out that the era of industrialization resulted in

the creation of class conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

The former having the means of control of production at their hands while

the latter being subjected to their exploitation (311). The class conflict in

The Grapes of Wrath is presented in the form of the divisions namely the

employing land owners and the exploited farm workers. The exploited

farm workers obviously getting hard work but low wages. Owning the

Farm lands namely the means of production is one of the key factors

125 concerned with the characters in this novel. Class plays an inevitable role

to decide the destiny of the People. The rich controls the means of

production and the poor fall prey to their ruthless exploitation. Class

struggle therefore finds a substantial place in world literature as it was the

call of the erstwhile ages. The world of capitalism gives value to

possessions and not to human values. Human beings are therefore treated

as commodity as and not more than that. The contention between the

haves and the have-nots has therefore found its rationale accordingly in

Steinbeck’s fiction. The struggle between simple and poor indigenous

people against the capitalist invaders had to meet with all sorts of

intimidations. The novel entitled The Pearl is deemed to be the account of

this class conflict. The characters namely Kino his wife, Juana the

fisherman, their son Coyotito leading a simple life in Lapis. But they

come to get possession of a precious Pearl. The wild device employed by

the upper class persons to rob Kino of his pearl and the ensuing loss of

Kino’s only son drives them to the extent of deserting the pearl into the

sea to get rid of its evil impact.

As has been already pointed out, the intensification of the general

dissatisfaction among the people by the labour activists won passive and

negative results. At the outset it served as a kind of emotional hold on the

already harassed and deprived migrants. Steinbeck herein seems to have

immersed into the human side of communism as the focus was on the

126 labourers, exploited men and women. He had already developed a soft

corner in his mind towards communism based on his staunch faith that it

would redeem the masses from the clutches of the Bourgeoisie. The

Americans’ growing interest in communism as alternative to capitalism

might have left its influence upon his mind. For, Steinbeck believed that

Man in a group is not himself at all. He is a cell in an organism that is not

like him any more than the cells in one’s body are like himself. His

optimism was that if men worked together they could start a strike which

would bring a change for the best. “From the east coast, to the west coast,

came the migrant Workers, communists, and the unionizers. Eastwest: the

path of Protest!” (Matteson 76). The protest has had multifarious

manifestations depending upon the pivotal interests such as: human

strength, single mindedness, prolongation, forbearance on the part of the

people, and selfishness of a particular section of the society and so on. The

Grapes of Wrath is cited as the most successful protest novel of both

centuries. Part of its impact stemmed from its passionate depiction of the

sad state of affairs of the poor people under exodus. Steinbeck was

attacked as a propagandist and a socialist from both the left and the right

of the political spectrum. The most fervent of these attacks came from the

Associated Farmers of California. They were displeased with the book’s

depiction of California’s farmer’s attitudes and conduct towards the

127 migrants. They even denounced the book as a pack of lies and labeled it as

a communist propaganda.

Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is set in the small town of Soledad in

California, in the 1930’s throughout the Great Depression. As a result of

climatic changes in the West of America the drought lead to large fields of

fertile land being destroyed. Consequently the settlers who had founded

the farms were forced from their land by the “great American dust bowl.”

In 1929, the country’s economy collapsed, unemployment figures

rocketed and poverty increased throughout America. For farmers and farm

workers of the time the circumstances were devastating. While the current

President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal economics relieved the

difficulties greatly, the damage was far from being repaired entirely.

These were hard times for the people of America and the landowners

exploited itinerant workers, they had to work in atrocious circumstances

and were employed on minimal rates of pay. They led isolated lives and

had to strive to save enough from seasonal work to sustain them for the

rest of the year. The fundamental nature of Of Mice and Men originates

from Steinbeck’s personal life and previous experiences. In the following

years Steinbeck subsequently had a number of jobs and gained some

local success as a writer, yet it was evidently his experience as

a peripatetic ranch-hand from which he acquired the inspiration and

128 understanding he required to compose his grittily realistic and

internationally acclaimed novel Of Mice and Men.

In Dubious Battle, which Steinbeck wrote in 1934, shows his

theory in fictional form. The writer had originally intended to write a first

person narrative from the point of view of a communist labour organizer.

The idea sprung from his meetings with two union leaders who were

hiding in the Monterey area after helping with a strike in California's San

Joaquin Valley, as told by Jackson Benson in Steinbeck’s biography. The

material, which involved conflicts between groups of men - the apple

pickers, the farmers, and the union leaders - was perfect for an application

of his phalanx theory. True to fictional form, however, the geography,

facts and characters in In Dubious Battle are, in the writer's own words,

“a composite” of the different strikes and union officials he had witnessed

and met in the California in the first half of the thirties.

In Dubious Battle was called a strike novel and a proletarian

treatise, but Steinbeck’s purpose in this book was more scientific than

moral and more psychological than sociological. The book marks an

important development in his consciousness because it is a non

teleological work and an objective psychological portrait of the workers.

The novel In Dubious Battle, was the product of the working conditions

prevailing in the wide valley of California and beyond its bourns. By

keeping himself aloof, the author is presenting the whole story, the

129 panoramic characterization dialogues, thematic overtones and etc.,

narrated in third person omniscient way so that the readers could have

a comprehensive understanding of the fears and hopes, ups and downs of

the characters concerned. Steinbeck's workingmen are not silent. It is,

apparent, therefore, that John Steinbeck is familiar with agricultural

workers and the conditions under which they laboured. He is familiar,

also, with the attempts of these workers to organize. In Dubious Battle is

not just a story of workers its heroes are Communist organizers. One of

the objections made to this story is that Steinbeck diverged from the ‘party

line.’ His answer is, “My information came from Irish and Italian

Communists whose training was in the field, not in the drawing room”

(qtd. in Lewis 58).

The Torgas Valley Strike depicted in In Dubious Battle is

a composite of earlier events that have been heavily fictionalized by

Steinbeck. Steinbeck uses the strike to critique the communist labour

organizers, and provides no conclusion to the labour struggle. Looking at

the treatment of Steinbeck’s strike leaders Mac and Jim in comparison to

those involved in these similar strikes, illustrates Steinbeck’s reluctance to

accept the totality of communist politics. Radical forms particularly that

of the strike novel, are primarily supposed to convey a concern for the

struggle of the workingman, which Steinbeck does in his compassionate

portrayal of the struggling labourers. However, In Dubious Battle is

130 continually attacked from both sides because it portrays the need for

a change in the American capitalist system, but simultaneously attacks

those most prominently seeking that change. On January 15, 1935,

Steinbeck wrote a letter to George Albee about his decision to write

In Dubious Battle. He writes,

I had an idea that I was going to write the autobiography of

a Communist but instead, I have used a small strike in an orchard

valley as the symbol of man’s eternal, bitter warfare with himself”,

and now, “I’m not interested in strike as a means of raising men’s

wages, and I’m not interested in ranting about justice and

oppression, mere outcroppings which indicate the condition. But

man hates something in himself. He has been able to defeat every

natural obstacle but himself he cannot win over unless he kills

every individual. And this self-hate which goes so closely in hatred

with self-love is what I wrote about. The book (DB) is brutal.

I wanted to be merely a recording consciousness, judging nothing,

simply putting down the thing. I think it has the thrust, almost

crazy, that mobs have. (Steinbeck and Wallsten ed. 98)

However, the symbol of the strike may have borne too much of its

own inherent significance to allow Steinbeck the ability to clearly convey

his commentary on the phalanx as well. The mouthpieces of constructs by

Steinbeck do not always take the form of just one character, but in the

131 case of In Dubious Battle, there is Dr. Burton. In his autobiography of

Steinbeck, Jackson J. Bensons says,

In this novel Rickett’s influence would seem to have an overt

expression in a character, Doc Burton, who is modeled after

Ricketts and who in speech and behaviour reflects Rickett’s

philosophy. (244)

While the character is based on Ricketts, he also serves as

a mouthpiece for Steinbeck’s own views as can be seen in the similarities

between Dr. Burton's dialogue with Mac and Jim and Steinbeck’s own

commentary found in his letters. They are both intrigued by group-man

and demonstrate a subtle lamentation of how the phalanx is being abused.

Dr. Burton represents an outside perspective to the group-man forces at

play in the novel. John H. Timmerman proposes that, “within each of

these novels, however, and in all the later works, Steinbeck offers an

alternative to the Group Man: the compassionate and creative individual”

(25).

Dr. Burton fills this role, and by setting Dr. Burton apart as an

individual, Steinbeck is able to ascribe his own views into the argument

more directly. Steinbeck’s research into labour organizations had led him

to receive numerous accounts of the actions of Pat Chambers, who was

one of the most prominent strike leaders and labour organizers of the

1930’s. Mac and Jim are supposed to be roughly based on these accounts,

132 but most likely they are composites not only of Chambers but also of all

the party men that Steinbeck was meeting at the time. Therefore the gap

between the descriptions of Chambers and of Steinbeck’s leaders is almost

inexplicable.

The Great depression and the Dustbowl proved to be a major

setback in the American economy and social life in the beginning of the

Twentieth century. The devastation brought out by them is unimaginable.

The economic condition of the U.S was shattered beyond the scope of

rejuvenation. The Dust Bowl by its ruthless hands had therefore turned

Salinas’s valley into a veritable Wasteland. Emigration on high way

reached epic proportions, and Californians reacted with fear and anger

because they thought that interests in California would get affected due to

the influx of the Okies. One Californian grower voiced at the mass of

exodus as follows “This is not immigration. It is an invasion. They are

worse than a plaque of locusts” (GW 248). The Dust Bowl affected the

lively hood of the peasants in addition to their farms. No crops could be

raised on the dust. Dearth of water due to the failure of monsoon added to

the unmitigated woes of the masses. The farmers underwent sufferings

sans peril. Consequently they had opted to leave their lands and homes in

search of new ones. Drought was the language which the earth did speak

for a decade to the people. High winds and unbearable temperature and

133 the insect menace in the form of grass hoppers, contributed heavily to the

sad plight of the farmers and the working class.

The vegetation and wildlife were the worst hit. Increased

unemployment leaving loss in business, physical hardships, psychological

strain-all these and more was the result of the great depression and the

dust bowl. Around an estimated 2.5 million people migrated to California

in search of livelihood. But conditions turned from bad to worse. The

migrant labourers were exploited by the land owners, bankers and also by

union organizers. Arresting of homeless men was a common sight. Due to

the mechanization process ploughs were replaced by tractors. Lands

belonging to the people were confiscated at minimum cost. Violence was

let loose on the strike coachers. Their wages were cut to fifteen per cent

beyond expectation the strike leaders under the guise of fighting for the

rights and privilege of the people were concentrating more on personal

interests. The general discontent among the people by labour activists was

of no avail due to their move. In Day brooks Battle Steinbeck portrays the

labour strike undertaken by the American Communists and the fruit

pickers. Torgas valley a rural part of California became the hectic region

for all the above mentioned bitter activities. To regain dignity or

livelihood became a distant dream for the people. Willa Cathers’ novel

Neighbor Rosicky (1930) deals with the Dust Bowl disaster during the

drought years. It covers the midwest. “She gives the sense of both success

134 and failure in people as they are broken or made by life’s struggles”

(Oliver 27).

Industrialization had opened up the gates of human alienation not

only in the workplace but in the society in general. The man, who partakes

of his labour, has virtually no links with the products. Division of labour

had brought about the hazardous physical and psychological alienation.

As Karl Marx had remarked that “man becomes an appendage of the

machine and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily

acquired knack that is required of him” (107). The separation between

production and Consumption is a marked feature in Of Mice and Men.

People sow at one place but hope for the harvest at another place, moving

from job to job, performing one seasonal type of task per ranch.

In The Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck expressed the goal of the

working class and the implication of a flight for a new social order

through the verbal delieanation of Tom Joad. He says “Throwout the Cops

that isn’t our people. All work together for our own thing-all farm our

own land” (GW 248).

That the very happening in the region concerned at a particular

period of American history has been faithfully and realistically portrayed

by Steinbeck. Charlotte Cook Handella regards Steinbeck’s style as

realism, as she points out that “Steinbeck’s novels include realistic details

135 gleaning from the writer’s experiences as an agricultural labourer and

from his journalistic investigations of farm labour conditions” (113).

After World War I, economic and ecological forces brought many

rural poor and migrant agricultural workers from the Great plains states

namely Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas to California. Following World War

I a recession led to a downfall in the market price of farm crops which

forced the farmers to produce more goods in order to compensate the

monetary loss. With a view to meeting the demands of the increased

productivity, many farmers bought more land and invested unduly in

purchasing farm equipment which proved to be fatal to them. The stock

market crash which took place in 1929 added fuel to the fire by further

worsening the situation. Banks had no option but to foreclose on

mortgages and collect the debts unwarrantedly.

Thousands of farmers finding themselves unable to pay their debts,

sold their properties and were forced to seek new ways and means of

living. It was estimated that already the rate of unemployment was around

twenty five percent. The migrant farmers’ lot became still worse. Tillers

had to bear the brunt of economic depression. In creased farming activities

caused indescribable soil erosion which in combination with the already

existing unseemly drought, culminated in the Dust Bowl Disaster. The

affected were the migrants from Oklahoma. The cruel visages of the Great

Depression have made their lasting impact in American Literature, and

136 Steinbeck was no exception towards articulating strongly about these

disastrous happenings of his times.

Capitalist economy preferred to be the best one for America had in

its store many efficacious but more evil ingredients. A capitalist is defined

as one who controls the production system and who is always bent upon

making money by exploiting and misusing the efforts of the workers.

Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country’s trade

and industry are controllable by private owners for profit. A capitalist will

go to any extreme provided his survival, sustenance and accumulation of

wealth are ensured. Steinbeck’s novel The Pearl is an impressive account

of the ruthless behaviours that capitalist would resort to. It is reckoned

with, by critics as a veritable critique of capitalistic set up and style of

functioning. The story addresses a struggle between rich and poor.

A group of people owning the means of production while the major

proportion consisting of the toiling masses falling prey to the former’s

selfish ends explicitly called exploitation in its dimensional sense, forms

the platform and pith of the above novel.

Capitalists use force to gain, perpetuate and multiply their interests.

Oppression and capitalism go side by side. Heartless mercenary minded

people would forever attempt to build their castles on the ashes of the

working class. Any ideological resentment by anybody in this regard

would entail protesting manifestations. Creative novelists like Steinbeck

137 stand as towering instances in their endeavours pertaining to the welfare

of the common people and their steadfast determination to strive and

succeed. Other people’s stories of everyday life became issues for

Steinbeck. His writings spoke against these who kept the oppressed in

poverty and therefore he was branded as a communist because of his

voice. Critics point out that Steinbeck’s background and concern for

common man made him one of the best writers for human rights. He often

focused on social problems, concerned with the haves verses have not’s

and made the reader to have the thrust to encourage the underdogs.

Twentieth Century writers and critics are interested in the class conflict

and ups and downs in the society. These writers wrote their works

highlighting the inequality in the society and the inadequacies of

capitalism. Steinbeck came under the spell of proletarian considerations

by virtue of his innate psyche and direct experiences.

The American Dream provided him with an opportunity and

a liability by placing his work as a critique of not only a limited social

problem but also the system which did breed, permit or fail to offer

a chance of resolving the said problems. The author of the social protest

novels had taken a different ideological stance towards the Dream. His

novels particularly The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men stand as

testimony to the above. In Of Mice and Men Curley’s wife voices out her

desire to become a film star. Another character namely Crooks was rife

138 with the fantasy of hoeing a piece of garden at Lennies farm one day.

Candy puts an end to George’s imaginative owning of some acres of land.

It is obvious that these persons long for freedom, unstinting happiness,

protective and contended life free from the brutal hostility of the world. In

such inhospitable world the American Dream has become a virtual

improbability. The bitter realities of life prove that their aspirations could

not be realized in this world which is “woe-betide.” Just as George and

Lennie dream of a better life on their own farm, so the farmers of the

Great Plains dreamed of finding better life in California deemed to be the

promised Land. This dream also got collapsed due to natural and

manmade hazards and calamitous factors.

The very thematic elements of social protest in Steinbeck’s novels

owe its allegiance to the socialistic and natural fiction. He constantly

places his characters and narrative within the context of very specified and

more important actual social situations. “The dreams of George and

Lennie are founded upon a rigorous analysis and critique of the

encompassing structures of social organization and the way they affect the

people who must live with them” (Baldwin 12). Steinbeck gave voice to

the voiceless in his novels. Paratoo massacre (Monograph) hailed this The

Grapes of Wrath as an American epic, a family saga and a Christian fable.

Levant Howard points out:

139

Steinbeck’s concern for the helpless have-nots got intensified in

course of his creative efforts. Consequently even the passionate

lyricism of his early books gave way to increasingly schematize

social, protest. (11)

Steinbeck wrote in his travelogue,

… it is the nature of a man as he grows older a small bridge in

time, to protest against change, particularly change for the better,

But it is true that we have exchanged corpulence for starvation and

either one will kill us. (Travels 102)

The fact that he was a staunch Protestor in thoughts, words and

deeds cannot be undermined, and the telling expressions of the above got

manifested in his novels in the choicest diction and delineation.

John Steinbeck’s work is most often considered in the literary

tradition of Social Realism, a type of literature which concerns itself with

the direct engagement with and intervention in the problematic (usually

economic) social conditions in society. The height of Social Realism-and

of its close relative, Naturalism, which blends social critique with a tragic

narrative structure wherein a sort of natural fate irresistibly propels the

characters toward their downfall-dates from the end of the nineteenth

century and is represented by such authors as George Gissing, Theodore

Dreiser, and Frank Norris. By the 1930s, this literary style was already

waning, having given up its position of primacy to what has come to be

140 called Modernism, which, although not uninterested in social or political

thinking, is far more experimental in the way it uses and manipulates

literary and aesthetic techniques. James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Ezra

Pound are some representative modernist writers from Ireland, England

and the United States respectively. Steinbeck’s decision to forego very

radical experimentation and use the more explicitly engaged realist style

in his work from the 1930s may owe to the urgency of the social problems

of the Great Depression and Steinbeck’s desire to register an immediate

and direct critical protest. Of Mice and Men, like Steinbeck’s two other

major works from the 1930s, In Dubious Battle and The Grapes of Wrath

takes its subject and protagonists from the agricultural working class of

California during the Great Depression.

The longing for lands and ones roots are at focus in the novels The

Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men. It shows the necessity of breaking

the alienation. In Of Mice and Men, the struggle for land is the primary

goal for the main characters and what keeps their spirit up. Steinbeck

indicates indirectly that the solution for the above problem is unionization.

This concept is exemplified in the successful functioning of the

Government Camps; the food protest by the prisoners; the strike for

enhancing the Peach farm and so on. The solid assemblage of the workers

after Lennie’s fight with the boss’ son is another instance in this regard. In

fact Steinbeck might have been influenced to a greater extent by the

141 Communist Manifesto and the clarion call rose therein as ‘workers of all

countries unite’. At the same time he has not overtly expressed anywhere

in his novels that revolution is the only solution for getting rid of the evils

of capitalism.

Through the characters, Steinbeck speaks of the power of free will

in human mind which is held as the most precious of human capabilities.

The intention to fight against the ideological, political, and religious or

any other kinds of forces hindering the freedom of individual gets upper

hand in chapter 13 of the novel. Kino in the novel The Pearl does not

believe the words of the dealer that the pearl obtained by him is valueless.

He hopes that it is worth of fifty thousand. From his inner mind, break out

strong words: ‘I will fight this thing. I will win over. We will have our

chance” (P 59). These words are not that of the protagonist alone but of

the writer also who by his staunch faith in the ultimate human good

through struggle has become its spotless spokesman. Steinbeck

categorically stated through one of this characters in East of Eden as

follows:

And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual

human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would

fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes,

undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion or

142

government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what

I am and what I am about. (134)

Steinbeck had firm faith in struggles as means of solving problems

though they do not always prove to be so.

We only have one story. All novels, all poetry are built on the

never ending contest in ourselves of good and evil ... To a man

born without conscience a soul stricken man must seem ridiculous;

to a criminal honesty is foolish, according to him. I have a new

love for that glittery instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and

unique thing in the universe. It is always attached and never

destroyed – because Thou mayest. (413)

His works stand unto his pronouncements. They amuse; they move

to emotion and they illuminate. The illumination pertains to good and evil;

body and soul; morality and depravity both in individual and the society.

The motivation and artistic urging that spawned in The Winter of Our

Discontent device from quite another source of response to what

Steinbeck perceived as a peculiar moral darkening of the age. He wanted

to reveal that and react to it. While nearly all his prior work had recreated

personal experiences. In his last novel The Winter of Our Discontent

‘Winter’ probes a contemporary moral ailment and attempts a remedy.

The conviction of ‘moral manhood’ was the steering force during

his time of writing The Winter of Our Discontent. John H. Timmerman

143 explains the conception of this moral manhood as “the strength to stand by

convictions and to act according to them” (97). Steinbeck was rather

frustrated with the moral torpor and spiritual flabbiness in Americans in

whom the values have got crossed up, courtesy is confused with weakness

and emotion with sentimentality. He declared openly in a letter written in

7 June 1959 that “Immorality is what is destroying us. The failure of man

toward men, the selfishness that puts making a buck more important than

the common weal” (Steinbeck and Wallsten ed. 255).

When John Steinbeck was a young boy, his aunt gave him the book

that would spark his lifelong fascination with words a copy of ‘Sir

Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur’. So late in his life when he decided

to update Malory’s Middle English for the modern reader, he was

undertaking a project that was perhaps more personal than anything he

had done before. The work appealed to both the scholar and the creative

writer in Steinbeck. He and his wife Elaine settled in Somerset, England,

for most of 1959, where he had access to research materials and could get

a feel for Arthur’s world. What started out as a straightforward translation

turned into an ambitious retelling, and Steinbeck returned to America with

the work unfinished. The Steinbeck’s arrived in America just in time to

witness the media frenzy surrounding Columbia University English

Professor Charles Van Doren. He had recently admitted to cheating on the

popular TV game show “Twenty One.” What Steinbeck perceived as the

144 chief problems in Malory’s time - greed, ambition above integrity, and

immorality - he identified in America, an ailing culture made weak from

prosperity and abundance. The scandal with Van Doren, who hailed from

a distinguished family of letters, further cemented this conviction that

Americans cared more about fame and money than honesty and basic

morality. His remedy was to write The Winter of Our Discontent (1961),

a book about an ordinary family in contemporary America, confronted by

these very problems.

The Winter of Our Discontent weaves together some of the most

important influences on Steinbeck: Malory’s Arthur, The Bible,

Shakespeare, history, mythology, and even the modern literature of T.S.

Eliot’s The Waste Land. It was the novel that once again positioned

Steinbeck as a social critic. Like The Grapes of Wrath, The Winter of Our

Discontent is another richly textured work set in the present day; in this

case, 1960 America. The story follows Ethan Allen Hawley from Good

Friday to Independence Day, as he negotiates the financial and ethical

problems set before him. His transformation is told against a backdrop of

Christian religious holidays, with Ethan’s development following the

death and resurrection of Christ. Hawley’s name signifies the historical

Ethan Allen, an American political hero of questionable integrity.

Steinbeck calls all of American history into question when he links

Ethan’s ancestral roots to both Puritans and whaling tycoons. The novel’s

145 title is taken from the line in Shakespeare’s Richard III, a play about

another corrupt historical figure. Finally, the novel’s conclusion makes

a clear nod to Arthur when Ethan finds the family talisman in his pocket.

Though bleak, The Winter of Our Discontent leaves the reader with

a symbol of hope. The American moral terrain is not quite a wasteland,

but Steinbeck wants to warn his readers that a superficial life, one which

placed a higher value on material success than personal integrity, would

surely lead to a degenerate culture. In prosperous 1960, it must have been

difficult to comprehend the kind of world Steinbeck imagined when he

wrote the book, but by the time of the Watergate scandal, Americans were

all too familiar with a country led by dishonest politicians, a country in

which the courageous were assassinated for standing firmly behind their

principles. The Hawley family could be any middle class American family

in 1960, but perhaps The Winter of Our Discontent is best read as a fable

or cautionary tale, with its characters and events symbolic of the timeless

problems of temptation, greed, and the desire for personal advancement.

The novel addresses the moral depravity of American culture in the last

half of the twentieth century. It is a symbolic representation of American

affluence without ethnical standard. On the whole it depicts the moral

degradation of the entire U.S.A. In a letter to Covici he wrote: “But as far

as I know, a novel is a long piece of fiction having form, direction and

146 rhythm as well as intent. At worst it should amuse, at half-staff move to

emotion and at best illuminate” (Steinbeck and Wallsten ed. 676-677).

The immorality issue has not spared even the religious sphere.

Religion itself is turned on its head in this world in which traditional

moral norms for value are replaced by commercial ones. John H.

Timmerman has summed up the ideology of Steinbeck that “the abolition

of moral norms for action is ultimately an abolition of man” (122). The

inversion is clear in the image used when Ethan enters Baker’s Bank.

Joey dialed the mystic numbers and turned the wheel that drew the

bolts. The holy of holies swung stately open and Mr. Baker took

the salute of the assembled money. I stood outside the rail like

a humble communicant waiting for the sacrament. (WD 98)

The protesting voice of this novelist has taken recourse to the

amelioration of the illness sheltered in the greedy minds of the wealthy.

A revolutionary remedy does not seem to have been Steinbeck’s

diagnostic prescription. Instead of taking sides with any of the extremes,

he has endeavoured to explore and expose the phenomena’s they

happened, but left the judgment to the discretion of the readers

themselves. Jay Parini quotes on Linda Stubbs observes, “he remains

unfailingly attractive to readers of all ages and levels of sophistication” (3)

because of such great literary attributes and achievements. In all his

writing Steinbeck is a kind man, whether he is wise depends partly on our

147 idea of wisdom. But he is never mean nor does his soul appear ever to

have been sick. Among the masters of world fiction, his place is as one

who loved only too well and provided an image of man abounding in

vitality, depth, comprehensiveness and exaltation.

CHAPTER IV

FICTIONAL REPRESENTATIONS OF SOCIAL PROTEST

Writer’s first duty was to set down his time as nearly as he

can understand it, and serve as the watch-dog of the society,

to satirize its silliness, to attack its injustices and to

stigmatize its faults. John Steinbeck

Protest novels in American Literature had considerable social

footing and historical significance. They took upon themselves the task of

highlighting the evils anchoring in the walks of American Society ranging

from slavery, economic discrimination, corruption, administrative

slackness, parochialism towards gender issues, illicit living styles, eco-

devastation mad hunting after money, loss of identity, and ethical values

and so on.

American novels particularly those hailing from the southern part

of the country had varied thematic elements related to background of the

age namely, fundamentalist religion, defeat in civil war, economic

frustration, the impact of slavery, and the ruthless faces of racism. The

rhetoric of the public arguments over the land and national identity has

been presented more dramatically and suitably in the Californian social

protest fiction developed between 1930s and 1940s. It was therefore

within the literary terrain for naturalistic writers like Steinbeck stimulated

149 by humanistic considerations, to paint the picture in their writings, of the

egregious injustices prevailing in the state with a view to looking forward

for a future of more social justice. It is stated that the Californian writers

viewed their state as an integral part of a national project of economic

expansion, not alienated geographically and culturally from the rest of the

nation. They had a staunch belief in the ideology that what affected

California, affected the nation and thus they wrote to a national and not

regional audience. The underlying motive was to expose the glaring

injustices inflicted upon the varied groups of people so as to create an

awareness of the problems in the minds of the audience. The optimism in

this regard was ignited by the thought that such exposures would be

leading towards righting the wrong and thereby nurture good will towards

American people not to speak of the government. Steinbeck raises his

voice against the non-human attitudes and greedy activities which deprive

the land of its beauty and peace and pleasure. Steinbeck did seek to

identify the ways and attitudes of his characters with those of the audience

giving the signs of “Consubstantiality.”

It comes to light that Steinbeck has restored to diverse stylistic

techniques so as to provide effective delineation of his semantics of

protest. Instead of direct verbal renderings he dabbled his creative

imagination in myth and legend. He, as Joseph Fontenrose remarks,

“found joy in myth and legend” (141). The Arthurian legends to which he

150 had greater fascination from his early days up to his end, kept open the

windows of his creative fervour to a greater extent. They and the Biblical

tales served him as the sources of inspiration besides quenching his

innovative thirst in his novels. Even the titles of his novels such as East of

Eden, In Dubious Battle, The Grapes of Wrath, and the descriptions also

considerably reflect his literary moorings in myth and legends as evident

in his usages like Holy Grail and Fisher King, Garden of Eden, Cain and

Abel, the Joseph story, Exodus, Leviathan, The passion and resurrection,

and The revolt of the angels etc., It is myth which attached his work most

closely to the great tradition of the European and American novel. It also

served him as channels for expressing his protesting ideologies in the

artistic manner possible. In Dubious Battle reminds one of the satanic

revolt in Milton’s epic Paradise Lost. Especially impressed with the revolt

of Satan, Steinbeck warped the characters in his novel as reflecting the

fallen angels with their demurral trends, temperaments and tangible

inimical reactions. Jim in the above noted novel is no less than Satan. He

has the uniform purpose of regaining the power. Like Satan he persuades

the subordinate men to disobey their new superiors. In Paradise Lost

(Book-I) Satan summons the fallen angels and infuses a new spirit into

their minds so as to act against their arch-enemy namely God. His fiery

address furnished below tempers the fallen angels greatly who support

him in his revolting endeavour as:

151

Innumerable force of Spirits armed,

That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring,

His utmost power adverse power opposed

In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven,

And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?

All is not lost-the unconquerable will,

A study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield:

What is else not to overcome? (101-109)

John Steinbeck opens his novel, In Dubious Battle, with the above

quote from Milton's Paradise Lost. (This is where the title of the novel

comes from) While Milton's work specifically looks at the battle between

Heaven and Satan, as well as man’s fall from grace from Eden, Steinbeck

also takes a similar vision of some kind of paradise being lost and the

struggle to regain it. In In Dubious Battle, the struggle is between those

who might be considered blessed, those who are the salt of the earth, and

they are battling against the evil landowners who seek to strip the workers

of their dignity and livelihood.

In this novel, Jim is an instrumental in summoning the pickers at

Martin orchards and they hold a strike meeting. The struggle once begun

is as hopeless for the strikers as for the rebel angels. The workers face

their opponent’s viz., men with power, mighty weapons, and spies.

152 Diverse protesting modes are witnessed in this fiction: Warnings are

issued; Threats are made known; reprisals are encountered. At the very

outset of Book I of Paradise Lost Satan makes a glowing speech to his

followers, which is to be understood in the light of the previous address:

Fallen Cherub! To be weak is miserable!

Doing or suffering. (157-158)

The implicit motive of the above address is the egotistic urge of

Satan. He is subscribing to the revolting intention because according to

him, it is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.

Torgas valley figures forth as the venue of innocence, reminding

Garden of Eden before the fall, a farmland filled with apple orchards

mostly owned by few men. When the apples are ripe and ready for

harvest, homeless persons doing casual work used to come and pick for

a meagre wage. The valley has become the beehive of strike activities in

Steinbeck’s novel In Dubious Battle. The characters Jim Nolan and Mac

Burton represent the communist party and they actively organize the

picker’s strike. The novel is said to be Steinbeck’s first attempt in fiction

to deal with the calamitous conditions of the workers in California who

were subjected to tyrannical exploitation by the heartless owners during

the Great Depression. The violence in the novel presented by Steinbeck is

graphic in nature with the purport of attracting the sympathy of the readers

on one hand, and on the other hand towards the fate of the workers and the

153 anger set against the selfish landowners. The text itself is in the form of

a dialogue. The characters are depersonalized. The emotions required of

an occurrence are evoked sincerely. The observation of John Seelye holds

good at this context with reference to the exodus to California by a large

number of people he remarked thus: “If California was the ‘future’ then to

reverse the famous aphorism, it did not seem to work – expect for

corporate Capitalism” (xiv).

The book as Jackson J. Benson puts “it was a scientific exploration

of the stimulation and reaction of the mob” (304). Steinbeck makes use of

real happenings in addition to the motive behind such matters for his

fiction. He transformed them by his artistic excellence and by means of

his powerful language. In this novel Steinbeck, objected generally to

the exploitation of the migrant fruit pickers, but there were specific abuses

to which he drew particular attention. One of these was the custom of the

large growers to encourage an influx of surplus workers in order to

depress wages. Early in the story, when Mac was briefing Jim Nolan on

the situation in the Torgas valley, he told how the big owners waited until

all the fruit tramps had arrived and then announced a wage cut. A factual

report on the wheat land riot in California revealed that the grower is

responsible for the strike which touched off the riot. In this case the fact

was worse than the fiction, for there was no mention of the growers in

In Dubious Battle advertising for help. The labourers’ camp described in

154 the book offered much better accommodation than many to be found in

California at that time, even though there was only one water faucet for

the use of all the workers. The real conditions are described so vividly by

Steinbeck in his story of the apple-pickers’ strike. His strikers in the

Torgas valley found all the power of the community against them. The

sheriff and all his deputies were there to protect the growers’ interests; the

strikers were intimidated; and, as the camp superintendent said, “You

know vagrancy is anything the judge doesn’t want you to do” (DB 93).

Steinbeck’s main interest in writing this novel, however, was to

make some observations about man’s behaviour both as an individual and

as part of a group, a theme which is repeated in some other of his novels,

such as Tortilla Flat, The Grapes of Wrath and Cannery Row. The ideal

group formation, in the writer's view, is one in which the members act as

individuals and at the same time contribute creatively to the formation of

a harmoniously integrated whole. One of Steinbeck’s recurrent symbols

which express his concept of an ideal group formation is the communal

meal, as it encompasses positive characteristics such as participation,

unity among men, and sharing. Eating together, partaking a meal has

always had, from primitive times, a religious meaning which stresses

communion among individuals of a social group. In this novel Steinbeck

presents imagery of food and a number of meals not to express

155 camaraderie or brotherhood, but often to show how the absence of these

feelings affect the relationship among men.

The first meal in In Dubious Battle is at the Party’s quarters, where

the five members-Harry, Dick, Jim, Joy, and Mac-eat corn beef. The way

they eat their dinner reflects their emotional separation from each other:

“Each man retired to his cot to eat” (17). The physical separation of the

party members shows that, contrary to table tradition, none of their meals

promote intimate union among the participants. The party is their main

interest, not each other, so there is no need for a ritualistic consolidation.

This same interest for the party itself and not for the strikers is clear in Jim

and Mac’s relationship with these men. Earlier on in the novel Mac tells

Jim: “Our job's just to push along our little baby strike, if we can” (28). In

their vision, a successful strike is the most important thing, since their

loyalty is to the party, rather than to the workers. This difference separates

them from the group, whose hunger is basically physical, although the

workers have ideas of their own too and cannot be merely treated as “men

with stomachs” as Doc, the camp doctor, observes. He sees that Mac

overlooks the possibility of these men only being commanded by their

hunger:

You practical men always lead practical men with stomachs. And

something always gets out of hand, they don't follow the rules of

common sense, and you practical men either deny, or refuse to

156

think about it. And when someone wonders what it is that makes

a man with a stomach something more than your rule allows, why

you howl “Dreamer, mystic, metaphysician. (133)

Significantly, Mac’s answer to Doc shows how he can only see the

men as pieces on a chessboard which are moved about for the good of the

cause: “We’ve a job to do” Mac insisted. “We’ve got no time to mess

around with high-falutin ideas” (133). Mac, in fact, looks down on the

workers, and fails to understand them as individuals like himself or Jim:

“This bunch of bums isn’t keyed up. I hope to Christ something happens

to make’em mad before long. This is going to fizzle out if something

doesn’t happen” (145).

This difference, again, can be traced to the fact that Jim and Mac

do not arise as natural leaders from the apple picker community. They are

strangers who force their way into a group of workers but who never

really become part of it. Furthermore, unlike the workers, who have

a closer relationship to the land, the two leaders come together from town

and can only understand the strike rationally. This strangeness is reflected

in the separate meals the party leaders have. The drastic disproportion of

wealth illustrated in the capitalistic structure of American society during

the Great Depression caused many working class people to respond to

socialist thought and propaganda. The discussion about food in

In Dubious Battle reveal the contrast between working class characters

157 and non working class finances. When talking about Dick, Ma tells Jim:

“see how beautiful he is? We call him Decoy. He tells ladies about the

working class, and we get cakes with pink frosting, huh, Dick?” (18).

This passage is significant to working class strife because

Steinbeck brings to light about the contrast between non working class

and working class diets. The contrast reveals the drastic economic

inequality that existed during the 1920s and 1930s between social classes

and reveals the wide spread hunger that was topical issue during the Great

Depression.

In a capitalistic society there is little doubt that these socialist ideals

would come and fire. In a society where the rich get richer and the poor

get poorer, any philosophy that advocates just distribution of funds is

going to be controversial. In this novel Mac explains the controversial

socialist theory to London as:

If you was to own thirty thousand acres of land and a million

dollars, they’d be a bunch of sons-of-bitches. But if you’re just

London, a workin’ stiff, why they’re a bunch of guys that want to

help you live like a man and not like a pig, see?’ course you get

your news from the papers, an’ the papers is owned by the guys

with land and money, so we’re sons-of-bitches, see? Then you

come across us, an’we ain’t. You got to make up your own mind

which it is. (283)

158

Mac explains to London that the communist party is a group tied to

the working class. Steinbeck’s nobles sounded too noble and his common

people sounded too common. Generally, his characters in The Grapes of

Wrath and In Dubious Battle sounded entirely authentic. His workingmen

talked like workingmen. Steinbeck’s characters spoke their own language

they remained convincing and alive. More than occasionally, however, he

had them speaking more like John Steinbeck. He addresses the party

tactics through discourse between Jim and Mac in this novel. When Jim

asks Mac if they are going to try to get the apple orchard workers to strike,

Mac explains: “Sure May be its all ready to bust and we just give it a little

tiny push. We organize the men, and then we picket the orchards” (32).

Thus Steinbeck addresses the true power of the organization during

the 1930’s. He illustrates that the strength of the party resided in its ability

to organize and mobilize workers. This portrayal of protest ranges from an

individual’s explosion of anger to that of collective outlet of a group.

Instances are varied. In this, Mac converses with Anderson using storming

words: “you bastards, never owned nothing. You never planted trees and

seen ‘em growing felt ‘em with your hands. You never owned a thing,

never went out and touched your apple trees with your hands” (323).

Here we can see Steinbeck’s burst of anger against exploitation.

Another facet of this struggling affair finds its culminating expression

through Mac’s inducement of his men towards fighting. “Look, in a war,

159 a general knows he is going to lose men. Now, this is a war, if we get run

out of here without a fight, its losing ground!” (345).

Steinbeck’s anger knows no bound when he ruminates over the

ruthless acts of the land owners and the social malady which detains the

working class from reaching the reward for their toils. These people who

work in the fields, make them sound for cultivation, rise crops on , nurse

them by proper watering and manuring, protecting from insects, birds and

animals, harvesting and thereby filling finally the coffers of the land lords,

are driven to the verge of dwelling in indecent living conditions and

starvation besides being affected by diseases. What has been produced by

them is allowed to go rotten and waste without being offered to the

hungry stomachs. The roots of all these human tragedies may be traced to

avarice and self-centeredness on the part of the owing class bent upon

exploitation of the ill-fated mass. The owning class will burn coffee for

fuel in ships, burn corn to keep warm for it makes hot fire, dump potatoes

in rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from

fishing them out, slaughter the pigs and bury them but will not offer them

for the starving. Words cannot well describe the unbridled atrocities of the

land owners as furnished above.

Much of the action in In Dubious Battle revolved around occasions

of organized brutality to the workers. At the beginning of the story, Jim

Nolan told about being beaten by police; Mac had his arm broken and his

160 home burnt by American legionnaires acting as vigilantes; and little Joy

had been beaten so often that his mind had gone. As the tale developed,

more and more examples of the illegal use of force were quoted. Threats

were made to the strike leaders; Al Anderson was beaten and his lunch

wagon burned; Jim and Mac barely escaped from harsh treatment by

a vigilance committee; Dakin lost his truck; and Anderson had his barn

burned. The final act of violence was the murder of Jim Nolan, which

ended the story.

The villain behind the scenes was the growers’ Association, which

was run by the Torgas finance company. It told the growers what to pay

their workers, and it set the price of the produce. Every event about which

Steinbeck wrote had happened in the twentieth century. In Dubious Battle

was Steinbeck's great contribution to the cause of the oppressed workers,

where the rest of the country had been unconcerned about the plight of

migrant workers and unsympathetic about Communist activity. The

readers of In Dubious Battle saw the Californian events in a new light.

They saw communists who “didn't want nothing for themselves” trying to

better the lot of free American citizens who were being treated worse than

slaves. Unfortunately, while this was Steinbeck’s best book to date, it was

not a particular success with the reading public. Perhaps it was too

realistic and described a national tragedy. John Steinbeck told this tale of

brutality by describing the development of Jim Nolan from an uncertain

161 youth, looking for a meaning in life, to a cold, calculating, dedicated

Communist. At the same time, his mentor, Mac, portrayed as a power-

hungry, bloodthirsty man, who “can’t waste time liking people” (82). This

viewpoint was presented by Doc Burton. He, like Steinbeck, did not

believe in communism, but he did believe in the dignity of man.

Steinbeck’s point of view which he denied existed, seemed to be that,

insofar as the workers are concerned, in union there is strength. Man like

to work together, and “group-man” can conquer all his difficulties.

The characterization in this book is strong, although the characters

were not described in nearly the same detail as the locale. The actions of

all the characters were authentic, both individually and collectively, and

the mob scenes were particularly effective. Even, the minor characters like

Mr. Anderson, his son Al Dakin, and London’s daughter-in-law Lisa, run

true to what one would expect, while poor little Joy was in a class by

himself. It was significant that Mac gave the same epitaph for Joy and

Jim. “He didn't want nothing for himself” (48). They would both have

been happy to know that a martyr’s death was the reward for serving the

Cause. Jim Nolan was the hero, pure with no bad habits; a man who

substituted Communism for religion, while his partner, Mac destroyed

almost everything he touched. He destroyed first, his home, then, in rapid

succession, Joy, Al Anderson, Mr. Anderson, Dakin, Doc, and finally Jim,

and in so doing, managed to use them all selfishly. As Jim said to him,

162 “You protect me all the time, Mac. And sometimes I get the feeling you're

not protecting me for the Party, but for yourself” (46).

Jim is the strongest character in the book, and Doc Burton realized

his strength. But Doc disappeared before he could penetrate Jim’s

defences. He was the only one who might have tempered Jim’s idealism,

and it was ironic that Jim died; believing that he was aiding Doc.

Steinbeck told the story of the plight of the migrant workers without

identifying any of the ordinary labourers. The ones he brought to the fore,

London. Dakin, and Sam, weren’t typical. The typical ones remained,

significantly, in the shadows. “Some men sat in the doorways and looked

out at the dusk ... The women carried cans and cooking pots to fill at the

faucets. In and out of the dark doorways children swarmed, restless as

rats” (50).

They were a shadowy people, not to be seen as individuals. Their

power lay in their group value - as a mob they were irresistible. Although

Steinbeck had gone to great lengths to research, party organizers and

contemporary strikes to authentically portray the novel’s action, the party

organizers after whom Steinbeck modelled his characters also questioned

Steinbeck's representation of their motives. According to biographer

Jackson J. Benson, Pat Chambers and Caroline Decker, prominent labour

organizers at the time, who are popularly believed to be the models for

Mac and Jim, objected to

163

the emphasis on the calculated manipulation of the strikers as

a mob, rather than an emphasis on the actual spirit of brotherhood

and mutual support that made the strike possible and produced

eventual success. (304)

In this novel Mac’s speech such as’ “I feel that way about all the

working stiffs in the country” (265), is said to foreshadow the speech of

Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath. Tom Joad explains to his mother that

the reason for his leaving the family was to become an inspiration and

operating secretly wherever poor people are struggling for justice and

dignity. Steinbeck’s personal desire would have verbal outlet through the

mouth of his character. Warren French points out that Mac’s angry

comments such as “He did not see why food had to be dumped and left to

rot when people were starving” foreshadows Steinbeck’s “crime that goes

beyond denunciation” (Steinbeck 117). It comes to light that Steinbeck

originally planned the title of the novel as Dubious Battle, but insisted on

adding the preposition ‘In’ in order to stress the process involving struggle

rather than simply the event.

Steinbeck uses the strike to critique the communist labour

organizers, and provides no conclusion to the labour struggle. Looking at

the treatment of Steinbeck’s strike leaders Mac and Jim in comparison to

those involved in these similar strikes, illustrates Steinbeck’s reluctance to

accept the totality of communist politics. Radical forms particularly that

164 of the strike novel, are primarily supposed to convey a concern for the

struggle of the workingman, which Steinbeck does in his compassionate

portrayal of the struggling labourers. However, In Dubious Battle is

continually attacked from both sides because it portrays the need for

a change in the American capitalist system, but simultaneously attacks

those most prominently seeking that change. On 15 January 1935,

Steinbeck wrote a letter to George Albee about his decision to write In

Dubious Battle. He writes, “I had an idea that I was going to write the

autobiography of a Communist” (Steinbeck and Wallsten ed. 98), and as

Benson and Loftis point out, this was going to be “a first-person narrative

from Chamber’s point of view – a diary of a communist labour organizer”

(201).

Steinbeck’s research into labour organizations had led him to

receive numerous accounts of the actions of Pat Chambers, who was one

of the most prominent strike leaders and labour organizers of the 1930’s.

Mac and Jim are supposed to be roughly based on these accounts, but

most likely they are composites not only of Chambers but also of all the

party men that Steinbeck was meeting at the time. Therefore the gap

between the descriptions of Chambers and of Steinbeck’s leaders is almost

inexplicable. The fact that Steinbeck leaves the reader in a position from

which interpreting the actions of the leaders will almost assuredly elicit

165 a negative response is what sets this novel apart not only from the radical

tradition, but also from real life descriptions of the labour activists.

As a district organizer for the Communist Party founded Cannery

and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union, Pat Chambers was known to

be a caring and compassionate man, intimately concerned with the lives of

the workers. Mac and Jim on the other hand seem to be concerned with

nothing other than the success of the strike and how that success would

figure into the big picture for the Party. The strike is not as much about

the men that are striking, as it is about what victory will mean when the

cotton-picking starts in the next valley, and how they can effect labour

relations as a whole. Dakin, one of the natural leaders of the itinerant farm

workers used by Mac, says, “You’re a cold blooded bastard (Mac). Don’t

you think of nothing but, strike?” (DB 169). Dakin is responding to Mac’s

desire to use his deceased comrade Joy, to illicit further support for the

strike. John H. Timmerman points out that, “While Mac” uses them like

ciphers in development of his movement, Chambers seemed to be

motivated by a genuine admiration for the men and commitment to them”

(81). Mac seems to have no admiration for the men, and instead treats

them more like cattle waiting to be branded with the party logo. Mac is

not part of the group; he only wishes to take advantage of their collective

strength. When the police and vigilantes begin to make life more difficult

for the strikers, Mac wishes for blood and says, “This bunch of bums isn’t

166 keyed up. I hope to Christ something happens to make’em mad before

long. This is going to fizzle out if something don’t happen” (165).

The strike leaders that Steinbeck constructs are cruel and inhuman.

They are driven by an unrelenting desire for revolution, and treat the

strikers as pawns rather than comrades. Many of these organizers were

portrayed as heroic. In many ways Steinbeck depicts Mac as a force

serving to continue the worker’s solitary existence, rather than striving to

encourage communal values. During the course of the Torgas Valley

Strike there are two murders were occurred. During this period of time,

“in two instances, strikers were shot and killed” (Benson 215), and

therefore both of these events make it into Steinbeck’s narrative. Not only

is the number of deaths disproportionate though, but Mac also makes it

seem as if this is common. When Joy is killed by a vigilante sniper, Mac

says, “Joy always wanted to lead people, and now he’s going to do it,

even if he’s in a box” (DB 173). And then props Joy up on a wagon so his

body can be literally paraded through town. Steinbeck makes the parade

all about the cause rather than an event serving multiple purposes. There is

no mention of paying respect to the dead, only the cause. Mac excuses the

cold-bloodedness of his actions by saying, “We got damn few things to

fight with. We got to use what we can. … We’ll get a hell of a lot of

people on our side if we put on a public funeral” (175).

167

Mac’s utter disregard for human life is a recurring theme

throughout the novel, and Steinbeck is undoubtedly trying to make a point

about the party mentality toward a revolution at any cost. The battle is left

off as a perpetual struggle, conveying Steinbeck’s own personal doubts.

However, there does seem to be some element of hope in the novel, which

mainly comes in the form of Dr. Burton. Steinbeck frequently creates

characters that mirror his own belief system. These characters often

exhibit the traits of Steinbeck’s friend Ed Ricketts as well. Ricketts was

a marine biologist that inspired a large portion of Steinbeck’s moral and

political philosophy. The mouthpieces Steinbeck constructs do not always

take the form of just one character, but in the case of In Dubious Battle,

there is Dr. Burton. In his autobiography of Steinbeck, Jackson J. Bensons

says,

In this novel Rickett’s influence would seem to have an overt

expression in a character, Doc Burton, who is modelled after

Ricketts and who in speech and behaviour reflects Rickett’s

philosophy. (244)

While the character is based on Ricketts, he also serves as

a mouthpiece for Steinbeck’s own views as can be seen in the similarities

between Dr. Burton’s dialogue with Mac and Jim and Steinbeck’s own

commentary found in his letters. They are both intrigued by group-man

and demonstrate a subtle lamentation of how the phalanx is being abused.

168 Dr. Burton represents an outside perspective to the group-man forces at

play in the novel. John H. Timmerman proposes that, “within each of

these novels, however, and in all the later works, Steinbeck offers an

alternative to the Group Man: the compassionate and creative individual”

(25). Dr. Burton fills this role, and by setting Dr. Burton apart as an

individual, Steinbeck is able to ascribe his own views into the argument

more directly. Mac cannot understand why Dr. Burton helps them, and yet

does not blindly commit to the cause. Mac says

You’re not a Party man, but you work with us all the time; you

never get anything for it. I don’t know whether you believe in what

we’re doing or not, you never say, you just work. I’ve been out

with you before, and I’m not sure you believe in the cause at all.

(DB 149)

Mac questions Dr. Burton’s ability to support the Party, which is

ironic and challenging Steinbeck’s radicalism. Dr. Burton may not believe

in the propaganda, or even in the notion of revolution itself, but he is

simultaneously living the sort of lifestyle that an actual communal

existence would require, by unquestioningly fulfilling his specific role for

the sake of the whole. Dr. Burton acts as if he sees himself as part of

a larger human collective, of which the strikers are a smaller segment, and

Steinbeck’s later novels suggest that he feels similarly. The enigmatic

position Dr. Burton occupies within the strike is indicative of Steinbeck’s

169 own difficulty in placing his views on the phalanx in contrast to those of

communist labour organizers like Mac. Dr. Burton’s reply to Mac in this

exchange is where Steinbeck’s own voice becomes evident. Dr. Burton

says,

Well, you say I don’t believe in the cause. That’s like not believing

in the moon. There’ve been communes before, and there will be

again. But you people have an idea that if you can establish the

thing, the job’ll be done. Nothing stops, Mac. If you were able to

put an idea into effect tomorrow, it would start changing right

away. Establish a commune, and the same gradual flux will

continue. (149)

Dr. Burton charges that Mac cannot truly be successful because he

is too inflexible. Dr. Burton continues to say,

I want to see the whole picture - as nearly as I can. I don’t want to

put blinders on the blinders of, good’ and, bad’, and limit my

vision. If I used the term, good’ on a thing I’d lose my license to

inspect it, because there might be bad in it. Don’t you see? I want

to be able to look at the whole thing. (149)

In this defence Dr. Burton has perfectly encapsulated Steinbeck’s

own reluctance to commit whole-heartedly to any particular doctrine or

philosophy, in attempt to preserve his ability to discern the truth for

himself. Steinbeck is concerned with the workingman, and he does think

170 that radical change needs to take place, but he wants to be able to consider

these issues on his own terms instead of having to choose between

adopting the Party’s principles or being used a pawn, which are the two

basic roles offered to the characters of In Dubious Battle. Steinbeck was

not only interested in group-man, but in the communal existence that

group-man was capable of propagating. However, this novel represents

Steinbeck’s group-man philosophy in its earliest stages. The reader is

offered a glimpse of the positive force group-man can become as they

swarm over Anderson’s farm picking the apples at an alarming pace as

payment for using his land. This scene is of the group-man unopposed or

externally controlled though, and this is certainly a novel about

opposition. Benson and Loftis say, “His intentions, he told his friends,

was not to write a philosophical dissertation on his theory, but to think it

through and then find the fictional symbols which would act as a vehicle

for it in his creative writing” (197), and John H. Timmerman points out

that, “in his earliest references to the novel, Steinbeck often described it as

the Phalanx novel” (83). However, this investigation of Steinbeck’s own

philosophical views is based on the premise that In Dubious Battle is in

fact a vehicle for this argument, but in no way the final vehicle.

In Dubious Battle is an analysis of the stimulus Steinbeck is

describing more than about group-man itself. Dr. Burton makes this point

when he says, “group-men are always getting some kind of infection”

171 (DB 150). When Mac questions how Dr. Burton accounts for his role in

the strike, the doctor replies,

You might be an expression of group-man, a cell endowed with

a special function like an eye cell, drawing your force from group-

man, and at the same time directing him, like an eye. Your eye both

takes orders from and gives orders to your brain. (151)

However, Steinbeck’s comment as to the role of stimuli on group-

man might also suggest that Mac is more of a virus than an eye, infecting

the group and turning the phalanx into a mob. Mac believes that an

individual may be manipulated and sacrificed to benefit the masses and

therefore he can never truly become part of the group. The confusion over

this point is palpable in the text, and is indicative of the fact that Steinbeck

is still formulating these thoughts himself. The mentality that one must be

willing to endure wounds, as must the group-man as represented by

a single amalgamated form like a mob, is contradicted if individuals must

be manipulated to serve their role, proving that the group is not an organic

form. Jim is the obvious contradiction to this as he both longs to become

part of the phalanx, as well as becoming part of the leadership. In turn,

Jim’s death allows for him to become a sort of group-man martyr, but

Mac’s political motivation keeps him on the outside. Mac’s role suggests

that the labour organizers are perhaps foolish in their attempts to use the

mob, rather than realizing the true power and possibility of group-man’s

172 communal roots. Mac and Jim have become so preoccupied with

constructing the dictatorship of the proletariat, that they have forgotten the

final collective goal of communism. Joseph Warren Beach says, “The

strength of proletarian fiction is that note, of comrades who want nothing

for themselves alone-who sink their personal interest in that of the whole

tribe of underdogs” (252).

Steinbeck does not indict group-man psychology as a whole; he

indicts the corrupt usage of psychology and accuses the Communist

labour organizers of doing so. Mac and Jim are portrayed as being more

interested in the socialist dictatorship of the proletariat itself, than in the

revolution of socialism as a path to the collective order of communism.

The underlying Marxist principles that Steinbeck is either consciously or

inadvertently drawing from, approach utopian notions of communal

existence, and just as Mac accuses Dr. Burton of being too far left,

Steinbeck may have been as well. In a very bold comment for 1933,

Steinbeck wrote to Carlton Sheffield, “Russia is giving us a nice example

of human units who are trying with a curious nostalgia to get away from

their individuality and re-establish the group unit the race remembers and

wishes” (Steinbeck and Wallsten ed. 76).

Steinbeck looks at communism in Russia as a positive example of

man attempting to rediscover his group roots, even if the process is

flawed. The novel ends with a far more exaggerated example of quasi-

173 martyrdom. By concluding with Jim’s death the novel becomes a means

by which to make the reader aware of just how cold Mac really is. Mac

announcing that with Jim’s corpse, “Comrades! He didn’t want nothing

for himself” (DB 349); Steinbeck delivers no inkling of satisfaction.

Instead the reader is left with the notion that the struggle for revolution is

both costly and eternal, and therefore most likely not worthwhile.

In Dubious Battle introduces Steinbeck’s reader to the idea of the

phalanx, but this novel is far from being Steinbeck’s all-inclusive thesis

on the group-man mentality. This is far more complex than a simple strike

novel. Steinbeck knew that he was going to anger both those that oppose

the communist movement and those that support it. Critics that suggest,

In Dubious Battle succeeds because it avoids polemics and propaganda.

The novel’s dark ironies and cynical portrayal of capitalism, patriotism,

and vigilante violence call into question many traditional American values

and suggest there is something fundamentally wrong with an economic

system that starves and oppresses its labour. At the same time, Steinbeck’s

portrayal of the questionable motives of Party members, alluding to the

Communist Party in America in the 1930s, leaves readers to ponder

whether any just solution to labour problems actually exists. Like later

more famous Steinbeck novels, In Dubious Battle dramatizes humanity’s

capacity for great moral fortitude and justice in addition to shameful and

selfish greed, suspicion, and violence.

174

In the novel Of Mice and Men Steinbeck voiced his deep sympathy

for the poor and the oppressed, especially the migrant workers. In this

novel he presents a majestic history through portraying believable

characters. Since his return to California in 1930’s, he learned to know the

poor, in particular the migrant farm-workers, American and Mexican, and

he wrote from their point of view. His subject is mainly concerned to draw

a true picture of these people.

Of Mice and Men is a novel set on a ranch in the Salinas valley in

California during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. It was the first work

to bring John Steinbeck national recognition as a writer. The title suggests

that the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, a reference to

Robert Burn’s poem “To a Mouse.” This is the poignant story of two

migrant workers trying to make their way through the aftermath of

drought and depression in 1930’s America. Caught in a world of grinding

work and little promise, George and Lennie are driven by a dream of one

day owning some land of their own. Lennie, though a big bulk of a man,

has a mental disability that renders him a child-like character with little

understanding of the world. George, as his guardian and companion,

delicately balances both responsibilities while maintaining a tenuous

connection between Lennie’s world and reality. John Steinbeck takes us

through the inevitable conflict between Lennie’s naiveté and the harsh,

175 unforgiving circumstances of the real world, to reveal some indelible

truths about friendship, survival and compassion.

As a self-declared “watchdog” of society, Steinbeck set out to

expose and chronicle the circumstances that cause human suffering.

Steinbeck seems to be saying that the loneliness is even worse than the

poverty. Here, Steinbeck relates that loneliness is responsible for much of

that suffering,

Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the

world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place ... With us

it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that

gives a damn about us. We don’t have to sit in no bar room blowin’

in our jack jus’ because we got no place else to go. If them other

guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not

us. (MM 15)

The other characters Candy, Crooks, and Curley’s wife all feels

their loneliness and disappointments in life. Human beings, the novel

suggests, are at their best when they have someone else to look to for

guidance and protection. George reminds Lennie that they are extremely

lucky to have each other since most men do not enjoy this comfort,

especially men like George and Lennie, who exist on the margins of

society. Their bond is made to seem especially rare and precious since the

majority of the world does not understand or appreciate it. The old black

176 stable-hand Crooks speaks these words to Lennie and admits to the very

loneliness. “I seen things out here. I wasn’t drunk. I don’t know if I was

asleep. If some guy was with me, he could tell me I was asleep, an’ then it

would be all right. But I jus’ don’t know” (72).

There is no place for the black in the society where racial

discrimination exists. The stableman Crooks not only suffers from poverty

and the lack of home as the other migrants, but also suffers from the lack

of companionship. He was a lonely black stable buck, so that wasn’t

treated as fairly as the other workers on the farm because he’s black. No

one slept in the same room with him and they only talked to him to tell

him to do something. This disconcert for his feelings as caused by the

colour of his skin. People who were black weren’t treated as fairly as

people of a lighter skin. There was no one of the ranch of same skin as he

was. He was left alone and no one else to talk to to him or help him with

his problems. So with no friends or anyone to talk to, he turned to books.

They were his only companion and they couldn’t talk back or help him

with anything. As a black man with a physical handicap, Crooks is forced

to live on the periphery of ranch life. He is not even allowed to enter the

white men’s bunkhouse, or join them in a game of cards. Crooks, who

lives in isolation in a room off of the barn, is unhappy and intensely

lonely. He asks Lennie, “S’pose you couldn’t go into the bunk house and

play rummy ‘cause you was black. How’d you like that? (72).

177

His resentment typically comes out through his bitter, caustic wit,

but in this passage he displays a sad, touching vulnerability. Crook’s

desire for a friend echoes George’s earlier description of the life of

a migrant worker. He is the loneliest person on the ranch envies George’s

good fortune at being able to share his life with Lennie, even though

Lennie is a half-wit. Yet in his heart, he is yearning for companionship,

for someone to talk to. As Crooks burst out that:

Suppose you had to sit out here and read books. Sure you could

play horse shoes till it got dark, but then you got to read books.

Books ain’t no good. A guy needs somebody — be near him.” He

whined, “a guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. Don’t make no

difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you. I tell ya”, ... I tell

ya a guy gets too lonely and he gets sick. (72)

Loneliness almost drives him mad. “People need people”-an old

saying, but one that still holds true today. Steinbeck stressed this theme

frequently in this novel. Everybody needs somebody; no one wasn’t to be

alone for ever. Curley’s wife is a good example for need of people. She

was always to walking around asking people “Have you guys seen

Curley?” (61) and when they said no, she would try to stay there and start

a conversation, but nobody would want to talk to her because she was the

boss’s son’s wife. So the eventual result was no one would talk to

Curley’s wife, leaving her alone with no friends. So she ended up being

178 mad at everyone and trying to get other people’s attention by flirting with

them, giving her a non-respectable society name. She is frail because of

the social prejudice towards women. She even has no name; she is always

mentioned as “Curly’s wife.” She is married to Curly by mistake. There is

no love to base their marriage at all. Curley does not respect her. He is

a domineering and brutal husband. She has no position either in her family

or in society. She is regarded as flirtatious by the ranchmen. But she is

never as ‘bad’ as they think. They object to her not because she is a tart,

but because she is a threat. She is overshadowed by her husband. She

really desires is to have someone to talk to and to be taken dancing

occasionally. When George calls her a tart, she replies, “I got nobody to

talk to. I got nobody to be with. Think I can just sit home and do nothing

but cook for Curley? I want to see somebody. Just see them an talk to

them” (49).

Through these lines Steinbeck portrays the social prejudice and

suffering caused by loneliness. The old man Candy and the black

stableman Crooks are all doomed to suffer because of the social system.

Even George, who, somewhat understands his environment but has no

way out, is doomed to destruction. He can no longer hold on to the dream

of buying a piece of land and there is no hope left to him. Just as he

predicts, he will grow old working for fifty dollars a month until,

someday, he will be too broken to work, and then, like Candy and the old

179 dog, he too will be “shot away.” Only the Curleys and the rich and brutal

are protected by that society. They will survive and prosper because they

are strong economically and politically in that society. He shows his

frustration to Candy: “I’ll work any month and then I’ll take my fifty

bucks. I’ll stay all night in some lousy cat -house or I’ll set in a pool room

until everybody goes home. And then I’ll have fifty bucks more” (93).

After Lennie kills Curly’s wife, and George kills Lennie for fear

that his friend would suffer more in Curly’s hands, George realizes that

the dream has indeed ended. The pattern of George’s character develops

downward from hope and optimism to despair, so is the fate of other

migrants. Just as Crooks said that the dream of getting a ranch is in the

minds of hundreds of migrants, but nobody ever gets it. Here Steinbeck

revealed the fact that the proletarians have no strong political power

because of their lower social and economic position; they are weak in

every aspect. Capitalists in the novel are strong, not because they are the

best, but only because of their superior economic position.

Steinbeck portrayed the migrant workers George and Lennie,

deprived of their land during the industrialization, just as the mice

deprived of their homes. They become the proletarian class whose labour

power the capitalists buy for profit, because the capitalist class owns those

means of production. They are heavily exploited by the capitalists,

because such kind of economic structure decides the situation in which

180 one class has power over the others. But this structure is either seen by

most members of society as natural or not seen at all. Therefore, although

George and Lennie are innocent and hard-working men, they still can’t

earn enough money to settle themselves down and enjoy the elementary

family life. Although they are real farmers whose life is closely attached

to the land, they don’t have a piece of land of their own. Whereas Curly,

who never works on the land, is the owner of the land. Lennie is a symbol

of the primeval and fundamentally innocent yearning for the earth that is

found in all men.

One of Steinbeck’s endearing thematic elements happens to be the

longing for a piece of land to exercise individual freedom and work

according to one’s own will and pleasure. The sense of possession

warranted by innate fulfilment and external advancement is an

inextricable living idiom on the part of human beings. Psychological

solace is the more essential attribute than physical pleasures. The writer

herein stakes the reverberating claim of getting identity as instrumental in

effecting better things. He, while representing in his writings the sense of

loss of identity gives vent to his ideas as to the claims of ‘owning’ for

one’s own benefit and betterment. Man’s longing for land and the dreary

shattering of this dream finds place in this novel through the

characterization of George and Lennie who work in a ranch with continual

displeasure but with the hope of owning a land from out of their savings.

181 When the dream is about to be flowered into a reality, Lennie kills

Curley’s wife in a fit of madness which collapses the entire schematic

endeavour.

Steinbeck at a different context remarked that Lennie represents the

inarticulate and powerful yearning of all men. The course of events in the

fiction unfolds the matter that it is beyond the possibility of men to get

access to full-fledged freedom and pleasure. One at this juncture is

reminded of critic Joseph Fontenrose’s words that “the individual’s desire

for carefree enjoyment of pleasures is the serpent in the garden” (59). The

Edenic set up envisaged in the guise of acquiring a land, living with

reasonable affluence, soul stirring and un hampering independence,

cordial fellowship etc., which have suddenly become an unrealizable

possibility.

From the very beginning, it is evident that the capitalist world is

very cruel to poor migrant workers, especially to characters like Lennie

and Candy. In the beginning of the story, Lennie carries a dead mouse in

his jacket pocket. When George asks what he wants with a dead mouse,

Lennie replies that he only wants to pet it with his thumb as they walk.

The mouse symbolizes the theme of innocence and frailty destroyed that

pervades the novel. When Candy’s dog is shot by Carlson, he begins to

realize his own situation. He is as old as the dog and useless for the boss

now. His fate may be even worse than the dog’s. He has to be left alone in

182 this world to suffer from old age, poverty and loneliness. He offers his

money paid by the boss when he lost his hand on the ranch to George and

Lennie only if they could bring him to live with them when they get

a ranch. He says miserably:

You seen what they come to my dog tonight? They says he wasn’t

no good to himself nor nobody else. When they can me here I wish

somebody’s shoot me. But they won’ do nothing like that. I won’t

have no place to go, an’ I can’t get no more jobs. (MM 58)

His last hope is to form a bond of comradeship with George and

Lennie when they buy the farm, a hope that is shattered by Lennie’s death.

The old dog vividly symbolizes the situation of the frail and the old.

Neither of them can survive in this cruel society. When Carlson leads the

old dog out and shoots him in the back of the head with the luger that

George will later use to shoot Lennie, and like the dog Lennie is also shot

with the same pistol in the back of the head, the motif of the destruction of

the innocent, the frail and the old is repeated and creates a shocking effect

in reader’s hearts. Here Steinbeck brings out the fact that, there is simply

no place for these lower classes, non-self-sufficient people in this man-

eating-man society.

The protest against the psychological serfdom also gets manifested

by Steinbeck through his characters. When George and Lennie arrive at

the bunkhouse, the difficulties of the lives they lead become starkly

183 apparent. There are few comforts in their quarters; the men sleep on rough

burlap mattresses and do not own anything that cannot fit into an apple

box. George’s fear that lice and roaches infest his bunk furthers the image

of the struggles of such a life. This section also immediately and painfully

establishes the cruel, predatory nature of the world. Carlson’s belief that

Candy should replace his old dog with a healthy newborn puppy signals

a world in which the lives of the weak and debilitated are considered

unworthy of protection or preservation. The ranch-hands’ world has

limited resources, and only the strongest will survive. As Slim, who

voluntarily drowns four of his dog’s nine puppies, makes clear, there is

little room or tolerance for the weak, especially when resources are

limited.

Throughout the course of the novel, nearly all of the characters will

confront this grim reality. Not only does the ranch represent a society that

does not consider the welfare of its weaker members, but it also stands as

one in which those who hold power wield it irresponsibly. Curley

represents the vicious and belligerent way in which social power tends to

manifest itself. Curley serves as a natural foil-a character whose emotions

or actions contrast with those of other characters. Curley’s strength, on the

other hand, depends upon his ability to dominate and defeat those weaker

than him. Steinbeck, therefore was lauded as having a rare quality of

mercy in depiction of the small man. The verbal outlet of Crooks unfolds

184 the bare reality connected with human aspirations such as, “… an every

damn one of em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never God

damn one of’ em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Everybody wants a little

piece of lan” (MM 73).

Crooks does not nurture any brooding over in the matter of

acquiring a piece of land. He is confirmed of the bitter truth which gets

revealed in the wordings, “Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets

no land. It’s just in their head. They’re all the time talkin’ about it, but it’s

just in their head” (73).

Being all about the farm labourers the novel Of Mice and Men

stands in between the other novels In Dubious Battle and the The Grapes

of Wrath, in its vehement portrayal of human aspirations, sufferings,

struggles, and above all protesting streaks. Susan Shillinglaw has pointed

out in glowing terms that the

Impact of Of Mice and Men is remarkable in the history of

American letters for its success as a book, a play and a film ... for

its direct force and perception in handling a theme genuinely rooted

in American life; for its bite into the strict quality of the materials;

for its refusal to make this study of tragical loneliness and

frustration not either cheap or sensational; and finally for its

simple, intense and steadily rising effect on the stage.

(“Introduction” xxvi)

185

The Nobel Citation lauded Steinbeck for his position as an

independent expounder of the truth with an unbiased instinct for what is

genuine. Further Steinbeck’s greatness as a writer lies in his empathy for

common people – their loneliness, joy, anger, and strength, their

connection to places and their craving for land. His sympathy towards the

poor finds expressions in words charged with wrath and at times the very

portrayal of men and matters in his fiction vouchsafes this vividly.

This portrayal of protest ranges from an individual’s explosion of

anger to that of collective outlet of a group. This is a novel of defeated

hope and the harsh reality of the American Dream. George and Lennie are

poor homeless migrant workers, doomed to a life of wandering and toil in

which they are never able to reap the fruits of their labour. Their desires

may not seem so unfamiliar to any other American: a place of their own,

the opportunity to work for themselves and harvest what they sew with no

one to take anything from them or give them orders.

All the characters wish to change their lives in some fashion, but

none are capable of doing so; they all have dreams, and it is only the

dream that varies from person to person. Curley’s wife has already had her

dream of being an actress pass her by and now must live a life of empty

hope. Crook’s situation hints at a much deeper oppression than that of the

white worker in America-the oppression of the black people. Through

Crooks, Steinbeck exposes the bitterness, the anger, and the helplessness

186 of the black American who struggles to be recognized as a human being,

let alone have a place of his own. Crook’s hopelessness underlies that of

George’s and Lennie’s and Candy’s and Curleys wife’s. But all share the

despair of wanting to change the way they live and attain something

better. Even Slim, despite his Zen-like wisdom and confidence, has

nothing to call his own and will, by every indication, remain a migrant

worker until his death. Slim differs from the others in the fact that he does

not seem to want something outside of what he has. He is not beaten by

a dream. He has not laid any schemes. Slim seems to have somehow

reached the sad conclusion indicated by the novel’s title, that to dream

leads to despair.

Steinbeck’s scathing verbal attack did not spare the colour and

racial prejudices prevailing in the American society of his times. He raises

his penchant remarks against the ill treatment of the Negroes in this

fiction. Crooks the Negro is subjected to tyrannical treatment at the hands

of the whites for not the fault of his own. Pursuit of material comforts

deprives the white race of fundamental human concern and precious

values in life. The Negroes are driven to the extent of living in isolation

and leading a life of poverty, loneliness and discomfort and they were all

held under prejudice. The delineation of the author’s protest against such

evils is identified in a clear manner in this novel.

187

Nearly all of the characters in Of Mice and Men are disempowered

in some way. Whether because of a physical or mental handicap, age,

class, race, or gender, almost everyone finds him - or herself outside the

structures of social power, and each suffers greatly as a result. Inflexible

rules dictate that old men are sent away from the ranch when they are no

longer useful and black workers are refused entrance to the bunkhouse.

While the world Steinbeck described in the novel offers no protection for

the suffering, there are small comforts. Lennie and George’s story is one

such reprieve. The power of their vision of a simple life on an idyllic little

farm rests in its ability to soothe the afflicted.

A scintillating verbal rendering concerned with the relationship of

man to his piece of land occurs in his novel The Grapes of Wrath. In it

Steinbeck gives a fair play to his inner voice which speaks for itself

unvarnished truth applicable to humanity in general, transcending the

ethnic or national barriers. The pith of the expression is meant to instruct

one that machines are useful but they lack life and warmth. Man’s linkage

with his land is emotionally intimate which beggar’s description. This

conjures up the Biblical saying “From Dust thou art made, to dust thou

returned!” The description by Steinbeck furnished below in this regard is

noteworthy;

For nitrates are not the land; nor phosphates and the length of fibre

in the colon is not the land. Carbon is not a man, nor salt, nor water

188

nor calcium. He is all these but he is much more, much more and

the land is so much more than its analysis. The man who is more

than his chemistry, walking on the earth, tarnishing his handles to

slide over an outcropping, kneeling in the earth to eat his lunch;

that man who is more than his elements knows the land and is more

than its analysis. But the machine man driving a dead tractor on

land does not know and love, understands only chemistry and he is

contemptuous of the land of himself. (GW 34-35)

The back drop for The Grapes of Wrath is the tale of how “farming

became industry” (298) and farm families were driven from the land as

the dust storms of the 1930’s added to the suffocating pressures of the

depression. These uprooted farmers set out to seek greener pastures, and

found them in California, only to discover they were not welcome. The

Joad family is the means Steinbeck uses to convey the horror of these

events, and the atrocities committed in the name of the bottom line. Mimi

Gladstien says, “the Joads gain much of their literary cachet from the

similarities of the problems suffered by immigrants everywhere. The

experience is universal” (134), and this is the effect Steinbeck was hoping

for. This novel was not simply about the Okie migration, but about the

treatment of one group of humans by another. Perhaps this is why

Steinbeck created and almost entirely white cast for his novel.

189

This is a novel that Steinbeck intended as something pointedly

concerned with itinerant farm workers. This novel was designed from the

onset to be a social commentary, meant to convey Steinbeck’s own moral

and political philosophy to the reader. Steinbeck felt passionately about

this novel because he was concerned about the itinerant workers suffering

all over California, while the creation of this text also gave him an

opportunity to further expound upon his own leftist beliefs and the nature

of the phalanx. Perhaps the amount of passion that went into the crafting

of this particular novel is the reason Joseph Warren Beach said, “The

Grapes of Wrath is probably the finest example produced in the United

States of what in the thirties was called the proletarian novel” (250).

Exploitation had its demoniac hands to play with the lives of

ordinary people who are consequently driven to the extreme limits of

starvation in addition to deprivation of other fundamental necessities in

life. Hunger is the mother of anger against the cruel haves. This novel is

a veritable document of the migrants’ agonizing experiences. Steinbeck

has given untarnished and at the same time turbulent portrayal of the

toiling labourers who raise their hunger stricken angry voices against the

owner men in such verbal outlet as: “what do you want us to do? We can’t

take less share of the crop-We’re half-starved now. The kids are hungry

all the time, we got no clothes torn an’ ragged” (GW 36).

190

The squatting men have reached a stage from which no sign of

relief is speculated. They enter into heated argument with the truck driver

who is carried away by the interest of safeguarding himself and his family

for a meagre wage of three dollars a day at the expense of the livelihood

of thousands of tenant men. The outburst of a tenant man at this juncture

brings out the bitter truth in this regard.

Three dollars a day, and it comes every day. But for your three

dollars a day, fifteen or twenty families can’t eat at all. Nearly

a hundred people have to go out and wander on the roads for your

three dollars a day! Is that right? (39)

The intense anger and the protesting angst of the tenants are

brought out decidedly in a realistic and vehement verbal portrayal by

Steinbeck. In fact, the retaliatory thinking of the tenant men forced them

to go to any extreme level of explosion either oral or functional. “But

where does it stop? Who can we shoot? I don’t aim to starve to death

before I kill the man that is starving me” (41).

The conversation taking place between the owner men and the

tenant men conduces better to vouchsafe the bitterness perpetrated by

fiscal personages and the emotional attachments of the tenants to their

own lands inseparable from their blood and being. It was not easy to

persuade the determined farmers who believed in their natural rights to

own that land. It is appeared clearly in the farmer’s response after the

191 bank’s envoys had explained their orders were to clear up the land or lose

their jobs. They were also calling the farmers to go on relief or to go to

California. The farmers answered:

… but it is our land. We measured it and broke it up. We were born

on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. …That's what makes it

ours-being born on it, working it, dying on it. That makes

ownership, not a paper with numbers on it. (35)

This passage conveys Steinbeck’s opinion about the issue of

ownership. He wants to make the reader realize the absurdity of chasing

people from where they have been for generations. A bank or a company

breathe profits. They eat the interest on money. This prefiguring leads

towards the direction in which the courses of the events take place in the

novel. The owner men explained very arrogantly to their victims that the

bank’s ‘life’ was of more worth than the farmer’s. They said:

Those creatures (banks and companies) don’t breathe air, don’t eat

side-meat. They breathe profits; they eat interest on money. If they

don’t get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-

meat. It is a sad thing, but it is so. It is just so. (37)

They were aware that they were depriving poor men of their only

source of food, which means that they were willingly and knowingly

pushing them to death to save their banks. Therefore, one may conclude

that John Steinbeck intended to show that owners’ salvation resided in

192 farmer’s starvation. Very unfortunately, the dispossessed farmers who

were promised a paradise in California, found rather a ‘hell’ where banks

and cruel owners were masters. Moreover, deeply hurt by those

capitalistic and sadistic practices of the banks, Steinbeck found no other

means to attack them, but with his pen.

The farms were not the only things to change though, as the men

were forced to change as well, not only the men that were forced to leave,

but the men that stayed behind. Steinbeck writes, “The man sitting in the

iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over

nose and mouth, he was part of the monster, a robot in the seat” (37).

These were the men that surrendered to capitalism at the price of

their humanity in Steinbeck’s depiction. The tractors are invaded the land.

The farms became nothing more than, “A tractor and a superintendent.

Like factories” (42). The sound and fury of the protesting temperament

take the right turn and purpose in the concerned retortion put forth by the

tenant man who cried,

I built it (my house) with my hands. Straightened old nails to put

the sheathing on. Rafters are wired to the stringers with baling

wire. It’s mine. I built it. You bump it down-I’ll be in the window

with a rifle. You even come too close and I’ll pot you like

a rabbit. (40)

193

After a tractor driver had told a certain Joe David to leave his house

before it collapsed on him, the man responded above like that. Money

corrupted and enslaved the tractor drivers who zealously started their

gruesome job, claiming to execute their masters’ orders. As Steinbeck

wrote about one driver, “(money) had somehow got into the driver's

hands, into his brain and muscle, had goggled him and muzzled him-

goggled his mind, muzzled his speech …” (37).

When the driver argued that he was just a slave to the ‘monster’,

the man realized that the driver was not the right person to be killed. Then

he changed his mind and said: “Well, there is a president of the bank.

There is a board of directors. I’ll fill up the magazine of the rifle and go

into the bank … We’ve got a bad thing made by men… that’s something

we can change” (40).

The last sentence of the above quotation is, doubtless, Steinbeck’s

own conclusion. It shows Steinbeck’s protest and radical temperament. In

this case the landowner is a bank, and Steinbeck says, “The bank is

something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but

they can’t control it” (36). Steinbeck makes his attack on landowners

personal through the voice of Preacher Casy, who says, “If he needs

a million acres to make him feel rich, seems to me he needs it, cause he

feel awful poor inside his self” (266). Casy is speaking of the landowners

194 in California rather than the bank in Oklahoma, but the principle remains

the same because they are both wildly abusing the farm workers.

People were massively continued to flow into Californian farms for

their survival. The itinerant farm worker is a perfect model to illustrate the

dehumanization of the proletariat as they are forced to live along the side

of the road and to fend for themselves like wild animals. Steinbeck

described this situation as:

Three hundred thousand in California and more coming. And in

California the roads were full of frantic people running like ants to

pull, to push, to lift, to work. For every man-load to lift, five pairs

of arms extended to lift it; for every stomachful of food available,

five mouths. (252)

The Californian owners, who were presumably in league with their

Oklahoman counterparts, welcomed the “okies” with much hatred.

Practically they had nothing to pay for food. Therefore, Californian shop

owners and bankers had nothing to gain from them. For that reason, they

hated them. Steinbeck writes,

The town men, little bankers hated okies because there was nothing

to gain from them. They had nothing and the labouring people

hated okies because a hungry man must work, and if he must work,

if he has to work, the wage payer automatically gives him less for

his work, and then no one can get more. (248)

195

Californians were become a champion of unfair practices. They

were worse because the ‘okies’ were either to work under difficult

conditions or to starve. Such conditions resulted from a situation where

there were two separate classes: The first comprised the powerful owners

who dominated and the second one the powerless and poor people who

were dominated and exploited. In California, the owners were pushed the

migrants to work for very low wages. Beside the very low wages, the

owners always tried to gain as much as possible without giving, or giving

as little as possible. Furthermore, the scales in cotton farms were most of

the time crooked to the workers’ detriment. About the scale man, one

worker shouted: “His scales is fixed … the scales is crooked” (431). Not

only were the scales crooked, but also the marking of the weight was

unfair. At the same time the Joads came to that farm, attracted by

comparatively high wages. To warn Tom against the farm owners’

trickery, Casy said:

we came to work there. They says it’s gonna be fi’ cents. They was

a hell of a lot of us. We got there an’ they says they’re payin’ two

an’ a half cents. A fella can’t even eat on that, an’ if he got kids-So

we says we won’t take it. (405)

After a certain time, the “okies” became more vigilant. They could

no longer allow themselves to be seduced by the owners’ sweet tongue.

196 Some would require guarantees before taking the way to the farm. Floyd

said:

I’ll go, mister. You’re a contractor, an’ you got a licence. You jus’

show your licence, an’ then you give us an order to go to work, an’

where, an’ when, an’ how much we’ll get, an’ you sign that, an’

we’ll all go. (278)

The only response of the indignant man was that he had to run his

business his own way, meaning respecting no rule but making profit at all

costs. The above reminds the reader of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men

where the first rule on the ranch was to keep silent in front of injustices.

On their arrival, George and Lennie were told: “A guy on a ranch don’t

never listen nor he don’t ask no question” (MM 26). In The Grapes of

Wrath the owner men fix low salaries to the workers and to impose on

them what to buy, where, when and how much to buy it for. The same

situation had been alluded to in Of Mice and Men, where Steinbeck

pointed out the ranch workers' situation. Their low wages were justified

by their free lodging and food. The one to draw profit from it was the

ranch owner. Complaining about that situation, George-one of the

workers-said:

“An’ I ain’t so bright neither, or I wouldn’t be buckin’ barley for

my fifty and found” (GW 40). All the above unfair practices led John

Steinbeck to declare angrily on the Voice of America in 1952: “I was

197 filled … with certain angers … at people who were doing injustices to

other people” (DeMott xxxiv).

Throughout The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck portrayed the

police as being a very negative institution. The policemen appear not as

a security men and help to people, but as arrogant and sadistic trouble

makers. This was summed up by Casy’s statement when he told Tom:

“I tol’ you-Cops cause more trouble than they stop” (GW 229). The above

attitude doubtlessly confirms that police were corrupted by the owners

who used them to achieve their egoistic goals. All those who tried in any

way, to protest or to argue against policemen were either beaten or jailed.

In emphasizing democracy in the camps, Steinbeck intended to

ridicule the unfair, unjust and irresponsible system that prevailed outside

them. The camps were depicted as an oasis of democracy in a desert of

brutality and greed. The following excerpt from the dialog between Tom

and a government camp watchman clearly revealed the democratic

character of those camps. The watchman said:

Works pretty nice. There’s five sanitary units. Each one elects

a central committee man. Now that committee makes laws. What

they say goes.-S’pose they get tough … well you can vote’em out

just’ as quick as you vote’em in. (304)

More interestingly, the squatters of the government camp used to

laugh at their fellows in other camps who looked out only for themselves,

198 while in the government camps they used to take care of their hungry

fellows. To any attempt at revolt, the owners would respond with brutal

repression combined with the divide-and-rule policy. Despite that, some

“okies” kept believing that strikes, revolts or even armed rebellion would

be the best solution. One evening, an excited man told his fellows:

“Whyn’ t twenty of us take a piece of lan’ ? We got guns. Take it an’say:

‘put us off if you can’. Whyn’t we do that?’(250). The most serious revolt

in The Grapes of Wrath was certainly the one led by Jim Casy over very

low salaries. After explaining to Tom the causes of the strike, Casy told

him how it was brutally crushed: “We tried to camp together, an’ they

druv us like pigs. Scattered us. Beat the hell outa fellas. Druv us like pigs

… We can’t las’ much longer. Some people ain’ t et for two days” (405).

That revolt led to the tragic death of its leader and to the serious

injury of Tom who, nevertheless, had refused to join the movement. The

death or injury of strikers-referred to as vagrants by the owners-was seen

as a positive thing. If all the vagrants could be killed, there would be no

trouble any more. As one of the okies explained, a vagrant was “anybody

a cop don’t like” (353).

The owners kept lowering the wages, yet there were always people

ready to work for the proposed salaries. The principle was that the

hungriest ones, who were the ones to be ready to work for the lowest

wages, were the ones to be hired. This created many divisions among the

199 labourers who obviously had not discovered the owners’ trap. Steinbeck

described this trap through a young okie’s reflection to Tom:

S’pose you got a job a work, an’ there’s jus’ one fella wants the

job. You got pay ‘im what he asts… S’pose they a hundred men

wants that job. S’ pose them men got kids, an’ them kids is

hungry…S’ pose a nickel’ll buy at leas’ some pin for them kids.

An ‘you got a hundred men. Jus’ offer' em a nickel-why, they’ll kill

each other fightin’ for that nickel. (260)

The owners set up the trap and pushed the labourers to play the game

themselves. Among the ‘okies’, the problem was no longer the owners or

police harassment, but their own fellow okies massively flocking into the

farms and causing pay cuts. The new situation was to the owners’

advantage, for the low wages were not proposed by the owners any more,

but by the ‘okies’ themselves. That situation was summed up as follows:

“When there was work for a man, ten men fought for it-fought with a low

wage. If that fella’ll work for thirty cents, I’ll work for twenty-five” (300).

Such workers were warmly welcomed and congratulated by their bosses

who never lounged around.

As Steinbeck’s stories are of people and places they bring out his

secrecy of identifying himself with the thoughts and actions of the people

especially at times of crisis. His novels do not misrepresent the problems

confronted with by the masses because as Steinbeck once remarked it was

200 the duty of a writer to lift up. In commensurate with his pronouncement he

declared that all his work was meant to help people understand one

another (Fontenrose 141). The novels of Steinbeck speak on behalf of the

humanity in general though they have their stand point at some particular

regions and specific ethnic populace. The harvesters of California crops

were no longer Mexicans and Orientals; now most of them were Okies

and Arkies, families that had been evicted from their farms in Oklahoma,

Arkansas, Kansas and Texas, and neighbouring states. To whatever States

they belong, in Steinbeck’s views, weal equally shares the burden of life.

In his novel To a God Unknown the story of California’s farmers struggle

is narrated with a view to build an enduring family community in

a treacherous land, universalizing that struggle as man’s relation to the

Universe.

Instead of indulging in ideological accusation Steinbeck attempted

to delve deep into the human problems both arising out of natural and

man-made havocs, so as to bring forth to the limelight the dimensional

causes and effects in an undaunted manner. He was clear in his perception

and therefore was not confronted with any inhibition to give exposure to

his thoughts and feelings which he felt genuine. In a letter to his friend

Pascal Covici, he informed that “I tried to write this book the way lives

are being lived and not the way books are written” (Steinbeck and

Wallsten ed. 178). Similarly he wrote to Elizabeth Otis in 19 March 1937

201 that “I’ve broken every literary rule when I wanted to, I am not

confirming to some literary model now” (Steinbeck and Wallsten ed.

137).

The Californian farm owners united their forces to impose actions

to be taken and respected in all the farms. Cutting wages was among their

decisions as it appears in The Grapes of Wrath, when a certain Thomas

reduced his worker’s pay from thirty cents an hour to twenty five cents.

He told his workers that it was imposed by the Farmer’s Association. He

said:

Did you ever hear of the Farmers’ Association? … well, I belong to

it. We had a meeting last night. Now do you know who runs the

Farmers ‘Association? I’ll tell you. The Bank of the West … So

last night the member from the bank told me, he said: “you’re

paying thirty cents an hour. You’d better cut it down to twenty-five

… the wage is twenty-five now. (GW 31)

He proved that in a capitalistic society, money calls money, that much

money calls much money, generally to the detriment of poor people.

Through this delineation Steinbeck portrayed that the rich men of

California would exploit their poor compatriots who expected from them

salaries equal to their work.

That the poor becoming poorer and the rich becoming richer is the

code of economics in a society which is terribly lacking in basic ideology

202 and up righteous ethos. The very administrative functioning is based on

unfair political set up would fall short of the expectation for finding

justifiable solutions to the prevailing problems related to the oppressed.

The bureaucratic fiscal structure would prove to be ineffective and

inhuman when the machinery of the system of production, distribution

and consumption does not serve in the larger interest of the society

especially for the benefit of the labouring class which is the backbone of

the social and economic mobilization and strength. It is common

knowledge that poverty anywhere is a threat to prosperity everywhere.

Working hands should not be robbed of their strength and sinews by the

sharp points of selfishness. Undue accumulation of wealth by admitting

the common people to wallow in utter poverty is unfair on the part of the

capitalists.

In his introduction to The Grapes of Wrath Robert DeMott remarks

that “Steinbeck’s direct involvement with the plight of American’s Dust

Bowl migrants in the latter half of the 1930s created his obsessive urge to

tell their story honestly but also movingly” (“Introduction” xiii). Before

the novel The Grapes of Wrath got printed, the author had a premonition

that the novel would be attacked because of its being revolutionary. His

prediction did not go wrong. So much of opposition went along with the

popularity of the novel. Critics’ attacked it for its moral, filthy wordings

and complained about the bedraggled, bestial characters. But Joseph

203 Warren French declared that “The Grapes of Wrath was the finest

example produced in the United States of what in the thirties was called

the proletarian novel.” He further added that “social problems in the novel

are effectively dramatized in individual situations and characters” (qtd. in

Owens 11-12). Steinbeck had strong belief both in individual and the

movement. At the same time he was well aware of the strength and

limitations of them. He even believed that when acting as a group, men do

not partake of their ordinary natures at all. The group can change its

nature. It can alter the birth rate, diminish the number of its units, control

states of mind, alter appearance, physically and spiritually (Steinbeck and

Wallsten ed. 75).

That the roots of social protest are best discernible in the very style

of narration by the author in dealing with the events in realistic terms and

suffused with emotional outpourings and symbolic usage as witnessed in

such lines:

The ragged man had children that died because wages were too low

and work was too scarce to offer food for his children and wife. His

story was one of pain and despair and was evidence of the cruel

and inhuman treatment. (GW 363)

No other portrayal of the sufferings of the poor people will be more

impressive and faithful than the one referred to above. The streaks of the

protesting voices and the consequent translation of them into virtual action

204 are to be identified in such pathetic renderings. As Louis Owens points

out that

The Grapes of Wrath created uproar of controversy and was one of

the banned books of his times because of Steinbeck’s socialist

sympathies. In spite of it the novel remains one of the studied

works of social protest fiction of the twentieth century. (13)

In The Pearl Steinbeck juxtaposes the two classes of society; the

capitalists and the proletariat which are in sharp contrast to each other in

the novel. The mythical theme of all Steinbeck novels is that man should

reject his material pursuits by exploiting nature which would result in

acute and accentuated suffering; but this suffering purifies his soul, cures

him to the level of God-like nature helping him gain a cosmic vision from

a confounded selfishness. The myth in The Pearl is the displacement of

the man. That man could make up the yawning gap between him and

nature by giving up his self-centeredness, and his anthropomorphic

attitude. Man’s selfishness limits his understanding. His materialism

reduces nature to a resource to his well-being as merchandise. Greater

wisdom prevails when man shuns the materialistic benefits and surrenders

to the call of nature by casting away and become isomorphic. The pearl

possessing evil brought in troubles and tribulations. Dispossession of the

pearl brought in greater understanding of the world. The Journey of Kino

in The Pearl ends with the experience of the death of his son which brings

205 a profound change, a new vision, and transcendence in the face of defeat.

Due to the loss of innocence after eating the forbidden fruit, Kino and

Juana are expelled from the paradise. Their experience of oppression and

burdens in the civilized world makes them return to paradise, if not with

their original innocence. This symbolizes their return to animal life, to

a state of perfect harmony and identity with cosmos.

Kino, a pearl diver, lives with his wife Juana and his first born son

Coyotito in a Mexican coastal village. He leads a harmonious and

peaceful life there but is enticed by the lust for materialistic life when he

discovers a priceless pearl in the sea which he retrieves for giving as a fee

for the treatment for scorpions bite. But the pearl instead of bringing

pleasures of life entangles him in a series of woes and sufferings which

culminates in the death of his son. In his jealousy to save the pearl of the

world he loses the priceless pearl of his family. He comes back to his

village after throwing away the pearl into the sea, which naturally gives

mental peace and solace. Kino, however, rejects the pearl of salvation and

returns to the familiar and comfortable poverty. Conflicts as we see in The

Pearl between the-haves and the-have-nots obsessed the minds of all

philosophers, especially of Marxist bent of mind, from Plato down to

Lenin. The crux of the novel is the proletariat‘s short term glory and its

decay at the hands of aristocracy.

206

The characters of the novel strictly comprises of two groups that is

Bourgeoisie or the-haves and the Proletariat or the have-nots. The

darkness of the capitalist system and Kino‘s resistance is presented by

Steinbeck from the start of the novel. After the prologue, the opening of

the novel records, “Kino awakened in the near dark” which implies that

the protagonist is the inhabitant of the man-created darkness and he will

have to fight against this darkness. When he opens his eyes, first of all he

saw “the lightening square which was the door” (P 1), which manifests

that the protagonist is not a blind person but is conscious to his

exploitation. Moreover, his looks for light indicate that he will try to

liberate himself from all kinds of darkness.

Kino‘s looking towards the door also implies that he will continue

his efforts to get rid of various bondages and restrictions imposed upon

him by various persons and institutions of his own society. Kino belongs

to the exploited strata of the society. He is a representative of the have-

nots. In the very first chapter, the author juxtaposes the living conditions

of both the haves and the have-nots which prove that the haves ‘exploit

the have-nots for their mortal pleasures. Kino lives in a small “brush

house” while the doctor and other aristocrats or members of the

bourgeoisie reside in city. They are living in:

the city of stone and plaster …, the city of harsh outer walls and

inner cool gardens where a little water played and the bougainvillea

207

crusted the walls with purple and brick-red and white. They heard

from the secret gardens the singing of caged birds and heard the

splash of cooling water on hot flag stones. (9-10)

The “caged birds” in the doctor‘s house suggest that the aristocrats

of Kino‘s society not only maltreat their fellows, but they also imprison

the innocent creatures of the nature which they use for the decoration and

self-pleasure. Further it also suggests that the aristocrats are getting

pleasure out of others ‘pains. Moreover, the cage is a mini-prison cell.

Prisons are used, rather misused, for the confinement of men, while cages

are used for the confinement of birds. Both are misused for the same

purposes and the persons or institutions who use such things consider

themselves authoritative. In the case of human beings, such institutions

like prisons are used to impose various restrictions on them by the persons

who are controlling the economy. Steinbeck portrays the pigs as “… the

early pigs were already beginning their ceaseless turning of twigs and bits

of wood to see whether anything to eat had been overlooked” (1).

It seems that pigs are entirely dependent upon the inmates, while

the inmates do not give any attention to the wretched conditions of those

pigs that are starving from hunger. Further Steinbeck writes:

The ants were busy on the ground, big black ones with shiny

bodies, and little dusty quick ants. Kino watched with the

detachment of god while a dusty ant frantically tried to escape the

208

sand trap, an ant lion had dug for him. A thin, timid dog came

close … (3)

The ants are considered as the meek and hard working creature of

earth. In society we usually associate hard working poor people with ants.

It is said “O ant”, while addressing a poor man it does not matter how

much you work hard, your ultimate result will be the same hard work in

dust. So the ant symbolizes Kino and his race with their wretched

condition like ants. The trap of the lion ant symbolizes the exploitation of

poor by the capitalists. Moreover we can observe that most of the beings

in the novel are pining after the basic necessities of life. The living

conditions of Kino and his race are not much different from these ants.

The wretched conditions of the pigs and their “ceaseless turning of twigs

and bits of wood to see whether anything to eat”, the ants who “frantically

tried to escape the sand trap”, and the “thin, timid dog”, all these things

anticipate the high-handedness of the opposing forces of the society. It

indicates that the society of The Pearl is economically deprived and its

inmates are the victims of exploitations. Moreover, most of the animals of

the locality, mentioned by Steinbeck in the text, are engaged in an

undeclared war against each other: apart from the ants and the ant lions,

Steinbeck further writes: “Near the brush fence two roosters bowed and

feinted at each other with squared wings and neck feathers ruffed out. It

would be a clumsy fight” (4).

209

Through the wretched condition of the animals of the locality the

novelist exemplify the worst condition of Kino‘s race. In the beginning of

chapter two we see “… on the beach the hungry dogs and the hungry pigs

of the town searched endlessly for any dead fish or sea bird that might

have floated in on a rising tide” (15).

Signify the miserable condition of the animals of the locality. The

animals depend on the wasted materials on the beach. In the same way

Kino‘s race are marginalized to the beach of the sea and only depended on

the sea food like fish or its clumsy pearls. They are silenced by aristocracy

of La Paz to use the remaining of the upper class. The gap between the

two classes of society becomes more evident when Kino‘s son Coyotito is

stung by a scorpion and Juana asks for the services of the doctor of the

locality. It was:

A wonderful thing, a memorable thing, to want the doctor. To get

him would be a remarkable thing. The doctor never came to the

cluster of brush houses. Why should he, when he had more than he

could do to take care of the rich people who lived in the stone and

plaster houses of the town? (8)

Thus, we can observe that The Pearl is set in and around La Paz,

Mexico, a coastal town marked by economic, social, and racial divisions

resulting from colonial domination of the local native population. In other

words Kino‘s people are colonized within a state. In the very first chapter

210 of the novel, the novelist juxtaposes: the dominant and the dominated; the

oppressor and the oppressed; the haves and the have-nots. Domination of

one class by another is the key note of the text. The whole novel portrays

the domination and the resultant exploitation of one class by another.

Steinbeck has depicted Kino and his family realistically. He has

duly emphasized their wretched economic condition of Kino. When Kino

awake, get up and go to the fire-place for his break-fast, he

squatted by the fire pit and rolled a hot corn-cake and dipped it in

sauce and ate it. And he drank a little plaque and that was break-

fast. That was the only break-fast he had ever known outside of

feast days. (4)

At another place Steinbeck portrays the economic situation of the family

in these words:

And the newcomers, particularly the beggars from the front of the

church who were great experts in financial analysis, looked quickly

at Juana‘s old blue skirt, saw the tears in her shawl, appraised the

green ribbon on her braids, read the age of Kino‘s blanket and the

thousand washings of his clothes, and set them down as poverty

people … (10)

When Kino and Juana, along with the neighbours, went to “the city

of stone and plaster” to get the services of the doctor for the treatment of

their little Coyotito, most of the neighbours were keen to know “what the

211 fat lazy doctor would do about an indigent baby with a scorpion bite”

(11). Thus, Steinbeck has amply clarified the poverty-stricken situation of

all the three members of the family in a pathetic and heart-rending way.

Kino, his wife Juana, Juan Tomas, Apolonia and their neighbours living in

the brush houses are the characters who represent one class of the society:

the oppressed, the exploited, the victims. In Marxist theory, they are

known as workers or proletariat. All these are the dire consequences of the

nineteenth century industrialism and the resultant capitalism. Thus,

chapter one is a background to the forthcoming friction between Kino as

protagonist on one side, while the opposing forces of the society as

antagonist on the other side. The society has been segregated on economic

bases.

The finding of the great pearl aroused strange sensation in all

people of La Paz and they start scheming how to get profit out of the

pearl. They started taking interest in Kino. Everyone tries to associate

oneself with the business of the pearl. The priest of the church is the first

who come to know about the pearl. He starts day-dreaming about the alms

that Kino may give to the church. Shopkeepers sitting in their shops

examine the clothes with the prospect that Kino may buy clothes out of

the pearl money. The doctor who had refused to treat Kino‘s son claims

that Kino is his client and he is treating Kino‘s son for scorpion bite. The

doctor recalls his luxuriant life in the Paris. All this happened as a result

212 of the pearl which manifests wealth and money. These people thought in

terms of exploitation of Kino. The priest, shopkeepers and the doctor who

are from the bourgeoisie class want to snatch back the pearl or its money

out of Kino‘s hand which nature has bestowed upon Kino. Accordingly,

the local priest begins to take special interest in Kino. He visited Kino that

night. Steinbeck writes:“The priest came in-a graying, ageing man with an

old skin and a young sharp eye. Children he considered these people”

(31). It indicates the hypocrisy of the clergy. The parasites of the

Proletariats are not far than the bourgeoisie in the exploitation of the poor

people. The beggars sitting in front of the church are motivated by the

news of the pearl and hope of alms. They celebrate their happiness when:

“The news came early to the beggars in front of the church, and it made

them giggle a little with pleasure, for they knew that there is no alms-giver

in the world like a poor man who is suddenly lucky” (25).

The next group of parasites is that of pearl buyers who used to buy

pearls from the poor fishermen. “There were only one (pearl buyer), and

he kept these agents in separate offices to give a semblance of

competition” (25-26). The pearl buyer used to exploit the poor fishermen

for their owner to gain their commission out of the profit: “They waited in

their chairs until the pearls came in and then they cackled and fought and

shouted and threatened until they reached the lowest price the fisher man

would stand” (25).

213

When Kino went to sell his pearl in the nearby market, Steinbeck

sketches secret practice of the pearl-dealers in these words: “The news of

the approach of the procession ran ahead of it, and in their little dark

offices the pearl buyers stiffened and grew alert” (47).

Kino‘s imagination is also at work due the excitement of finding

a good fortune. He sees the pictures of those things in the surface of the

pearl which he thought in the past but gave up as impossible. The pearl

becomes a sign to liberate him from the unseen prison constructed by

capitalists of La Paz. The things which were associated with bourgeoisie

seemed possible for him now. Kino in his imagination sees himself before

the altar in the church and says to Juana “We will be married in the

church.” - In the pearl he sees how they were dressed. “We will have new

clothes” (27-28). In the same way he innocently desired for many things

he will do by the money of the pearl. But as long as he will not have

a rifle, he will not be able to liberate himself from the slavery. But to wage

war against capitalism is not an easy job as “It was the rifle that broke

down the barriers. This was impossibility, and if he could think of having

a rifle whole horizons were burst and he could rush on” (28).

Capitalist Ideology foregrounds in the exploitation of the

proletariat in The Pearl. Kino and his race held certain views which are

evidently capitalist Ideology. In the novel Kino and Juana are reluctant to

show the baby to the doctor when he comes at their hut. But when the

214 doctor declares that it may be a temporary improvement and he “shifted

his small black doctor‘s bag about so that the light of lamp fell upon it, for

he knew that Kino‘s race love the tools of any craft and trust them” (34).

In this way Kino is duped by the doctor to check the baby. The

doctor gives such medicine to the baby which vomited the baby and

proved that the baby is ill. In addition to this Kino‘s neighbours believed

that sudden wealth might make a poor man greedy, hateful and cold. They

wished Kino to be safe from the evil effects of wealth. The have-nots had

made the proletariat to hate wealth and money which was extra of their

needs. After first attack on Kino to steal the pearl Juana said to Kino that

the pearl is evil and “throw it away. Let us break it between stones. It will

destroy us all” (64) but Kino is not ready in any way to this version of

ideology, as the pearl in itself is not evil but Kino and his people are made

disgusted to good fortune. Further we see that the capitalists had no regard

for human beings but for material entity. When Kino kills a man in self

defence, he makes his way to the beach to prepare his canoe for escape.

But a hole was knocked in the bottom of his canoe. In utter distress Kino

gave expression to his feelings which are installed by the repressive

ideology of the capitalists. “The killing of man was not so evil, as the

killing of a boat, for a boat does not have sons, and a boat cannot protect

itself, and a wounded boat does not heal” (71).

215

His boat was his only defence against hunger and extinction. Kino

and his race were colonized by the Capitalists of La Paz from the past.

They were marginalized, exploited and alienated by the bourgeoisie. Due

to the fear of oppression and harassment, psychological disorders can also

be traced in them. There only defence is to shut or squint their eyes

against the harsh realities. Capitalists use force to gain their interests. So

oppression and capitalism go side by side. Kino and Juana with their baby

leave for another city in the dark to escape the persecution of oppression.

They have challenged the capitalist system of exploitation by their

rejection of the unfair prices of the Pearl, and now they are like the

criminals escaped from the prison-house. It was evident that they would

be traced by the capitalists. While resting under the shade of a tree, Kino

sees three trackers, one on horseback with a rifle and two on feet. The

man on the horse back with a rifle symbolizes the-haves and two trackers

were his subjects to serve his interests. It reminds us of the Doctor‘s

servant. He is from the Kino‘s race but is serving the doctor. The trackers

miss the tracks and go ahead. But Kino knew that they will come back

shortly. So he and Juana take their way to the Mountains. The trackers

reach after them at dusk. The trackers camp underneath the cave in which

Kino and Juana has taken refuge. Kino was sure that they will find them

in the morning and will kill them so he plans to attack them in the dark.

While he is going to attack, Coyotito screams in the entrance of the cave.

216 The rifle man took it for coyote and fired at the direction of the scream.

Coyotito was killed. Kino also kills the three trackers. The crying of

Coyotito and his death had also some significance. To take a human

crying for a coyote show that the bourgeoisie had no sense of distinction

between Kino‘s race and animals. They were simply treated as animals.

Moreover Coyotito‘s death is a kind of sacrifice for the liberation of his

parents from the capitalist‘s prison-house. But unfortunately he could not

knock down the hard prison walls of capitalism. The ending of the novel

represents by Steinbeck that Kino will still suffer from persecution of

upperclass. Though he abandoned the pearl but he had killed the four men

from the bourgeoisie class. He will be punished and may be hanged. The

capitalist will never forgive him for the violation of their rules. Steinbeck

here portrays the class distinction and exploitation of the down trodden

class of society.

According to John H. Timmerman

The Pearl is a simple, unpretentious and successful work in which

Steinbeck seems to have worked out and settled his theme of nearly

two decades - pitting the individual and his dreams against the

threat of social power structure. (209)

Conflicts both open and secret are evident as in Kino’s “I was

attacked in the dark. And in the fight I have killed a man” (P 89). Further

Kino’s brain was red with anger and he said that “I would buy a rifle for

217 countering my foes and have power over other men” (89). Steinbeck has

remarked that all are equally share the burden of life. His most persistent

theme has been the superiority of simple virtues.

In this novel The Pearl the haves exploit the have-nots in many

ways. First, they are unconsciously exploited. Second, they have accepted

it as a set pattern and tradition. Thirdly, their poverty makes them

vulnerable to the capitalism. And finally if workers resist them, force is

followed to subjugate them. It is a heart rendering novel in the sense that

Kino the protagonist loses his only son for whom he is struggling. Here

Steinbeck insists that education and awareness are essential to get rid of

the capitalist’s subjugation. If the exploitation of the poor is not stopped,

the have-nots will one day raise arms against the-haves which will result

in civil war and fighting until exploitation is abolished or the poor’s are

vanished.

“There is only one book to a man” Steinbeck wrote of East of

Eden, his most ambitious novel. Set in the rich farmland of Salinas valley,

California, this powerful novel follows the intertwined destines of two

families-the Trask and the Hamilton-whose generations helplessly

re-enact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and

Abel. In this novel Steinbeck created some of his most memorable

characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity,

the inexplicability of love and the murderous consequences of love’s

218 absence, perpetual contest between good and evil, the freedom to

overcome evil, and the pain of paternal rejection. The novel symbolizes

the Biblical story of creation and the subsequent human travails inflicted

after the commission of original sin. The novel is rife with metaphors and

allegories related to the story of Cain and Abel, and good vs. evil as the

characters struggle with the human condition in an imperfect world. The

essential sense of good had enabled Steinbeck to have a clear cut vision of

humanity and which is responsible for the protesting reverberations in his

writings. Upon completing his manuscript, he wrote to his friend Covici

I finished my book a week ago ... Much the longest and surely the

most difficult work I have ever done ... I have put all the things

I have wanted to write all my life. This is “the book.” If it is not

good I have fooled myself all the time. I don’t mean I will stop but

this is a definite milestone and I feel released. Having done this

I can do anything I want. Always I had this book waiting to be

written. (Steinbeck and Wallsten ed. 304)

Steinbeck believes that all men have both good and evil in them

and they must struggle with the human condition. There are obvious

contrasts in the characters exhibiting good and evil. He writes

I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one ...

Humans are caught-in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers

219

and ambitions, in their kindness and generosity too - in a net of

good and evil. (EE 413)

In this novel the protagonist Adam Trask is a pacifist by nature.

The biblical Adam succumbs to satanic temptations whereas the Adam of

East of Eden remains as firm as a rock and is sceptical about the source of

his father’s Income. Like Joseph of To a God Unknown, Adam too is

a patron of fertility. Adam believes that “the people of the world were

good and handsome” (146). Adam’s attitude reveals his optimism, innate

goodness and immense faith in his wife. But throughout her life Cathy

Ames (Adam’s wife) proves to be a remorseless monster. She is

consistently evil in her thoughts and actions, manipulating others for her

own ends without a trace of conscience. Cold and callous, she seems to be

without a single decent feeling. As a young girl she is different from the

other children; she is a nonconformist and a liar. At the age of ten she gets

two boys punished for indulging in sex play with her, which she initiated;

at high school she drives her Latin teacher to suicide. At sixteen she

murders her parents by burning down the family home. She then becomes

a prostitute and brothel owner, enslaves her whores with drugs,

encourages sadomasochistic sexual practices, and blackmails her

customers. On the whole Cathy is associated with darkness and gloom.

Steinbeck portrayed her as,

220

I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents ...

The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or

a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same

process produce a malformed soul? (74)

Cathy’s notable evil is indeed the evil of lovelessness: instead of

affirming life, she perverts and bends life to her darkness. She is and

remains a monster for two reasons. First, she bends and twists life.

Second, she debases sexuality. The sexual weapon that Cathy wields

wounds everyone in the novel. Therefore Cthy’s evil is equated with

strength of will and mastery of the material world, while in Adam’s good

is equated with moral weakness and an inability to master the material

world. Cathy’s life is more fascinating than Adam’s failures and partial

successes. Aron and Caleb’s lives repeat the pattern of Adam and Cathy.

Aron is physically weak and unable to live with the knowledge of

imperfection, let alone with evil. Caleb is physically strong, and his

knowledge of evil enables him to accept evil in others while he strives for

the good.

One of the fundamental ideas in East of Eden is that evil is an innate

and inescapable human problem. The main characters of the novel,

generation after generation, wrestle with the problem of evil. Cyrus, the

patriarch of the Trask family, apparently chooses evil by stealing money

during his term as a U.S. Army administrator. Charles succumbs to

221 jealousy of his brother, Adam. Cathy takes the path of evil at every turn,

manipulating and wounding others for her own benefit. Cal, worried that

he has inherited a legacy of sin from his mother, struggles perhaps the

hardest of all the characters. Although the novel also sets forth hope that

each individual has the freedom to overcome evil by his or her own

choice. The concept of “timshel” is a major thematic concern throughout

the novel. A hebrew verb, “timshel” translates into “thou mayest”, and

expresses the notion that humans have the ability to choose good over

evil. It holds that we can decide not to be influenced by our dark family

histories, and choose instead to live more positive lives.

Don’t you see? ... The American Standard translation orders men to

triumph over sin, and you call sin ignorance. The King James

translation makes a promise in “Thou shalt”, meaning that men will

surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel-

‘Thou mayest’-that gives a choice. It might be the most important

word in the world. That says the way is open. (305)

The concept of “timshel” stipulates that every individual, at any

given time, has the ability to choose good over evil. This idea is

particularly pertinent at the end of the novel, during Adam’s death scene.

Adam’s son Cal believes that he is condemned to become an evil man

because he has inherited his prostitute mother’s innately evil nature.

Adam, however, raises his hand in blessing and utters the word to his son

222 ‘timshel’ signifying the fact Cal can decide his own moral destiny for

himself. Steinbeck rejects the idea of inherited moral determination. He

replaces it with his concept of ‘timshel’ through Cal, leading to the

semantic stuff that each individual is at liberty to choose his and her own

moral destiny. Writing from the perspective of the Christian tradition,

Steinbeck contends that every human individual since Adam and Eve and

Cain and Abel has struggled with the choice between good and evil. He

writes that each person, when looking back on his or her life, “will have

left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done

well—or ill?” (413).

Steinbeck implies that no progress is made through the generations-

each person must re-enact the same ancient story and grapple with the

same ancient problems. This novel was to be the focal point for the moral

views about humankind and human relationships that Steinbeck had been

developing since the early thirties. Steinbeck relates

For the world was changing, and the sweetness was gone and virtue

too. Worry had crept on the corroding world, and what was lost-

good manners ease and beauty? Ladies were not ladies anymore, and

you couldn’t trust a gentleman’s word. (131)

American society was undergoing both good and bad values. And it

was expedient for them to choose good ones. We come to understand that

Lord Byron one of the Romantic poets of England had greater interest in

223 the story of Cain, who composed a dramatic poem on the theme. His aim

was to attack the political and social institutions in the Nineteenth century

England. Steinbeck stated that he had imbued East of Eden with

everything he knew about writing and everything he knew about good and

evil in the human condition. . Besides the rollicking tale with a ‘bad seed

woman’ near its center, Steinbeck provides a historical backdrop that

includes the fortunes of different waves of immigrants to California, the

appearance of various inventions, food profiteering in wartime, and

organized prostitution across the West.

Throughout East of Eden, characters withhold the truth both from

themselves and from others. Cyrus lies about his Civil War record to win

an important job and an ill-gained fortune. Charles withholds the truth

about Cathy’s seduction on Adam's wedding night. Lee lies to himself

about his desire to leave the Trask family and open a bookstore. Cal keeps

his business ventures secret from his father. Adam and Lee keep the truth

about their mother, Cathy, from Cal and Aron. Similarly, Cal fails to

inform his father and Lee that he knows that his mother is a notorious

brothel owner. Adam lies to himself about Cathy and excuses her

depraved behaviour. However, the truth ultimately sets Adam and Cal

free. Cathy, the ultimate liar, is suspicious of Adam when he arrives to

inform her that Charles has left her a large inheritance. She is used to

dealing with people who lie. When he finally faces the truth about her, he

224 feels exhilarated and free. When Cal faces up to the fact that telling Aron

the truth might have resulted in his death, he takes responsibility for his

actions, and realizes that he has the ability to make good choices in the

future.

Steinbeck writes that it is individuals, not groups, who accomplish

great and inspired deeds. In light of this belief he worries that the

twentieth century’s move toward automation and mass production will

dampen the creative faculties of human kind. Steinbeck sets for his belief

that the power of free-will in the human mind is the most precious of

human capabilities. He declares his intention to fight against any force-

ideological, religious, and political or otherwise – that threatens to hinder

or constrain this freedom of the individual. Thus Steinbeck re shadows the

idea of freedom to choose between good and evil that becomes the main

idea in East of Eden. Here he points out

And this I believe: that the tree exploring minds of the individual

human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would

fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes,

undirected. (34)

Cal and other characters struggle with the problem of evil

throughout the rest of the novel. The manifestation of this struggle is

found in his East of Eden about two families living in Salinas valley and

Connecticut during 1800-1900. It symbolically represents the Biblical

225 story of creation and the subsequent human travails due to the commission

of original sin. Cain and Abel stand in the novel allegorically as good and

evil, and the characters struggle immensely in an imperfect society. The

Eden-like Salinas valley is surrounded by the “good” sunlit Gabilan

Mountains to the East, and the dark and foreboding “bad” Santa Lucias

Mountains to the West.

In this novel Steinbeck expressed in no less emphatic terms his

unshakeable faith in good and humanitarian values in addition to having

a sympathetic approach towards the predicament in which mankind is

pitted piteously. Steinbeck brought all his ideas together - realism, non

teleological thinking, scientific detachment, personal philosophy, moral

concern, and comic consciousness. This is a story about the battle between

good and evil, between free will and fatalism. He therefore does not miss

to lay stress on the ‘Shared guilt’ the vestiges of which are still visible

beyond dubiousness in the guise of aggression, avarice, imperialism,

social inequity and violence - which should be averted by all means

possible. Steinbeck dramatizes this perpetual conflict between good and

evil in the society of the Salinas Valley as a whole and within the

individuals of the Trask and Hamilton families in particular. Ultimately,

he ends the novel on a positive note, as Cal accepts the possibility and

responsibility of free will-of free choice between good and evil. This

optimistic ending is tempered, however, by our knowledge that future

226 generations will endlessly replay the same struggle that Cal and his

ancestors have endured.

Tortilla Flat is the story about a group of young men and what they

experience together on Tortilla Flat in Monterey, a Californian city. They

are all ‘paisanos’, that is a mixture of Spanish, Mexican and Indian

bloods. The core group of main characters in the novel consists of Danny,

Pilon, Pablo, Jesus Maria, the Pirate and finally Big Joe Portagee. What

could be said about them all in general is that they are lazy, they drink

a lot of wine and they steal some to survive. They are not cultured or

worldly people, but in their ignorance of modern technologies and ways of

thinking, there is something enigmatic and appealing about them. They

are truly free in ways that societal influences prevent other people from

being.

This story was about not only the less than glamorous lifestyle

lived by Danny and his fellow ‘paisanos’, but the importance of friendship

through bad times over material values. The primary aim of this novel was

explaining the importance of putting the needs of oneself aside for the

help of others. By the living standard of simple values that held them

together, a group of friends placed the highest moral value on

camaraderie.

Many of Steinbeck’s novels address facets of social problems that

impact the marginalized people of society in profound ways. There are

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227

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turns his

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y in that

now I am

e, he had

his head,

ogs. With

of these

228 things, but true pleasure in life comes from having stimulating and caring

friends. The Pirate had never realized what he was missing until he had it.

His inability to recognize that most basic need of human nature was part

of how his mind had not grown up with his body. For a boy, dogs are

enough, but a man needs friends who challenge him, include him, and

help him when he is in need. This can also be seen as a commentary on

society in the modern world.

Steinbeck sees the advances in American business and technology

as corrupting influences on freedom loving people. The fact that the

paisanos are untouched by this system, that they do not crave convenience

and fortune, and that they have nothing to offer the system that would

cause it to pursue them, is a beautiful thing to the author. In their

simplicity, they are not blinded by the false promises and pursuits of

modernity, and are free to examine the very essence of life. Steinbeck

finds the things that engage the paisanos: companionship, free living, and

humanity to be much more worthwhile pursuits than those dictated by

1920’s American society, which were economics, status, and comfort.

Steinbeck would be likely to sum those things up in two words “greed”

and “pride.” The closest to a modern person living in Tortilla Flat is

Torrelli. He used to repeat arrogantly to the poor paisanos that he had

nothing to do with moneyless people. Steinbeck described him “but

Torelli was not friendly toward men who had neither money nor

229 barterable property” (100). According to Steinbeck, possession of wealth

corrupt men. He portrayed the diminishing human values as “When one is

poor, one thinks, ‘If I had money, I would share it with my friends.’ But

let that money come, and charity flies away” (10).

Throughout his literary career, but especially in the early part of it,

Steinbeck focused on the working poor people of California. He intends to

bring out the unpolished beauty of the people. Though they are thieves,

womanizers, and drunkards, Steinbeck intends to portray the ‘paisanos’ as

having as much moral virtue and largeness of heart as the chivalric

knights of Arthurian tradition. He does not describe them as being lacking

of modern conveniences or ignorant to the ways of the world. Instead,

they are “… clean of commercialism, free of the complicated systems of

American business, and having nothing that can be stolen, exploited, or

mortgaged, that system (commercialism) has not attacked them very

vigorously” (10).

This is a recurring theme of Steinbeck’s fiction: the values of

a simple people are opposed, as more healthy and viable, to the values of

a competitive society.

Steinbeck is also aware of the faults of the paisano lifestyle. He

never tries to hide the fact that they are committing crimes. Rather than

portraying the paisanos as model citizens, he seems to be trying to show

that they possess certain values that he sees lacking in his contemporary

230 society. Jackson J. Benson observes that “Steinbeck got much of his

information about the Mexico Americans and Paisanos second and third

hand. But he knew them well from childhood on!” (78). The paisanos

have a degree of freedom that no one with a job, responsibility, or

commitment can experience. They can spend their days any way that they

want to. Instead of wasting their days trying to earn money or seduce

women, or make names for themselves, they lay around relishing in the

joys of companionship and nature. Steinbeck seems to be trying to point

out that in the complexity of modern life, simple pleasures like freedom

and friendship are often overlooked in favour of luxury and comfort. He

point out that “It is a fact verified and recorded in many histories that the

soul capable of the greatest good is also capable of the greatest evil”

(TF 15).

The novel entirely centres on the idea that the men comprise

a close circle of friends. The actual theme of this novel could be

something like how to find peace and happiness in one’s life, since they

are happy and joyful almost all the time. The protagonist portrayed as

when he was poor he was happy. But when he becomes rich he lost his

happiness. Before he got his houses, he was free and didn’t care for

anything. The situation is turned quite opposite when he acquired the

houses. Desire for freedom overwhelms Danny’s sense of responsibility

and place. Danny says to his friend Pilon as “One cry of pain escaped him

231 before he left for all time his old and simply existence. “Pilon”, he said

sadly, “I wished you owned it and I could come live with you” (13).

In this novel Steinbeck shows the individuals (the knights) become

Danny's house (the round table) and that Danny’s house is part of Tortilla

Flat and that Tortilla Flat is part of greater Monterey and Monterey part of

the greater world. Steinbeck was interested in the birth, survival, and

ultimate death of the group, a phalanx –the ‘I’ which becomes ‘we.’ In his

paisano round table in Tortilla Flat, he imagined the ideal birth, life and

death of the phalanx. The phalanx was a biological or philosophic idea

that Steinbeck and his marine biologist friend Ed Ricketts discussed

throughout their relationship. Steinbeck makes use of the conception of

the group as organism. The first words are:

This is the story of Danny and of Danny’s friends and of Danny's

house. It is a story of how these three become one thing ... when

you speak of Danny’s house you is to understand to mean a unit of

which the parts are men, from which comes sweetness and joy,

philanthropy and, in the end, a mystic sorrow. (3)

Instead of modelling our lives after the paisanos, a good idea would

be to apply the things that make their lives so endearing to our own. Like

Pilon, we should pause occasionally to appreciate the wonders of nature

and spirituality. Like the Pirate, we should occasionally trust our friends

instead of always suspecting them of plots. Like Jesus Maria, we should

232 care less about acquiring luxury for ourselves when there are people so

much less fortunate than ourselves. Like Big Joe, sometimes we should

just sleep. And finally, like Danny, we should do all that we can to enjoy

our lives and not dwell on the fact that death is coming for us all, but rage

against it instead. Thus Steinbeck, mingles seriousness with jest,

enjoyment with deeper meanings in Tortilla Flat.

In The Winter of Our Discontent Steinbeck dealt with the abnormal

climate of America in the ‘bleak fifties’, especially the decay of standards

in American life right from politics up to personal matters. In his earlier

writings the signs of evil were apparent in different groups of people such

as businessman ranch owners etc, or in individuals such as Cathy in East

of Eden. But in this novel evil dominates all branches of society. Material

prospects had invited corrupt practices in the society. The climate as

Howard Levant points out, “led to ethnic prejudice, kickbacks, real estate

promotion, political manipulation, sexual blackmail, rigged Quiz shows

and essay contests, loss leaders and general sharp dealing” (288).

The Winter of Our Discontent deals with a man who believes

himself to be good is beset with a variety of temptations that are universal

in nature, but specific to Ethan Hawley as he struggles to rationalize the

behaviours of modern thinking versus the old fashioned values he was

taught as a child. Throughout this novel Steinbeck explores both the

traditional, Christian view and the natural view of the world and its

233 corruption. He shows how Ethan Allen’s life was that of a Christian, when

he followed his morals. He was a victim of betrayal as he was passive and

generous. However, Steinbeck also shows that nature can take hold of

a man, when Ethan's animalistic instincts and moral conflicts arise. So it is

evident that although Christianity is the traditional way of moral thought,

the natural processes come first in allowing Ethan and every human to

make the proper decisions necessary for survival. Both views, the moral

and amoral ways of thought, work inside of each person to control their

actions and behaviours. To understand the views, Steinbeck explores, we

must first understand morality. Morals are beliefs that a person or

a society has on the difference between right and wrong. Sometimes, the

morals of an individual and the society they live in will clash, and so

begins a struggle to survive with an internal conflict. With this in mind, it

could be said that morals are simply a belief in an opinion, which leads to

a battle of the weak versus the strong. Those with stronger moral

judgments or even that of a larger population will most likely win against

the beliefs of a smaller group or individual. In cases like these, some

people will change their morals to fit those of the majority, or the society.

Ethan questions this, and the motives behind each acceptance of

a wrongful action. He found that “to most of the world success is never

bad … Strength and success they are above morality, above criticism”

234 (WD 187). If this is the case, then morals could change based upon the

need to be a part of the winning side.

Ethan is highly educated and a gentleman (although wearing

a clerk’s apron) with high moral ideals that his wife Mary derides as “old

fashioned fancy-pants ideas” (34). Ethan succumbs to pressures both

internal and external to shed his moral scruples in order to expand his

influence. Ethan Hawley is persuaded to forsake his principles in order to

be a success. Ethan feels an intense shame as a man, father, provider, and

Hawley for being nothing more than a “cat … catching Marullo’s mice”

(4). His rationalizations for turning his boss over to immigration, robbing

Mr. Baker’s bank, and facilitating Danny Taylor’s drinking himself to

death are, however, much more ruthless. With the first person narrative

allowing direct access to his moral and psychological fragmentation, we

see the thought processes of Ethan at work: his analogy of business to

war, “where you’re a hero for killing” (10); his use of natural selection

and survival of the fittest to justify murder, for in the end “the eaters (are

no) more immoral than the eaten” (46) and his underlying shift to a belief

that morality is a relative concept-as Ethan puts it, “If the laws of thinking

are the laws of things, then morals are relative too, and manner and sin—

that’s relative too in a relative universe. Has to be. No getting away from

it” (56-57).

235

Ethan Hawley rationalizes his way to the destruction of what

matters most: his own sense of self-respect. Ethan suffers a loss of moral

integrity, which is ultimately a personal virtue, a struggle of the lonely

individual with his conscience amid intense pressures to rationalize for

self gain. Hawley painfully learn, self-respect is impossible without

adherence to your innermost values and beliefs. In Hawley’s case there is

no moral foundation to allow him to judge his son for betraying his own

moral standards. The novel rings with a contemporary note, and ends with

the words:

Let us look to our country, elevate ourselves to the dignity of pure

and disinterested patriots, and save our country from all impending

dangers. What are we—what is any man—worth who are not ready

and willing to sacrifice himself for his country? (271)

Steinbeck says on the fly page of The Winter of our Discontent that

the novel is “about a large part of America today.” The hero this novel is

out of tune with the corrupt practices of New Baytown. But the creeping

disease is so powerful that soon he succumbs to it. The all pervading

quality of the disease is best reflected in the attitude of Ethan’s boy, Allen,

who is already steeped in the public philosophy of fast buck. When Ethan

pulls up the boy for not rendering even lip service to morals he relies

“shucks, everybody does it” (27). Allen has hardly anything to learn from

his mother. Mary Hawley actually supports the son instead of attempting

236 to educate him. It is so because Allen’s rottenness stems from his very

roots. His mother is no Ma Joad.

Steinbeck warns that the leisure, the gift of modern technology, is

far from a blessing. Steinbeck dramatically portrayed through the first

person point of view, Ethan Allen Hawley’s struggles against the

temptations of an emerging new morality which stressed materialistic

success at any cost. From the first offer of a five percent kick back by

a salesman to his own son’s rationalization for plagiarism in an essay

which won the “I Love America” contest, Hawley repeatedly heard the

argument “everybody does it” (27). Everybody he, too, agreed that his

inherited morality of honesty and puritan ethics was as outdated and

impractical as his ancestral talisman in the contemporary society of New

Baytown with its mores of dishonesty, laziness, opportunism, and

cynicism toward all vestiges of the older morality. In the final redemptive

act at the novel’s end, explores the depths of individual and societal

corruption and it offers insight into the means for our redemption. The

Winter of our Discontent, like Hamlet, The Bible, and Dante’s Inferno, is

a work whose message is for the ages.

Steinbeck’s novels stride mostly towards the decided directions

without being detrimental to the natural way of handling of his themes,

preferably the protesting ones. Apart from the manmade economic,

religious and cultural causes, there are causes triggered by the vagaries of

237 nature which have considerable impact upon changing the peaceful state

of existence of the people. Steinbeck as Warren French observes “was not

trying to justify God’s ways to men but to call forth for an end to man’s

inhumanity to man!” (“Introduction” xxvii). The tireless efforts towards

striving for an end to non-humanitarian thoughts, attitudes and activities

are finding place in many of Steinbeck’s novels but very often and

vehemently in the novels selected for the present study. Some of them are

summed up for immediate understanding and rumination.

The protesting traits of Steinbeck are evident not only in his

writings through characterization but also in his own self. When asked by

his friend and editor Pascal Covici to change the ending of the novel The

Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck retorted saying “I am sorry. I cannot change

that ending. The Giving of breast has no more sentiment than giving of

a piece of bread. … It is a survival symbol, not a love symbol” (qtd. in

Benson 243). Steinbeck’s steadfast allegiance to the dictates of his mind is

revealed in the above defiance, irrespective of persons, places and times.

Steinbeck elevated the entire history of the migrant struggle into the realm

of art, and he joined the mystic western journey with latently heroic

characters. He “To love and admire the people who are stronger and purer

that braver than I am” (Benson 256).

A writer with sympathetic understanding of the sufferings of the

poor people could not simply be a silent spectator but transform himself to

238 be a responsible exponent, having considerations towards the deprived lot.

Steinbeck’s writings carved a different path of his own by projecting the

bitter truths of his times and the society tutored by his own personal

experiences and his regional geo-physical background namely California,

the Salinas Valley, and Monterey Bay. A writer is not only the product of

his age but also of his inner urge. Having tasted the bitter fruits of life,

Steinbeck’s experiences got explosive expressions in his writings

variedly. And a novel is a macro world in itself stuffed into a few hundred

pages in the possible extent containing the vestiges of the experiences

coupled with that of the realization and the relevant emotional outlet of

a creative writer. When speaks about the humanitarian concern of

Steinbeck, Robert DeMott observed that,

He stood by the side of truth and reality related to humanity.

Wherever human beings dream of a dignified and free society in

which they can harvest the fruits of their own labour, the

Grapes of Wrath’s radical voice of protest can still be heard.

(“Introduction” xl)

The key answer to the secrets of Steinbeck’s ideologies of

protesting lies in his having a full-fledged understanding of the light and

darkness of humanity with all its ups and downs, psychological mould of

mind and the echoing of which is extensible discernible in his non-

teleological thinking. His humanitarian outlook is not one sided but

239 multilayered. Man is the combination of both good and evil, the

proportion of which differs in degrees and not in kind. Parochial

understanding of men and matters will do no good. Therefore he laid

stress on know thyself well and try to know others still more well. The

inner self must be the criterion to enter into any judgment involving

others.

A close analysis of the structure and materials regarding

Steinbeck’s fiction reveals as Warren French remarks that “he has

a continuing difficulty in fusing them into a harmonious unity”

(“Introduction” ii). This struggle in a sense, forms part of his own

protesting milieu getting its expressive dimensions through his characters.

Critics point out that there is no Torgas valley in California, but the area

Steinbeck depicts resembles Tagus Ranch in Tulare County, the sight of

a Peach strike in 1933 that in some respects resembles the strike depicted

in his novel. Different portrayals of the workers’ organization take place

in his fictions. Steinbeck decided to make use of the experiences of one

Pat Chambers, a labour organizer working in the field with a view to

providing more viability and realistic base to his writings. It gleans from

his letters that he intended to write more or less a biography of the fugitive

communists hiding out nearby seaside. Susan Shillinglaw points out “But

the novel In Dubious Battle evolved into the troubling saga of the farmer’s

intransigence poised against the labour organizers’ ideological fervour and

240 psychological dislocation”(x). This is treated as the best strike novel ever

written. Steinbeck’s usages of analogies are between war in heaven and

the strike in California. The warring characters are in the human and

celestial spheres. It may be assumed that the similitude in the above

battles is that both are dubious. But as Warren French adduces, “the

battles are dubious not because of the outcome is dubious but that they are

unnecessary and unjustified” (“Introduction” xx). Herein Steinbeck’s “Is

Thinking” has its own say on the events and their end. It does not lay

emphasis on the ends but on the process of life, otherwise called in

Aristotelian verb logy as “efficient cause of nature.” Steinbeck’s friend

Edward F. Ricketts coined the term “Non-Teleological” to denote the “Is

Thinking”, a favourite conceptual under current in his writings.

Generally the exploited people earn the sympathy of any socially

committed writer. The novels particularly the select novels of Steinbeck

stand in tune with the above presumption. Instead of staking the claims of

men at the expense of the rights and liberties of women, Steinbeck did

choose a golden mean and rather he was a spokesman for the cause of

women, especially concerned with their problems, potentiality, their

possible nature of rising up to the calls of time and above all their

compassion and co-coordinating attitudes and activities. One is

immediately reminded of Ma Joad the pivotal personality and then Rose

of Sharon in The Grapes of Wrath. There may be exceptions such as the

241 character of Cathy Ames rather a demoniac woman in East of Eden.

However we come to notice that Cathy is also prone to our sympathy

despite being a bleak character. In Of Mice and Men Steinbeck treats

Curley’s wife, a nymphomaniac in a merciful manner. The novelist here

distinguishes himself by his outstanding characterization and individual

outlook stemming out of his sense of protest.

Steinbeck’s retaliation in vehement terms without fear or favour

came in the wake of his missionary zeal which he carried out in his

writings based on what he believed to be sincere, genuine, and doing

something good for the ailing populace. As Thomas Fensch remarks,

… the discussion regarding the poor and the downtrodden appears

to be a recurring ingredient in his novels as exampled through the

characters of Lennie in In Dubious Battle, George in Of Mice and

Men, Joads and the other Okie families in The Grapes of Wrath,

and the poor personages in his other novels such as In Cannery

Row, and Sweet Thursday. (xviii)

Since Steinbeck was guided by the dictates of his own inner voice, he

neglected any external ideological or associational pressures. Resultantly

he refused to be serving as an ideologue to anything, or anybody in any

manner. According to Steinbeck the committed writer must not become

ensnared in political ideologies.

242

Just like other celebrated champions such as Henry David Thoreau

for self-reliance and transcendentalism, Harriet B. Stowe for the slaves'

cause, Mark Twain for humour and Hemingway for courage and

manliness, history will record John Steinbeck as a champion for better

social and labour conditions.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

There is writing promoting social change, writing punishing

injustice, writing in celebration of heroism, but always that

base theme. Try to understand each other. John Steinbeck

Steinbeck is a novelist with reformative messages who preferred to

speak through his works. He is actually a humanist who has brought out

the simmering discontent of the day in his works. From dark days of

Depression (1929-1933) till the very end of his life, he thought about

human problems and crisis ridden civilization and raised in voice against

what he considered wrong, unnatural, arbitrary oppressive and immoral.

Though he was mistaken for a communist and branded as a bitter critic of

the establishment, he actually belonged to the group of the “loyal

opposition.” Steinbeck is no doubt an idealist and optimist. He is at the

same time a pragmatist too. Influenced by mystical transcendentalism of

Emerson (1803-1882) and the pragmatic instrumentalism of William

James (1882-1910) and John Dewey (1859-1952), he sets before us very

simple ideals which are need of the hour. James Gray has thus remarked

on his role as a critic of society

... no other writer of our time has found so many ways of

reminding us that man must be beneficiary of his institutions, not

244

their victim. His best work dramatises the plight of man how

tragically, how humorously with the aid of challenge, irony,

homely eloquence and subtle insight – as he indomitably struggles

to make his environment a protective garment, not a hair – cloth

shirt. (6)

Steinbeck has exposed many social evils such as hypocrisy,

corruption, violence, unfair business practices and dehumanization. The

character who covet or practice these things are the antagonists of his

fiction. He has portrayed and condemned the social in justices in his

novels. He has shown his concern for the less fortune by emphasizing the

way society treats them as the growers in The Grapes of Wrath to reduce

the migrants to the level of animals. He has condemned the efforts of

society to force a hypocritical system of values on all people. Those who

do not go with the society’s way of thinking are misfits. They are

destroyed or institutionized by the hostile and uncaring society.

Steinbeck’s concern with morality is visible in all his works from

Henry Morgan’s a morality to Ethan Hawley’s conversion to conformity.

His criticism of organised religion and conventional morality abounds in

such work as The Pearl and The Winter of Our Discontent. Although he

does not criticise any one’s belief in God, he does find fault with certain

products of organised religion; intolerance, fear, hypocrisy and greed. He

repeated by advocated a humanitarian religion based on love and

245 understanding as shown in the character of Jim casy and the songs of the

pearl. He has established free moral choice for man in East of Eden. He

believed that man is capable of great cow, only he has to learn his cosmic

identity, that is, to learn that he is an integral part of the whole design of

existence.

The novels of this conscientious artist represent successive efforts

to play his debt to man. Wide in range of their interest, diverse in mood,

passionately concerned in their sympathies, they all celebrate the worth of

man. For that integrity Steinbeck demands justice and respect; to that

integrity he lends the support of his own conviction that all men

everywhere are and must be in extricable identified with their kind. Much

more clearly than in the instance of any other American writer of his time

Steinbeck’s consistent effort to establish the dignity of human life offers

the measure of the man. A curious view of Steinbeck, expressed by some

of his critics, presented his as a kind of native natural genius who, having

limited resources of technique and an even more severely limited

vocabulary, blundered occasionally into displays of impressive, if brutal

power. Closer examination of his way with words should have to dispel

that illusion. He was in fact, a stylist of originality and grace. Just as be set

up the structure of each of his best book in accordance with a well–

planned architectural design, so he brought together the elements of his

sentences with an artist’s disciplined awareness of his won values. He

246 expressed his attitudes, his sympathies, and his ideas in figurative

language that remains fresh because his metaphors were entirely his own.

A special dimension is evident in Steinbeck’s work when it is

compared with that of most of the writers of his time. He was not content

to be hereby an observer of moves and recorder of the movements of the

moment. His books were all products of a speculative intelligence: the

writing of fiction was for him a means of trying, for his own benefit and

that of his readers, to identify the place of man in his world. His

conception of that world included not merely the interest of economics

and sociology but those of science and the reason of the sprit as well. Into

the bloodstream of his work he released a steady flow of ideas to enrich its

vigour. In his Nobel address he made two significant declarations: first,

that he lived, as a writer to “celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness

of heart and sprit, courage, compassion and love” second, that “a writer

who does not believe in the perfectibility of man” (Gray 42) cannot claim

to have an true vocation.

He made it clear that a sense of man’s oneness with the universe

should not drug the mind into passivity. Man is not merely the creature of

an unknowable pattern of existence. He has made himself unique among

animals by accepting responsibility for the God of others. His problem is

to learn to accept his cosmic identity, by which Steinbeck means: to

become aware of himself as an integral part of whole design of existence.

247 Tom Joad said it for him more succinctly in The Grapes of Wrath “well,

may be ... a fella got a soul his own, but on’y a piece of a big one” (43). It

was readiness to search behind the facts of life for a philosophical

resolution of their complexity that gave depth and a rich texture to

Steinbeck’s picture of the life of his time. He had a rare ability to blend

speculation into his fiction making it an integral part of the life of his

time. Steinbeck also nourished within himself the attitudes toward social

reform that were growing slowly in the national consciousness of his time.

His protests, his rejections as well as his affirmative convictions about the

hope for regenerations, were exactly those that have been taken up by

leaders of opinion in a later day enabling them, as teachers and registators

to change our minds in the direction of greater sensibility concerning

human rights. Always Steinbeck, never a practicing reformer, Steinbeck

dramatized situations in American life and exposed beliefs about the need

of room for growth in a way that helped to awaken the conscience of his

fellow Americans.

As a writer, Steinbeck always felt the tensions and anxieties of his

age. He says in his America and Americans that

Americans, very many of them, are obsessed with tensions. Nerves

are drawn tense and twanging. Emotions boil up and spill over into

violence largely in meaningless or unnatural directions. In the cites

people scream with rage at one another, taking out their un ease or

248

the first observable target. The huge reservoir of the anger of

frustration is full to bursting of love, only the word, bent and

bastardized remains. (171)

Steinbeck’s opinions were founded upon what he saw in

contemporary American scene, modern degeneration and spiritual chaos.

He felt strongly that inspite of material prosperity and plenty, the people

were morally and spiritually poorer than before because, “we have the

things and we have not had time to develop a way of thinking about

them”(174). Steinbeck did not have to go outside his long valley for

evidences of the characteristic sickness of modern society. He says,

The merciless 19th century was like a hostile expedition for loot

that seemed limitless ... There has always been more than enough

desert in America; the new settlers, like over indulged children,

created even more. (146)

Steinbeck was in addition a kind of working Freudian in the broad

sense that he used the novel to remind readers that the myth of the past

contain the wisdom of the race, that they tell us more about ourselves than

sources of factual information can convey. Many, perhaps most of the

novelists of the 1930s and 1940’s were deeply imbued with the same idea

but Steinbeck consciously and unconscientiously exploring the suggestion

for Freud and covered a far broader field than did his fellow writers. His

was an ambitious and inclusive effort to relate cotemporary about “the

249 human condition” to that of great witnesses of the past. His work suggests

again and again that the story of mankind is a steadily continuing one, full

of passions that seem as familiar in a setting of the thousand years ago as

they do in our own time. It is a sense of the past made present that gives

Steinbeck’s best books their universality of tone.

Steinbeck said that the one commandment of life is “to be and

survive.” His work may be said to fulfil that commandment. His concern

over the materialistic element in society dates from his very first work

Cup of Gold, and is expressed in every subsequent work he published. The

holistic view point so frequently adopted in his books, proclaiming as it

does the oneness of all creation, exemplifies one manifestation of this

desire of his to promote understanding and unity between people. If

Steinbeck was guilty of anything at all, it was certainly not of prostituting

his art, but rather of immense artistic courage. He was never content to

rest on his laurels, as he might easily have done, by continuing reproduce

what he had already demonstrated he could do supremely well. Steinbeck

work is firmly established in the mainstream of traditional American

literature, the main stream formed in part from the three converging

streams of transcendentalism, vernacularism and regionalism. He learned

his lesson well from the old masters. It is this quality which endows his

books with their enduring stability, timelessness even, so that in the long

run one can speculate with some assurance his work will date neither as

250 rapidly nor with such finality as the work of some of his more stylistically

daring and currently more highly regarded contemporaries.

The philosophy of John Steinbeck that emerges during the 1930’s

and 1940’s is deeply concerned with the isolation felt by the reified

proletarian subject, and the hope that comes in the form of collectivity as

expressed in Steinbeck’s notion of the phalanx. The novels that have been

discussed here provided Steinbeck with the opportunity to work out these

ideas through the medium of fiction., In many ways Steinbeck’s position

on the cusp of the radical tradition may very well have helped to give his

novels the popular reception that they received, as well as the greatly

heightened shelf life that continues today.

Steinbeck has constantly reacted to the social attitudes and

changing values without caring for his personal gains or losses. His

writings steam with anger at injustice, with anger at injustice, with hatred

for self pity, with bitter attacks and scorn for the cunning and self

righteousness and also the system that encourages exploitation, greed and

brutality. As a writer, he always trying to reach perfection. Steinbeck

constantly experimented certain views on the art of fiction. Since he has

used myths and legends as artistic devices to enrich meaning, to

universalize themes of topical interest, to draw parallels and to establish

contrasts for ironic exposure of pretentions and moral degradations.

251

It has been noted in the foregoing chapters that the thematic inputs

of Steinbeck’s novels are structured around certain pre eminent issues

concerned with man, society, and nature. Some of which are as summed

up as below: Man in relation to his land and society; highlighting of

individual and communal life; scientific advancements and psychological

probing of human mind; challenging the evils of capitalism and

industrialization; voicing out against male chauvinism and environmental

hazards.

The above-noted elements are interlinked with one another though

the proportion of which differs in degrees. It has been the duty and

responsibility of a socially committed writer like John Steinbeck to give

proper weightage and vent while employing them in his fiction in its own

echelon. At the same time it is pertinent to assign larger and deeper

significance to some of the predominant themes based on the inevitable

calls of time and the social necessities. Abiding by the dictum of

humanistic concerns, Steinbeck did all his best to express the plight of the

labouring people in his select novels, in addition to exposing their living

conditions in the south of America during the bleak thirties and forties

when the people were driven to the extent of wallowing in problems and

poverty, though rising at times up to the extent of protesting and

trespassing. The present writer being the product of his age, has given

faithful and moving expression to the sufferings, solace, and the

252 aspirations of the masses and thereby unfolded his underlying sympathy

for the under dogs while at the same time bringing out their qualities of

mutual understanding; helping with each other at times of distress; rising

in revolt if the conditions so warranted unmindful of the gain or less, and

also cementing themselves by fostering the feeling of oneness amidst

scattered human groups. The people herein are represented in their own

flesh and blood and Steinbeck does not take undue advantage of entering

into the psychological domains of his characters by thrusting his own

ideas or sentiments without any rhyme or reason, in the novels. Steinbeck

observes that: “A novelist is a kind of flypaper to which everything

adheres. His job then is to try to reassemble life into form and of order”

(qtd. in Timmerman 276).

Steinbeck found himself occupied with the woe-stricken conditions

of the labouring multitudes during the times of migration in search of

a promised land. His own conscience did not allow the depravity of the

American psyche which, instead of realizing the “American dream”

worked against all sorts of its fundamental ethics towards achieving the

sole aim of amassing wealth. Industrialization and Capitalistic pursuits

resulted in the loss of human identity, individual honesty, disintegration of

national prowess, and the ruining of the congenial co-existence by

distancing the people from their own lands. Steinbeck in almost all his

novels emphasizes the responsibility and stewardship that human beings

253 should show to the land and its inhabitants. He also demonstrates the

reverence to land. He dwells on the means of the way of interaction and

the human processes throughout life and death. These interactions with

their environments help the characters to know more about themselves

and the surrounding world. Steinbeck also reminds the ecological disaster

that would take place in course of time if land and nature are not properly

nurtured. He stresses the importance of living in tune with nature. This

harmony teaches the characters to have a right relation with earth and its

creatures. Steinbeck’s novels reveal how nature shapes and sharpens the

vision of human beings. His novels also show how the place becomes

“a way of thinking” (GW 48).

The post-colonial issues in the twentieth century America sowed

the seeds for creative literature giving expressions in the social, political

economic and cultural dimensions, The major one being the loss of

identity, displacement from one’s homeland, conflict of race and what is

more the devastation brought about by the demoniac hands of exploitation

by the moneyed people. The poor people had to fall prey to them far

beyond redemption. The havocs done by the merciless nature also

contributed to the pitiable flight of the people. The Dust Bowl, the Great

Depression of 1930, and the world war-all these played an alarmingly

disastrous role. Steinbeck’s enthusiasm for humanity and his desire to

fight Fascism did not diminish. Perusal of the details available in the

254 letters of Steinbeck reveals the fact that he desired to have first-hand

experience and information connected with the war and its aftermath,

American policies and administrative complications and under-treatment.

He served voluntarily for about three years in the Government Intelligence

and Informative agencies between 1940 and 1942. In order to stake up his

inner voice, preferably his predilection was to favour even antagonistic

forces, if he believed in their sincerity in aim and endeavour.

Among the orchestration of varied themes employed by Steinbeck

in his works, Protest has the prominent place in the novels shortlisted for

the present study. The anger and the wrath of the novelist himself were

intensified by the inhuman attitudes and activities of either the individuals

or bureaucratic set up or by the ‘self-centered landlords of the’ Californian

region at a particular time in the American history. His revolting

temperament has exploded itself into powerful and at times violent verbal

expressions. They are identified in the form of contextual thinking, talks,

trends, tendencies and consequent retaliatory measures. The following are

some of them: discontinuance of work, communal demonstration by the

affected people, the tool of counter arguments, thinking aloud, and the

very powerful weapon called strike. In the foretold novels the insurgence

of the labouring class has found an exponent in the guise of a writer

namely Steinbeck, who, goaded by his sense and sensibility, consideration

and commitment, innate goodness, straight forwardness, and courage to

255 call the spade a spade has exhibited his undaunted caliber by his deft

delineation of the social protest, in all the possible dimensions.

The characters of his novels exhibit the bitter facts though at the

expense of inviting adverse criticisms. Steinbeck did not get ruffled on

account of such enervating responses from the readers particularly hard

core critics. History has fetched a favourable answer to him in this regard.

His resisting temper did leap into protesting expressions disregarding the

inimical responses as exemplified in the novel The Moon is Down. After

having read the above novel, contrary to the general trend, the Chinese

people were encouraged by the patriotic eagerness towards Steinbeck’s

characters to resist their conquerors. This may be treated as an eye opener

to other writers to put forth fearlessly what their minds thought to be

truthful and essential. The matter of the social protest occupies a major

portion of his creative writings. At the same time related subservient

thematic elements also contribute to his imaginative literary pursuits. This

has been amply discussed in this study.

Steinbeck’s literary perspectives envisage that he had acquainted

himself with the manifold aspects and prospects of life and also its

limitations. The lives of the migrant farm labourers of California during

the Depression form the content of the novel Of Mice and Men which

deals with the story of two old friends namely George and Lennie who

were haunting about the places in search of work. Their dreams to own

256 a piece of farm land becomes a distant one. The alienation of farm

workers from their labour, land, and from other people gets portrayed in

the above novel effectively. Besides focusing on the vast differences in

the living conditions between the landowners and the toilers, the struggle

to be undergone by the poor people for better life is also brought out with

no less vigour. It is known from Steinbeck’s works that he had nurtured an

innate and intense sympathy for the suffering humanity in general and that

of the California Valley in particular. It becomes evident that this kind of

sympathetic undertaking of the people and their problems was the bedrock

on which his protesting expressions stand nurtured. The themes and ideas,

attitudes and leanings, symbols and images, tone and texture of Steinbeck

reveal his love for nature and his faith in it. Steinbeck paints a true and

real picture with precision. Thomas Gray rightly says “He anticipated

attitudes towards the human experience which have particularly engaged

the intelligences of the young in recent years” (6). Steinbeck underscores

the confrontation between man and his destiny. The environment that he

creates in his novels portrays the attitudes of man and satisfies his needs.

Steinbeck is extremely sensuous to and passionate about the scenes,

sounds, scents, touches and tastes of things both animate and inanimate.

He accepts that all living things share the same basics and believes in the

unity of man with man and with nature.

257

Owning the land, having an intimate association with it and

showing deeper affinity towards it are the innate traits of farmers. But the

land in the Salinas Valley has now been deprived of its emotional

attributes and treated merely as a device for producing commodities and

nothing more than that. This commodification objective is self-centered

and highly pernicious. Making use of the land is not deemed evil. But

killing it in the name of mechanization with the sole aim of accumulating

undue monetary profit by exploiting the poor workers is not justified by

any means. The ordinary people are the sons of the soil and driving them

away ruthlessly from their land is akin to cutting off the roots of a plant.

Steinbeck, as a novelist cared immensely for the ordinary people,

their place of living, their emotions, aspirations and their simple and

straight forward living. He has given vent to their problems in his fiction

and his words of protest are nothing but the result of his genuine

humanistic considerations. One has to vouchsafe John H. Timmerman

remarks that no two American writers except Mark Twain and Steinbeck

throughout American history had a firmer sense of the ordinary man and

of ordinary life and maintained the common touch even after they became

rich and successful (122). Steinbeck’s deeper and emotional attachment to

the land has found its brilliant expression in many of his novels. In The

Grapes of Wrath the land attains the status of a mother feeder. Therefore it

is a life and death issue for a farmer who is compelled by indirect coercion

258 to forsake his land for a paltry sum. The farmer’s own emotional bondage

will utter tales of woe at the very thought of getting drifted away from his

own land which was the very icon of his sustenance and succor in this

world. Steinbeck delves deep into such moving thoughts when he portrays

the predicament of the tillers, through fiery words. His utmost concern

goes to the Sons of the Soil. The driving force for this was his personal

attachment and identification with his much loved Salinas valley and other

related country sides. The first concern can be to analyse Steinbeck as

a landscape writer and to emphasize his sense of place with the native,

geographical space and the social domains of actions which he elaborately

describes in his novels. He chooses a microcosm to represent the

macrocosm which finds expression in his California Monterey country

and especially his hometown the Salinas valley that influenced him and

augmented his love of nature. His affinity to his native land is unique that

it does not provide a backdrop but becomes a character itself. Steinbeck

himself avers:

I think I would like to write the story of this whole valley, of all the

little towns, and all the farms and the ranches of the wilder Hills.

I can see how I would like to do it so that it would be the valley of

the world. (qtd. in DeMott “Introduction” xiii)

Steinbeck the writer of place has understood the power of place to

connect us to our cultural heritage.

259

Protesting ramifications in writing necessitate the powers of

individuals to rise against social ramshackle and atrocious attitudes for

getting remedial measures. The individual may rise up to the occasion

with the support of the mass as evident in the case of Mahatma Gandhi to

get freedom from the British yoke, though his preferred mechanisms were

non-violence and non-co-operation. The manifestations of protest, their

scope, purpose and results are identified under various socio-economic

and cultural contexts. The contours of them take their directions based on

the immediate and long term benefits. The nature of protest itself takes

different turns which range from individual man to group men. The

underlying motive seems to have its proliferation in the welfare of not

only society anchored in a particular region, herein the South of America,

but that of mankind in general. It is not restricted to a specific period but

applicable to all the ages to come. To Steinbeck, the group organism is

more than just the sum of its parts, and the emotions of its unit parts

merge into a single group emotion, Steinbeck’s fundamental world view

involves the Non Teleological Thinking which comprises of a love of

freedom and acceptance of the reality, God, Church and the religious

matters and so on. It also gets expressed in his less consideration for

material things and the value he imparted to friendship more than money

and power. A kind of non-conformist bent of mind is witnessed in the

mechanisms of protest, though most of his time he used to accumulate

260 himself with the changing social milieu and the temperaments of the

individuals taking into task their pathetic conditions of living. Critics are

of the firm view that Steinbeck had an understanding of human nature in

terms of supernatural naturalism.

Prominently, unbounded avarice on the part of the moneyed class

resulted in utter exploitation of the social group having no means of

subsistence. Further, want of ethical precepts and practices had

invigorated open plundering under the guise of industrialization. The

ramifications of such spleen less pseudo agricultural development had

brought about poverty, indescribable hardships, animosity and the general

unrest. The sons of the soil were driven from pillar to post even for partly

stuffing their stomachs under such wretched conditions. Nowhere in the

history of the globe such an exodus dreaming of a Promised Land’ but

driven to tasting of the pernicious fruits of experiences has taken place.

And Steinbeck’s climatic and proverbial pronouncement that “grapes are

stored for vintage” is nothing but his heart felt operational alternative for

such social evil. It can be said that the thought of social protest is the

foster child of sympathetic understanding of the people afflicted with

problems and oppression for none of their faults.

Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath is the Odyssey of the Joads

who stand as the shining instance of surmounting undue hardships by

means of sympathetic understanding of the fellow-beings and extending

261 helping hands to those who are in distress. The Joads set out for livelihood

but get dismayed by the troubles at the Promised Land. Exhibiting

steadfast will and an amicable attitude, they impart succor and sustenance

to the needy. They symbolize all that is good and endowing in human life.

Steinbeck insisted upon understanding the people properly in order to set

right things properly. This ideology enabled him to present the Joad

family as an invincible example in this regard. The story of The Grapes of

Wrath is a story of a community of immigrants. The novel does not focus

exclusively on the Joads, but it gives a multi-dimensional’ portrait of all

the Okies through using the Joads as a vivid instance of the socio-

economic tragedy of the 1930s. For this reason, the people at power,

especially the large ranch owners, regarded the novel as a ‘mere’ piece of

propaganda, and Steinbeck as one of the most threatening men in

America. Steinbeck places his criticism of the American system of

capitalism by resorting to American ideas developed by Jefferson and

other ideologists of the time. So if we look at the idea of the dispossession

of the small farmers by the banks, it is the idea of Jeffersonian democracy

and agrarianism that comes first to mind. Marxist ideas are evoked only

when they fit in with American ideas. The secular ideas of Jefferson are

further supported by the social gospel philosophy.

Steinbeck identifies his social protest with a rhetoric of suffering

and sacrifice that is consolidated by certain biblical references. For

262 instance, as in the Biblical story of Jesus, Jim Casy sacrifices himself for

the community. He organizes a strike of peach peakers and cried out to the

vigilantes who come after him “They know not what they do.” These

words echo Jesus Christ’s words. Another reference to Jesus Christ can be

found in Matthew 28:20, where Jesus tells his disciples “I am with you

always.” The same idea is told by Casy to Tom during the first meeting

“yeah, I am goin’ with them. An’ where folks are on the road; I’m gonna

be with them” (GW 77). In fact, Casy “deserts” gospel-preaching because

he is unable to collocate his “sensual” life with his “theological” life.

Thus, for Casy, the solution is to accept his “humanitarian” mission

among the Joads and the other Okies, because Casy begins to see himself

as responsible not only for the Joads but to all people in flight.

Steinbeck’s virulent depiction of the protesting elements involve

varied factors. He remarkably brings forth to our attention the motley

facets of the social problems then in prevalence and their culmination in

concrete retaliatory measures on the part of the affected people for one

cause or other. An author like Steinbeck with an exemplary sympathy and

concern for the poor people could not simply be the silent spectator of the

inhuman attitudes and atrocities that let loose on the migrants by the

landlords, bureaucrats and bank men who all joined together at a crucial

time with a view to fleecing the helpless people treating them merely as an

indiscriminate bolus of flesh. Steinbeck’s own sentiments augured with

263 anger and thereby paved the way for their verbal outlets characteristics of

his rebellious thoughts. He raised his voice against human avarice which

was the root cause for the heartless ill-treatment of one’s fellow beings.

Accumulating money by the haves at the expense of the fundamental

necessities of the poor is not only a baneful affair but also unpardonable

sin. Economic squandering has led to typical and tyrannical malpractices

and maneuvering and therefore such unhealthy dealings are to be averted

as the mob was anticipating a new deal. At the region, the inertia on the

part of the American ruling sector was also one of the reasons for not ably

controlling and handling the situation effectively and that too at the proper

time.

Exploitation under the guise of Industrialization was the crucial

issue which went unheeded. We find this aspect, expressed with more

stress and strain in the novels dealt with, in this study. Imposition of

autocratic norms in the name of regulation of the influx also brought about

negative results. Oppressive rules and the senseless wastage of food items

especially the fruits and the other related things prone to rot, have posed

inexorable mismanagement and malevolent behaviours of the affluent

people who were devoid of basic human considerations. Further,

monopolization of powers played its own vital and vitriolic role in

harassing the already perturbed and afflicted migrant mob. Corruption,

nepotism and selfishness, discrimination-all these had an indelible impact

264 on the already ecologically imperiled, economically devastated, socially

shattered, politically prejudiced, and culturally de-rooted migrant workers,

for no fault of their own. The cruel destiny of the Dust Bowl and the

economic depression of the 1930s went hand in hand and wrote the human

history indescribably in a massive level far beyond recovery. Steinbeck’s

writings proved to be loyal and honest to the core in the sense that he has

translated his heartfelt ideologies concerned not only with the

bereavement of the humanity but also of its betterment. He raises a clarion

call against the evil of oppression and abuse by his writings which are

charged with imagination and reality. At the same time he was not

sentimental and not oriented to any isms and outmoded political

marooning. His faith and realization as to the potentiality of the pen did

not jettison him into pessimistic ends.

The author also did extend his supporting hands to the Roosevelt

administration at that time, which attempted to offer a new deal to the

affected people. This proves that he was not only interested in underlining

ideologies but also in stepping up for practical solutions. It is explained by

critics that in the East of Eden Steinbeck erected an explicit American

Adam in the character of Adam Trask. But he finds his American myth of

the Eden shattered, the dangers of the myth exposed. He had to identify

a new path towards a new consciousness of commitment instead of

displacement.

265

True to his ideology, Steinbeck turned himself to be the watch-dog

of the American society of his times, exposed the silliness, and attacked

the faults and injustices of the selfish people especially the money lenders

and the exploiters. He articulated either positively or negatively all that

came into his creative domain. The impact of environment on man and the

strength of the family are no less powerfully portrayed in his novels

though social protest occupies the major thematic euphoria. His mission

had been to declare and celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of

heart and spirit. He reemphasizes that the pursuit of wealth does not lead

to fulfillment. The form of a work itself inspires a writer to generate ideas.

Francis Christenson notes

It serves the needs of both the writer and the reader, the writer by

compelling him to examine his thought, the reader by letting him in

the writer’s thought. The interplay between the text and the reader,

the writer and the reader would be an enlightening dissertation

(Timmerman 276).

Another dimension in Steinbeck’s treatment of myth is to show the

significant and ultimate theme of love and altruism. The co-existence of

the mythical and modern world can be brought through love which unifies

them. The myths bridge the gap between the past and the present, the

material and the spiritual, the historical and the imaginative aspects of the

world; “it is a palimpsest’ upon which he has inscribed a realistic tale of

266 contemporary men” (Fontenrose 6). Myths exercise a magic spell on him.

A few attributes of myths are chosen; the importance that Steinbeck gives

to nature is highlighted by analyzing the myths – its core, course, content,

colour and the compulsion found in it, for man’s future safety for myths

are eschatological and presents life as a continuous process. Biblical

legends, Garden of Eden, Exodus, Holy Grail, Fisher King myths,

Vegetative myths, Leviathan and the story of Joseph fascinate and lure

him so much that he uses them in his novels. All his novels dilate upon the

quest myth and the Eden myth. The characters are constantly in search of

a place to belong, a paradise. Their longing for an Eden is exemplified in

their Westward movement. They make an Exodus thinking that the

Golden West is the heaven and haven for peaceful life similar to the

Israelites of the past. Steinbeck insists that the myth of American Eden is

illusory and wishes to awaken the American consciousness to have a new

vision, a sense of commitment to place and to the whole thing. He

employs the Fisher King myth in which the king sacrifices his blood for

the rejuvenation of the parched land and to instill in man the predicament

of his relationship to land. The contemporary events are as portentous for

the future as was the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. Though

Steinbeck uses myths to educate the people for the future, he has modified

and trans inversed the myths to suit his purposes and situations so that

they can impart a vision of the whole and bring the unity of all mankind.

267

Throughout his literary career Steinbeck continually attempted to

reconcile several incompatible views of mankind. It is due to his wealth of

themes forms and techniques that a categorization of his works is

a difficult task. He has successfully merged scientific ideas, social

realities, economic thoughts, biological views and non teleological

reflections with moralistic approach, artistic forms and cosmic

consciousness. His desire to convey social realities sometimes caused him

to over sympathize with characters who are victims of society to the point

of being accused for sentimentality. On the other hand his tendency to be

objective left him to the charge of being too detached. His Nobel Prize

Acceptance speech very clearly defines the role of a writer;

The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is

charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with

dredging up the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the

purpose of improvement … I hold that a writer who does not

passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication

nor any membership in literature. (Oliver ed. 691)

Steinbeck wrote with his purpose he has advocated. He has

exposed the economic system, organized religion, middleclass values,

businessmen’s world, the hazards of war and the way society treats its

misfits. He has given vent to feelings of disillusionment many times

because of the great depression, economic upheaval and the ethical

268 erosion and he has depicted human existence as a conflict and often as

a savage battle but he was essentially an affirmative writer. He has

expressed faith in the capacities of men to make life worth living. The

heterogeneous racial structure of the American society, the world of

commerce with high headed business executives engaged in all exclusive

worship of goddess success, the world of letters, determined by

practicalists and dewey eyed visionaries, all result in a wide variety of

characteristics in American life and all are represented in the works of

John Steinbeck.

Critics are of the general view that protest literature is seen as

sacrificing the political efficacy of more moderate critiques in favour of

galvanic emotional force. Works in the protest and naturalist genres tend

to rely on exaggerated depictions of hopeless scenarios which leave the

reader without much in the way of plot or character that they can relate to

their own lives. And there lies the greatest criticism of these genres that

they are not life like; their characters are too circumscribed by forces

beyond their control, too deprived of agency to strike the reader as being

real. The novels of Steinbeck mostly belie the aforesaid statement in that

they are not carried away by emotional tint but by his rationale steered by

the understanding of humanity at large. As such the protesting expressions

admit no superfluous conditions. A genuine care for the hapless people

was the underlying motive of his fiction and his style accordingly matched

269 itself with the content in all of its flamboyant manifestations. The present

study unfolds these traits appropriately. Apart from the external aspects of

human life, it comes to our notice that Steinbeck had inner psychological

fabrications, the traces of which are obviously identified in his remarkable

characterization. To understand man had been his declared mission and

motive which gradually culminated in the form of Joad family. The author

speculates that if people understand one another there is every possibility

of averting unfavourable consequences. He is of the firm conviction that

all the possible ways and means have to be resorted to for dispensing with

the problems, even by violent ones. Yet another dimension of this caliber

for oneself as put forth by Steinbeck is to rest content with the result

however negative it is. Leave the problem to the course of events for

settlement. “What it is” is more important than “what it has been” or

“what it should be.” Called by Steinbeck as Non-Teleological thinking

such temperaments have more justification in his writing ethos, and

evidently we come across the gleanings in the course of actions and

thought processes of the characters in his novels taken up for the present

study.

Selfishness on the part of the party leaders, under the guise of

working for the labouring class has found a fitting critical exposure in

Steinbeck’s novels. Though he had strong faith in them and their policies

and rebellious activities, he did not lag behind in uttering negative

270 remarks through his characters as and when the situation warranted. The

guts for such an unafraid statements had come from his own fair

mindedness as he once remarked that he did not favour any ism for its

own sake. It is obvious that the voices of protest and the corresponding

practices found in Steinbeck’s writings transcend the barriers of time,

place and action. They may well be applied in another level to any time

and any place under certain restrictions. It is understood that though

having their anchorage in particular region and specific time, his

protesting tenors born out of his spotless humanistic traits, have such

vitality surely approach universal validity by virtue of their essential

sympathy and ingrained honesty.

Undoubtedly man is shaped by all the influences. Man is born free

but he encounters various problems and is in trouble everywhere. All the

characters in Steinbeck’s novels - major and minor - are part of the group

organism and perform functions in relation to the social groups. They lose

their selves and enforce the will of the group. Thus they establish larger

relationships in human society as well as with their forebears through

collective racial memory. Donne observes that man does not live in

isolation and he is a social being. Steinbeck goes a step forward to say that

man is not an isolated being; he is a vital organ in the body of the

universe, a lynch pin, the machinery of the cosmos and an important

element in the composition of the world. Regarding the biological

271 principles, Steinbeck was influenced by many of his predecessors

ushering in wider panorama of the vision of the world. In each and every

novel, the interface where the protagonist actively reacts with the

environment focuses the crux of the problem. This interface is where the

protagonist who has so far lived in isolation from his surroundings comes

to realize that an important part of himself is the environment. His

identification of himself with some specific natural object is the

consummation of his life and living. In his emotional reaction lies his

actual realization of all the biological principles underlying the reaction of

the world itself. With this man’s evolution is complete. Steinbeck views

humanity as an inextricable part of the whole cosmos in which the living

and non-living play an important role. All forms of life on earth are

interrelated. He is aware of the behaviour of several types of organisms.

The wide vision of the whole takes into account the interrelations of

nature and working of things in this larger network. Natural selection as

a progressive force and the struggle for survival result in comradeship,

cooperation and mutual help. In essence, we are all together in a great

whole and every struggle contributes to the selection and tends to the

progress of all processes - a natural system of progress interrelated.

His strong ideologies such as understanding of people; importance

of family as the eternal hope; freedom not freezed by the practice of

owning and avarice; freedom from discrimination based on race, colour,

272 gender and the resulting ill treatment, ethical domination - all these are

surging ahead in his novels which are stewarded by realistic delineation

and imaginative fervour. In the Nobel prize citation, he was eulogized as

an “independent expounder of the truth with an unbiased instinct for what

is genuinely American, be it good wicked” (New York Times 12).

F.W. Watt has rightly said:

Like America itself, his work is a vast fascinating paradoxical

universe: a bash experiment in democracy: a native quest for

understanding at the level of the common man: a celebration of

goodness and innocence: and display of chaos violence, corruption

and decadence. (2)

A writer lives on only for as long as his books are read. It is safe to

predict that Steinbeck’s books will continue to be read long after the

critically acclaimed books of many of his contemporaries have become

merely listed titles in dusty treatises. In one sense, it is remarkable that in

this posthumous period his work enjoys continuing popularity among

readers of all ages, and particularly among the young. It seems that he has

something meaningful to say to each successive generation discovering

him for the first time. He has not suffered the usual slump in interest and

popularity which follows the deaths of most writers. His books sold by the

thousands, as attested by considerable and unending turnover on the

booksellers paperback shelves. Steinbeck’s books for all their outdated

273 surface topicality, express universal and enduring truths. Even regarded as

parables, they are the stuff of which life is composed. Thomas Heggen,

the author Mr. Roberts (1946), defending Steinbeck’s portrayal of the

Oklahoma tenant farmers in The Grapes of Wrath has expressed the

general view “His characters live and breathe also they cuss and drink and

carry – on, but only because their real life prototypes cussed and drank

and carried on” (234).

How can one, for instance, equate the uncompromising realism and

violence in In Dubious Battle gentle satirical humour of Tortilla Flat or

the carefully paired theatrical construction of Of Mice and Men with the

sprawling saga of East of Eden; Steinbeck of course was fully aware of

the problem. In an interview given to a British journalist in 1959, he stated

I once worked out a thing about criticism that it hates to change its

mind. The only safe writer is a dead one for the critics. If he

changes, a writer confuses critics, and yet if he doesn’t change he’s

really dead. I’m surprised there’s been any continuity at all in my

books. (7)

John Steinbeck was a very unassuming type of man and written,

who never ran after popularity. As his social attitude and relationship to

society changed, his literary career also witnessed changes. Peter Lisca

seems to hold the view when he says that

274

… in the thirties Steinbeck had been under the influence of Jungian

thought, thinking in terms of archetypes and racial memory, but

after 1950 he became much more ‘Freudian’ and thus individual in

his outlook. (15)

Steinbeck principal thematic method is closely tied to his well-

known teleological thinking. And this thinking is in turn closely tied to an

“ecological” point of view, which is derived from his pastoral impulse. It

is interesting that Steinbeck used the term “ecology” more than twenty

years before the word become so popular. Steinbeck’s main contribution

is his thematic method rather than any original thematic idea, because we

have learned from Richard Astro’s exhaustive research that “the non-

teleological thinking” essay was written not by Steinbeck but by Ed

Ricketts and was reproduced almost verbatim in The Log from Sea of

Cortez. The efficacy of non-teleology as a critical tool will be tested in

studies of Steinbeck’s novels dealing more with the soul of the individual

such as The Winter of our Discontent. Steinbeck for his inheritance took

the orchards and growing fields of California, The wasteland of the

Depression, the refuse camps of rebels and the slums of poverty. He found

pity and pity and terror among fellow human beings but, like Fitzgerald,

he also found beauty, charm and wit. Through the two men would never

have thought of themselves as collaborators, they shared the responsibility

of presenting in fiction all the conflicts that have confused our time and

275 yet confirmed its aspirations. Steinbeck speaks to us with special

immediacy because in curious way be anticipated attitudes towards the

human experience, which have particularly engaged the intelligences of

the young in recent years. Many of Steinbeck characters seem to have

been the forebears of the rebels who have gathered in carters of protest

from Greenwich village to the Haight – Ashbury district of San-Francisco.

Steinbeck’s spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings and thoughts takes

cudgels against the culprits concerned as in the ensuing lines from The

Grapes of Wrath: “There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation.

There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure

here that topples all our success” (365).

This is a powerful argument that challenges some of the basic

assumptions of free market capitalism; it shows the human cost of

decisions that are made on purely economic grounds. One can say that

Steinbeck use his innovative techniques to present a fragmented, class-

based, and alienated American society. He experiment with modernist

techniques, which are sometimes transferred from the cinema. However,

his experimentation with techniques does not lead him to an art for art’s

sake. On the contrary, those modernist techniques are put at the service of

his themes.

The basic function of arts, according to Steinbeck is to provide

society with a focus in its own social, moral, economic and political

conditions. It is social and political responsibility to use his literary

276 creativity and skill to inform, reform, raise and enhance social

consciousness. For him, “… the hopeless corruption of modern age was to

be met not by love, religion, or social protest but by art-the highest

possible resistance to the swindle of the modern social world” (Parker

215).

Steinbeck literacy career spanned four decades. As Jay Parini

observes that, Steinbeck is “the author remains unfailingly attractive to

readers of all ages and levels of sophistication” (23). He wrote about

poverty, hunger, the social outcastes, the misfits of life and the mentally

handicapped. He wrote of the underdog: the skilled worker, the exploiter

and the exploited; he wrote about the dream and frustration of the humble;

and above all he wrote of the loneliness of man in society. The

culmination of the voice of protest is found ripe indelibly in his novels

such as Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and In Dubious Battle.

Steinbeck tries to show what really makes man, that’s why in 1938 he

wrote in a journal: “There is a base theme. Try to understand men; if you

understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well

never leads to hatred and nearly always leads to love” (qtd. in DeMott 10).

This wide world of Steinbeck is as full of tragedy, laughter as the world of

Dickens’s. Through all these writings of social concern over the years if

there was one unifying and common factor, it was his compassion for

man.