In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck

In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck is not a "red" novel. It is not a communist propaganda that seeks to provoke people to fight for the common good. It is not written to encourage people to strike against the status quo. Steinbeck himself was not a communist. In fact, he shared he disliked the communists as people. Yet he wrote the best novel about a strike in world history, a novel that appears to be radical to the core. What could be the explanation of this?


In Dubious Battle is Steinbeck's first novel, followed by Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath, out of the trilogy which focuses on the problems of the common man during The Great Depression in the USA. The book encompasses around ten days, which follow the rise and the development of a strike of Californian apple pickers. Inspired by true events, In Dubious Battle aroused immense controversy when published in 1936. It was seen as a rebellion against the status quo, as a quest for social and economic equality. The whole strike is seen through the eyes of Jim Nolan, a disillusioned young man, who has lost his family in the current regime. Searching for self-realization, understanding, and purpose, Jim joins the Communists. Together with Mac, he becomes entangled in the strike of the migrant workers, prompting them to rebel against the low wages and seeking for supporters for the cause. However, the strike soon turns to disaster, as the workers are forced to live on a farm in unhygienic conditions, to starve, and to fight. Despair and disillusion are in the air and Mac and Jim as agitators must continuously devise ways to maintain the group's commitment and to prevent the participants of turning against each other. Steinbeck brilliantly follows the birth of an idea, the means to its development, and its tragic but inevitable end.

The title of the novel is adapted from Milton's Paradise Lost, where "the dubious battle" is Satan's revolt against God and his means. The similarity between both battles is not that their outcomes are uncertain but that the confrontation is unnecessary and unjustified in the first place. Milton justifies the ways of God to man by pointing out the futility of any resistance to his power; Steinbeck, on the other hand, shows the struggle over how the profits from cultivating fruits of the earth must be shared among the participants. In that sense, Steinbeck's novel can be read as a propaganda for social equality. However, the title itself foreshadows that the battle is purposeless. Even Mac, one of the main agitators, admits that the situation is fairly hopeless. Yet the struggle continues.

However, the novel is not merely a story about a dubious confrontation, nor it is a meditation on the differences between human beings acting as individuals or within group. It is not a summary of the pros and cons of the communist ideology. In Dubious Battle is actually a portrait of the maturing of a young person, Jim Nolan. The whole novel is centered around his character, starting from his despair and decision to join the Communists and tracking his transformation from a silent loyal follower into an inspiring leader of the masses. At the centre of every scene is Jim, what he learns, how he feels, what he suffers. The reader is taken on a journey of the development of a personal point-of-view, or so called a philosophy of life. Usually, it takes people years to build self-confidence, to find purpose, to feel passion. It takes Jim 10 days to grow from an apathetic boy into a clever quick-witted individual. As the author perceives it, the battle was not dubious because of the uncertainty of the outcome; it was dubious because it should never occurred in the first place. Jim is a capable young individual, who, however, is trapped into a hopeless confrontation. The author attempts to promote understanding, to shake people out of their complacent self-seeking by portraying its consequences, and to discuss the devastating effects of man's inhumanity to man.

The author's message thus should not be regarded as a slogan for a red party. It is much more universal than that. Steinbeck aimed to promote the necessity of orderly rational change and to use of the talents of the gifted in facilitating this effort so that all the "dubious" battles might end, leaving way to a more constructive effort towards change.

Of Mice and Men - The First Book That Made Me Cry

How many movies have made you cry? Numerous, maybe. The cinema has the advantage of creating vivid images, music, sights, looks, etc, which influence the viewer and touch the deepest, most hidden and sincere parts of his/her soul.

How about a book that made you cry? That's a bit more difficult. You have to submerge into the story, to feel it, to understand it, to visualize it, to go into the character's souls and then to cry. It all happens inside your mind without any visual aids. That's why it is more difficult to have a book that makes you cry. Some novels indeed make you sad, lonely, desperate, despaired. But how many of them prompted you to share a tear? How many of them in fact had you crying like a little baby even though "it was just a story". Of Mice and Men is such a novel. I finished it in exactly 5 hours and still whenever I think about I can't help but cry. Way to start, Mr Steinbeck. The first novel by you that I read made be whimper like a little baby looking for its mother's hug.

Of Mice and Men is a novel about friendship. Friendship in its purest form, friendship between two lonely men on the quest for happiness. Lennie and George are drifters looking for work in the diffucult years of the Great Depression in the USA. George is a clever ambitious little man, looking for ways to save up enough money and one day to have a house of his own. His friend, Lennie, is a simple minded good guy, very hard worker, but not much of a brilliant thinker. George is trapped in taking care for his mentally slow friend and they constantly change jobs because of Lennie's unfortunate inclination to always get into trouble. Finally, the two friends get a job on a ranch in California's Salinas Valley. Their hopes of a better future are doomed when Lennie is again confronted with jealousy, cruelty, misunderstanding, and becomes a victim of his own strength. Now his best friend George must make the most difficult decision in his life in order to save both himself and Lennie from a terrible destiny.

Of Mice and Men is Steinbeck's middle book in his trilogy about agricultural labor in California (including In Dubious Battle and The Grapes of Wrath). All of these novels are epic responses to the acute problems of farm labor in California, where large-scale firms exploit the laborers to harvest seasonal crop. The author explores the difficulties of the working force, their loneliness, despair, and isolation.

Lennie and George are among the few workers that travel together. Most of the men at that time prefer to be alone, changing jobs, always in competition with each other for a place under the sun. George and Lennie are different. They are different because they have each other to take care of. It seems that only George is taking care of his slow friend Lennie. However, Lennie also provides support for George, constantly reminding him about their shared dream to own their own place one day, to have their own harvest, and to work only for themselves. Steinbeck's greatness as a writer lies in his empathy for the simple people - their joys, anger, strenght, and dreams, their cravings for land and their connection to places. All of these themes are elaborated in the context of the theme of friendship between men. As Steinbeck himself pointed out "Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love". Even though sometimes George is sorry for being trapped with Lennie, the reader feels the great connection and compassion between the two poor souls, looking for a place in an unforgiving world.

The character of Lennie somewhat reminded me of the big African-American character in the movie Green Mile. Clumsy, strong, but incredibly good at heart, both of them become victims of misunderstanding and cruelty in society. Reading about Lennie I kept imagining the storyline in the Green Mile. Maybe this vivid image ultimately led to my sobbing throughout the whole novel. When I came to the end of the novel, I couldn't but feel terribly sorry for Lennie, for George, for the unfortunate circumstances that determined their destiny, for the collapse of their dreams.

I fell in love with Of Mice and Men. I loved the image of George and Lennie's friendship, the way George yelled to Lennie, the way Lennie tried not to disappoint his friend, the goodness and affection that kept them going together for so many years, the shared dream that kept them alive. The title itself, taken from a Robert Burns's poem, suggests the transitory quality of even the "best laid schemes". George and Lennie would never get their own land, with a cow, rabits, chickens, a fireplace, etc. They would always remain outsiders in this world. The important message that Steinbeck conveys though is that it is OK because "I got you to look after me and you got me to look after you and that's why".