John Steinbeck's "In Dubious Battle"
Summary
This story opens with the main character named Jim Nolan leaving behind his former life and going to meet Harry Nilson, a leader of the "Party." Jim had a father killed in a riot, a mother who died, and a sister that was missing. He wants to join the "Party" because he wants to do something that will give his life meaning. He is accepted, and is introduced to other members of the party. The next day, Jim accompanies Mac McLeod to Torgas Valley to help workers organize a strike against the orchard owners in the valley. They meet a restaurant car owner named Al, who gives them food for free. Jim and Mac get off the train and meet a group of people. They help a woman named Lisa who is in labor deliver a baby. This event is important in the story, because this leads to the trust that Jim and Mac receive from all the other workers. They also meet London, the father-in-law of Lisa, who they will trust to lead the strike that they start. The workers already have a low mood, and when an old apple-picker falls out of a tree, the workers no longer wish to work in concern of their health. The workers start to strike, and assemble on the land of Al’s father, in exchange for picking his crop for free. London is charismatic, and takes the ideas from Mac to lead the strike. What will be the fate of the strikers, and what will Jim accomplish with his newly acquired skills?
Sketch 1
Jim Nolan is a character who has always been angry at some type of institution throughout his life, which causes him to join the "Party." He is young, and goes from being an apprentice to a leader. He is keen and brave, which emanate from his innate leadership ability.
Sketch 2
Mac McLeod is a seasoned veteran of the "red" work, as he knows more about fieldwork than anyone else does. He is an older character, who has broad shoulders, long arms, and dried and cracked lips. He uses his experience to lead and organize the men that he works with.
Sketch 3
Joy is an enforcer who contributes to the "Party" by sacrificing his body in taking chronic beatings. He is a short man with a disfigured face. He is typified by some as not too bright and insane by others; he is very pugnacious, as he is willing to fight anyone.
Sketch 4
London is a working stiff who is able to command...
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... book included the strikers’ raid on the replacement workers, for it illustrated the roles of the different groups involved, such as the police, the vigilantes, the strikers and the scabs. Another intense portion of the book was that of the strikers’ raid on the apple orchard in which they attacked their replacements, for it showed the type of brutality that the strikers could carry out to send their message. The scene where Mac tortures a young boy who was caught around Anderson’s barn when it was set on fire is also a very intense scene. The aspect of the book that I did not care for was that of their being no explanation of what happened after the strike was resolved. It would have been interesting to learn about the type of effect that the strike had on the people, as well as what type of change occurred among them. Because of the interesting perspectives that this book provides, I would recommend that others read it. I would especially recommend this book to those who do not fully understand the power of the group and how it can be manipulated by its leaders, because the book goes into great detail of how this is accomplished. I would give this book a four star rating ****.
The idea of good versus evil is illustrated in several ways in John Steinbeck's East of Eden. This is seen through the external conflicts in the novel, the internal conflicts of the characters, and a universal understanding of the battle between good and evil.
Misfit to Madonna: Rose of Sharon’s Transformation When Rose of Sharon is first introduced in The Grapes of Wrath, we learn that she is expecting a child from her new husband, Connie Rivers. She is described as a mystical being whose primary concern is the well-being of her child, even at the almost ridiculously early stage of her pregnancy at the start of the novel. It is this concern that illustrates Rose of Sharon’s transformation from misfit to Madonna through the Joad’s journey. Rose of Sharon incessantly asks Ma Joad if “it’ll hurt the baby” throughout the majority of the novel, and adopts an attitude of superiority over others with her precious possession. She all but refuses to help the family pack the truck for California for fear of disturbing her fetus, even though she knows her help is needed.
Even though, this is a fictional book, it tells a true story about the struggle of the farm worker to obtain a better life for themselves and their families. There are two main themes in this book, non-violence, and the fight for dignity. Cesar Chavez was a non-violent man who would do anything to not get in a fight while they where boycotting the growers. One, incident in the story was when a grower pulled out a gun, and he pointed it at the strikers, Chavez said, “He has a harder decision to make, we are just standing here in peace…” The picketer were beaten and put in jail before they would fight back and that is what why all farm workers look up to Cesar Chavez , along with his good friend Martin Luther King Jr. Non-Violence is the only way to solve anything. The growers in that time did not care about their workers, if people were striking, the growers would go to Mexico and bring in Braceros, mean that they would not have to sign the union contract and not take union workers, who were willing to work if the grower would sign the contract.
I. John Steinbeck used his personal experiences as a laborer to write many of his novels like Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath.
John Steinbeck was perhaps the best author of all time. He was the winner of a Nobel Prize, and among other accomplishments, Steinbeck published nineteen novels and made many movies during his lifetime. All of his experience and knowledge are shown through his novels. A reader can tell, just in reading a novel by Steinbeck, that he had been through a lot throughout his life. Also, Steinbeck worked very hard to accomplish everything that he did during his lifetime. Nothing came very easily to him, and he had to earn everything he owned. This helped him in his writing, because he was able to write about real people and real experiences. John Steinbeck got his inspiration from life experiences, people he knew, and places he had gone.
When Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath, our country was just starting to recover from The Great Depression. The novel he wrote, though fiction, was not an uncommon tale in many lives. When this book was first published, the majority of those reading it understood where it was coming from-they had lived it. But now very few people understand the horrors of what went on in that time. The style in which Steinbeck chose to write The Grapes of Wrath helps get across the book's message.
The stories, novels, films and photographs surrounding the Dust Bowl crisis and the Vietnam War have been marred with various issues about historical reconstructions. Whereas historical critics have raised questions about the real cause of migration of south westerners during the Dust Bowl crisis, their representatives have given conflicting accounts on the events surrounding the Odyssey. Steinbeck, in his book, The Grapes of Wrath, explains that the migration of farmers from Oklahoma was caused by the harsh drought that followed the Dust Bowl Odyssey (Davidson & Lytle, 2009a). On the other hand, critics argue that the findings are not based on statistics. According to historians, novelists like Steinbeck normally base their historical stories on exaggeration and should rely on facts and statistics. For example, the number of farmers who migrated into California is exaggerated. When James Gregory, a current historian, went through the Census Bureau statistics, he found out that only 43% of people living in Oklahoma were farmers during the Dust Bowl crisis. According to historical critics, other causes for the migration might have been the agricultural reorganization and mechanization, as portrayed by a tractor in The Grapes of Wrath.
"Ethical utilitarianism can most generally be described as the principle that states that the rightness or wrongness of action is determined by the goodness and badness of their consequences." (Utilitarianism EOP 9: 603.) Following this guide line the morally right decision to make is to rescue the group with five ...
As one of the newest, hottest diet trends to circulate around the United States, the Paleo Diet is essentially a high-protein, low-carb diet based on the speculated diets of our caveman ancestors. With its emphasis on poultry, lean meats, whole fruits and vegetables, as well as nuts but not grains, legumes, dairy, or anything refined or processed, the theory behind the diet is simple. As quoted by an online review by U.S. News & World Report: “if the cavemen didn’t eat it, you shouldn’t either.” Since our hunter-gatherer fore-bearers never had to eat the highly-processed, antibiotic-and-hormone-heavy food we eat today, they were much healthier, lived more active lives, and never suffered from the “disease of civilization” so many people in the U.S. and around the world deal with today.
Kelton’s novel revolves around how the cowboy strike occurred and the effects it presented. The reason the strike rose up is because the cowboys were upset that the ranchers treated them in a frantic manner. Ultimately, the cowboys did not win the strike and quickly lost hope. The ranchers wanted to keep the
The early twentieth century was a time of change for America with western expansion, discrimination, and innovation. The western United States became one of the places to live because of its sense of wild lands and industrial progress. This time of change paved way for legendary literature including great authors such as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and even the great J. R. R. Tolkien. However, one of the best authors during this time was John Steinbeck. Born and raised in California, he wrote many novels that were influenced by his childhood backyard and experiences in the Central Valley and Monterey areas. Steinbeck’s short story collection The Long Valley shows Steinbeck’s influence from his childhood home in the settings around the Salinas and Monterey regions in many of the short stories, as well as prominent and common themes such as communion, unfulfilling marriages, and the road to manhood.
This diet is actually designed after people who lived in the Paleolithic era of Earth’s history. It’s also called the Caveman diet by some people. The general idea is that to be your healthiest, you should eat the way our earliest ancestors did.
refusal to play a literary role. He made him self as unpopular writer so he
Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is a realistic novel that mimics life and offers social commentary too. It offers many windows on real life in midwest America in the 1930s. But it also offers a powerful social commentary, directly in the intercalary chapters and indirectly in the places and people it portrays. Typical of very many, the Joads are driven off the land by far away banks and set out on a journey to California to find a better life. However the journey breaks up the family, their dreams are not realized and their fortunes disappear. What promised to be the land of milk and honey turns to sour grapes. The hopes and dreams of a generation turned to wrath. Steinbeck opens up this catastrophe for public scrutiny.
By definition joy means a great feeling of pleasure and happiness. In Mary Flannery O'Connor's short story Good Country People, Joy Freeman was not at all joyful. Actually, she was the exact opposite. Joy's leg was shot off in a hunting accident when she was ten. Because of that incident, Joy was a stout girl in her thirties who had never danced a step or had any normal good times. (O'Connor 249). She had a wooden leg that only brought her teasing from others and problems in doing daily activities. Joy was very rude as well. In the story it speaks of her comments being so rude and ugly and her face so glum that her mother's boss, Mrs. Hopewell, would tell her if she could not come pleasantly than for her to not come at all. (O'Connor 249).