JOHN STEINBECK: THE MAN AND THE ENVIRONMENT (INTERTEXTUALITY IN THE SOCIAL AWARENESS OF STEINBECK’S IN DUBIOUS BATTLE, OF MICE AND MEN, AND THE GRAPES OF WRATH)
JOHN STEINBECK: THE MAN AND THE ENVIRONMENT
(INTERTEXTUALITY IN THE SOCIAL AWARENESS OF
STEINBECK’S IN DUBIOUS BATTLE, OF MICE AND MEN,
AND THE GRAPES OF WRATH)
AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By
RINI HANDAYANI
Student Number: 984214162
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would express my gratitude to my advisor, Drs. Hirmawan Widjanarka, M.Hum. for his valuable advice and guidance. I also express my gratitude to my co-advisor Dra. Th. Enny Anggraini, M.A., for her advice and suggestion in revising my thesis. I also would like to thank to all of the lecturers and staffs, especially Dr. Fr. Alip, M.Pd., M.A., Dr. Novita Dewi, M.A.,M.S., Hons. Drs.
F.X. Siswadi, M.A., Arti Wulandari, S.S, M.A., Tatang Iskarna, S.S, M.Hum, Dewi Widyastuti, SPd, M.Hum., and Mbak Nik.
Thanks to Medira Ferayanti in the University of London, Cik Irene Amelia in Amsterdam and Dra. Milda M.Si in Bandung for your lovely friendship. Good luck with your study! To my beloved friend, Peter Healey in Midland, West Australia, thank you for your sympathy when “The catastrophe of May, 2006” happened. You empowered me emotionally. To the family of Nora Robbers in Amsterdam and my parents who love me, I appreciate your valuable advice to face unpredictable life. I will never forget you, all.
My deepest gratitude is also addressed to my former colleagues in the following companies. First, it goes to all of the staffs in PT. Rekayasa Industry Construction and Engineering, Kalibata, Jakarta, PKT Bontang, and BNI 46 Bontang, Kal-Tim thank you for trusting me to work with you all.
To all of the staffs and the former superintendents in PT. Badak NGL, Bontang, Kal-Tim, thank you supporting my husband in the plant site. To the former manager of PT. Total Indonesiee, Balikpapan, Monsieur Michele spending your time with me to teach me French. I’m so sorry I could not finish my project in Balikpapan. I hope some day I can complete it. I also thank all of the lecturers of Bandung Institute of Technology who have been in Bontang, especially Dr. Sanggono, M.Sc. who is always humble lecturer. Thank you to teach my husband to know more about chemistry and dedication in work.
To all PRAMIS community in Bandung and Jakarta, thank you for accepting me to be the member of PRAMIS. To Drs. B. Rahmanto, M.Hum. thank you for the same hobby of reading Pram. To the family of the late P.A.T, thank you for your warm welcome in your nice house. To Egi, QB Bookshop Senayan Plaza, Jakarta, thank you for choosing me Steinbeck’s books. To Mrs. John Szot and all of the American citizens in Bontang, who did not want to discuss the American policy and the communism in America during 30’s with me, I’m so sorry if you think that talking about the American politics is “useless”. I just want to get the complete data for Steinbeck.
Lastly, I would like to thank my husband, Purwito and my daughter, Jasmine Purwitaningrum, for their constant love. I promise I will be home soon. I LOVE YOU.
RINI HANDAYANI
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE ......................................................................................... i APPROVAL PAGE ................................................................................ ii ACCEPTENCE PAGE ........................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS........................................................................ v ABSTRACT ………………………....................................................... vi ABSTRAK ......................................................................................... viii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION.......................................................... 1
A.1 Background of the Study................................................................
B.
3 Problem Formulation .....................................................................
C.
3 Objectives of the Study ..................................................................
D.
3 Definitions of Terms ......................................................................
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW......................................... 5
A.5 Review of Related Studies .............................................................
B.
10 Review of Related Theories...........................................................
1. Theory Character and Characterization.....................................
10 2. Theory of Socialist Realism ......................................................
11 3. Theory of Capitalism.................................................................
14 4. Theory of Marxism....................................................................
15 C.
17 Review on the Historical-Biographical Background .....................
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY ..................................................... 23
A. Object of the Study ........................................................................23 B. Approach of the Study ...................................................................
25 C. Method of the Study.......................................................................
27 CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS .................................................................. 29 A. The Suffering of the Lower Class; Weak in Bargaining, Power, and Poverty as seen in Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle, Of Mice
and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath .............................................. 29 B.
Possible Backgrounds that May Influence John Steinbeck’s Tendency to Shape his Social Consciousness by Revealing the Social Issues in the Three Novels ..................................................
39 CHAPTER V CONCLUSION ............................................................. 43
BIBLIOGRAPHY... .............................................................................. 45
APPENDICES ....................................................................................... 48
ABSTRACT
Rini, Handayani (2007) John Steinbeck: The Man and the Environment
(Intertextuality in the Social Awareness of Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle, Of
Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath. Yogyakarta: Department of English
Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.In Dubious Battle , Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of, are related in the
stories and written by the same writer, John Steinbeck. These novels reveal the social realism issues. The writer lives during the Great Depression in America in which people dream of the future land and the prosperity. In the Promised land, California, all their dreams are ruined and the poor remain poor. Every character tries to struggle and reach his or her dream. It is obvious that John Steinbeck uses his own research and interview with the migrant people to give the detail condition of the lower class people. Steinbeck sees the dominant ideologies neither communism nor capitalism actually bring a better hope for its participants.
Therefore in this study on social awareness, there are two questions that should be answered to reveal the intertextuality in the social awareness of John Steinbeck’s novels. The questions are (1) How are the lower class’s sufferings described in Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of
Wrath ?, (2) What possible background may have influenced John Steinbeck’s
tendency to vocalize the lower class’s sufferings and their struggle in the term of social issues? There are two approaches of the study used in analyzing the problems. They are Marxist approach and History-biographical approach. Both approaches are used to have a deep understanding on John Steinbeck’s social awareness of the lower class people.
The discussion of problem one points out the characteristics of each character in Steinbeck’s novels as the part of the lower class people who often suffer and they can not control the holistic system. The ruling class people try to preserve their position and prosperity for themselves. During the Great Depression, most of depressed people, represented by the lower class people posses impossible dream.
The discussion of problem two is the possible background may have influenced John Steinbeck to vocalize the suffering and the way of the lower class people struggling. Steinbeck lives in the period of the Great Depression and settles in California. He himself is a poverty witness. He is obsessed with the ideology of communism. Then, he changes his mind after realizing that communism also exploits its participants. He is still on the side of the poor, but he is not a member of communist party.
The conclusions of those discussions on each character in John Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath and the possible background may have influenced Steinbeck to vocalize the lower class’s sufferings and the way of their struggling are the changing step of
ABSTRAK
RINI HANDAYANI (2007). John Steinbeck: The Man and the Environment
(Intertextuality in the Social Awareness of Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle, Of
Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath). Yogyakarta: Department of English
Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.In Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men, dan The Grapes of Wrath adalah
novel-novel yang saling berhubungan dikarenakan ditulis pengarang yang sama, yaitu John Steinbeck. Kita bisa mengetahui isu-isu realism sosial. Hidup di masa Depresi tahun 1930an, orang-orang cenderung memiliki impian yang tidak dapat terwujud, yaitu tentang kemakmuran. Orang-orang bermigrasi ke California yang dipercaya sebagai “Tanah yang dijanjikan”, sayang, seluruh mimpi orang-orang kelas bawah hancur di negeri yang korup ini. Dalam karya-karya Steinbeck, In
Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men, dan The Grapes of Wrath terlihat gambran
penderitaan orang murba.Ia sadar bahwa apapun itu ideologinya, komunis ataupun kapitalis merugikan bagi yang mengikutinya.
Karenanya dalam studi kesadaran sosial, ada dua pertanyaan mendasar yang dijawab untuk menyingkap studi dalam karya-karya Steinbeck. Pertanyaannya adalah (1) Bagaimana penderitaan kaum bawah dalam tiga novel tersebut digambarkan? (2) Kemungkinan apa saja yang melatarbelakangi Steinbeck untuk menyuarakan penderitaan kaum kelas bawah dan daya juang mereka selama masa Depresi?
Pendekatan yang digunakan untuk menganalisis permasalahan tersebut adalah pendekatan secara Marxis dan pendekatan sejarah-biografi tentang Steinbeck. Pendekatan-pendekatan ini digunakan untuk mendapatkan pengertian kesadaran sosial bagi kaum marginal, dan berdasarkan biograpi sang pengarang, penulis bisa berasumsi bahwa Steinbeck dipengaruhi lingkungannya untuk membela kaum lemah ini.
Dalam diskusi pada permasalahan pertama menghasilkan gambaran penderitaan kaum murba.Kaum kapitalis berusaha mempertahankan kemapanan dan kenyamanan hidup serta menolak berbagi dengan kaum murba. Bagi kaum murba, hidup dalam masa Depresi memungkinkan mereka memiliki impian yang tak pernah terwujud.
Pada diskusi bagian kedua adalah kemungkinan yang melatarbelakangi Steinbeck untuk membela kaum murba . Pada awalnya, ia terobsesi dengan komunis di Amerika lalu berubah pikiran setelah ia menyadari bahwa sistem komunis juga memperdaya pengikutnya.Ia terus berpihak pada kaum murba, namun bukan berarti ia adalah pengarang yang beraliran komunis. Kesimpulan dari diskusi tentang karakteristik setiap tokoh dalam karya Steinbeck dan latar belakang Steinbeck untuk memihak kaum murba adalah mencerminkan perubahan sikapnya untuk menyuarakan semangat demokrasi dan kemanusiaan.
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study Among the Communist revolutionary activities, one which played an
important role is artistic activity, whose style of creation is called socialist realism.
Lenin says that art should stand on the side of the working class and grow with them. He believes that it is a must for a writer to be a partisan and especially literature is an obligation to be part of the proletariat or the working class.
In www.tparents.com, one of the articles of Maxim Gorky, the founder of socialist realism (1868-1936), states that it is necessary for the writers to stand on the high viewpoint to see the filthy crimes of capitalism, and all of the greatness of the heroic activities of the proletariat.
One of the American writers, who concerns with the suffering of the lower class is John Steinbeck. His writings often make the government and Associated Farmers, Inc.in California inflamed. Detractors accuse the author of everything from harboring communist sympathies to exaggerating the conditions in migrant camps. The uproar draws the attention of Eleanor Roosevelt, who came to Steinbeck's defense, and eventually led to congressional hearings on migrant camp conditions and changes in labor laws.
Eleanor Roosevelt in Warren French’s syndicate column in May Day, states that The Grapes of Wrath was exaggerated by Steinbeck. Gratefully, Steinbeck responds and says if Eleanor Roosevelt constantly calls him a liar.
In Kern County, meanwhile, the president of the Associated Farmers of Kern County asserts that a book obscene in the extreme sense attacks them.
John Steinbeck states that The Associated Farmers, which presumes to speak for the farms of California, failed. He, in his book America and Americans (2003:83), shows us the wage cut for the tenants and Associated Farmers’ contribution to make people hungry.
Born in Salinas, California, in 1902, John Steinbeck grows up in fertile agricultural valley about twenty-five miles from the Pacific Coast. He is the witness of the poverty, injustice, and the suffering of the lower class. California, supposed to be the “Promised Land,” is a corrupt land. He has written three powerful novels of the late1930s, focusing on the California laboring class: In
Dubious Battle
(1938), Of Mice and Men (1936 ), and The Grapes of Wrath (1939).
In this study, In Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of
Wrath are intertextualized as the main objects of this analysis by revealing the
suffering of the lower class to see the continuum thematic structure and to see the possible background that may influence Steinbeck’s tendency to shape his social consciousness by revealing the social issues in the three novels above.
B. Problem Formulation
Based on background above the problems of the thesis are formulated as follows:
1. How are the lower class’s sufferings described in Steinbeck’s In Dubious
Battle, Of Mice and Men
, and The Grapes of Wrath? 2.
What possible background may have influenced John Steinbeck’s
tendency to shape his social consciousness by revealing the social issues in the three novels above?
C. Objectives of Study The aim of this study is to answer the problems that have been formulated.
There are two objectives of this study. The first objective is to analyze the lower class’s suffering and the second is to analyze the possible background which may have influenced John Steinbeck’s tendency to shape his social consciousness by revealing the social issues in the three novels above.
D. Definition of Terms
In order to understand the subject matter of this undergraduate thesis, to avoid misunderstanding, some terms need to be defined clearly.
The first term is intertextuality. According to Julia Kristeva in The Harper
Dictionary of Modern Thought
(1980: 436), intertextuality is the relationship necessary interdependence that any literary has with a mass of others, which preceded it. A literary text is not an isolated phenomenon, it is “constructed from a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another.”
In Phenomenona, Journal of Language and Literature Vol.4 No.3- February 2001 page 22 Novita Dewi in her article “Intertextuality in John Koch’s
Living Dangerously”
, says that intertextuality is concerned with the production of new texts out of others in order to create meaning.
The second term is social awareness. In www.campwest.org according to Daniel Goleman, social awareness refers to a spectrum that runs form instantaneously sensing another’s inner state, to understanding his or her feelings and thoughts, and complicated social institutions. It includes: 1.
Primary empathy: feeling with others; sensing nonverbal emotional signals
2. Attunement: listening with full receptivity; attuning to a person.
3. Empathetic accuracy: understanding another person’s thoughts, feelings and intentions.
4. Social cognition: knowing how the social world works.
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW A. Review of Related Studies Tim Morris, in www.uta.edu/english/tim/lection/index/html, says that the
characters as seen in In Dubious Battle are not notable for depth of characterization. The rural setting does not offer much good place writing because the place is too generic. It is a novel of action, but the action is conveyed mostly through talk. Much of the novel takes place in the tents of the strikers where their leaders discuss the day's action and the plan for the next strike.
Erica Frank, in www.gradesaver.com Problem vs. Picaresque states that In
Dubious Battle
is a picaresque novel that portrays the rascal people. Jim and Mac could be described as rascals in In Dubious Battle. In this novel, Mac asks Jim if he has blue jeans and Jim's response is no. Mac insists, "Well, we'll have to go out and buy you some in a second-hand store, then" (39). However, Mac and Jim were not dressed as migrant workers because they were migrant workers, but because they wanted to look as if they were. Failing in this characteristic would not be as bad, but In Dubious Battle also fails to be episodic in nature.
The events leading up to the death of Jim are not interchangeable. The novel has a set structure that needs to be followed to maintain the given plotline.
A writer could not place the arrival of strikebreakers before the strike and you could not put the arrest of Dakin before the gathering of the strikers in Mr. takes a certain path to accomplish. As seen in the movie The Grapes of Wrath, its sub-stories are interchangeable. The episodes still make sense for the plotline to move, add, or delete.
In www.creighton.edu, Michael Levant, “A struggle to achieve identity:
the story of Curley’s wife “
, states on the surface. The character of Curley's wife in John Steinbeck's classic novel Of Mice and Men seems insignificant and one- dimensional. She appears briefly in only three scenes and often repeats the same questions or statements. Critics consequently disregard her as "characterless, nameless”.
Mark Spilka claims that Steinbeck himself has given this woman no other name but 'Curley's wife,' as if she had no personal identity for him.
Charlotte Hadella concurs in her criticism of the novel, "The fiction does not offer an authoritative or absolute statement on the woman's character". She believes Steinbeck even has "difficulty in finding his own words to describe the character once he has taken her out of the context of the story" in a letter he wrote to Claire Luce, the actress who portrayed her in the 1930s play version of the novel.
These comments seem to suggest that John Steinbeck is careless or lax throughout the novel in his development of Curley's wife. However, neither Steinbeck nor his fiction is truly to blame for Curley's wife's lack of identity.
Charlotte Hadella helps illuminate the reason why Steinbeck creates Curley's wife without a distinct identity when she says, "neither the context of the her portrait is incomplete". A psychological analysis of Curley's wife reveals what Hadella touches upon in the latter part of her statement: Curley's wife has yet to establish an identity for herself. The "context" of her life has left her deprived of many of the established means necessary for the development of an identity. Therefore, it is essential that Steinbeck omits both a name and a definite identity in his creation of Curley's wife in order to accurately portray her character's psychological state.
In www.Bookrags.com, Attell, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, explains that Steinbeck departs from the depiction of a woman in Of Mice and Men. Curley’s wife functions almost as a force of nature.
She leaves only shattered dreams in her wake. The ending appears to be at odds Steinbeck’s explicit exhortation for social change. He seems to appeal a higher form of wisdom in the character of Slim, who does not aspire to anything beyond the sphere occupies.
There is a criticism from Rod W. Horton and Herbert W. Edwards in their book Backgrounds of American Literary Thought (1952: 242) criticizes the tendency of John Steinbeck to be an opportunist in the “leftist” eye. The writer who has being the most effective person in portraying the plight of the disposed farmers is John Steinbeck, whose Grapes of Wrath (1939) has often been called the Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the Depression. However, Steinbeck does not always present the poor and outcast as objects of pity or as in need of social reformation.
Steinbeck’s treatments for the happy poor are, of course, the labor novel In all pleased with the former, because the methods of the labor organization in the novel were portrayed as being frankly opportunistic, and the author refuses to take sides, leaving the issue in doubt.
In www.home.pacific.net.au./ greg.hub/BattleHymnTwain.html.com, an article of G. Smith states that, Steinbeck is fully aroused and unequivocally on the side of his disposed farmers. His treatment of entrepreneurs and businessmen of all types is scathing in the extreme, and the chapter on the sales methods used by the second hand-car dealers is a minor classic of savage irony and satire.
Steinbeck still hardly conforms to the rest of the Marxian doctrine although he openly expressed his dislike to the system of capitalism. His description of the caterpillar tractor tilling the fields and his implied solution of everyman on his own forty acres of the good earth is the opposite of the Marxian call for the creation of a vast industrial proletariat. In short, to Marxist Steinbeck is merely a sentimental reactionary.
Wilfred L. Guerin et al. in their book A Handbook of Critical Approaches
to Literature (1999: 329) state that the Marxist critic wishes to go beyond mere
concern with literature’s inevitable disclosure of tensions and contradictions within a society. He or she may espouse the production theory of Louis Althusser. According to his theory, through the ideology that capitalism has degenerated-the structures of thought, feelings, and behavior that maintain its control over society-ideology. Thus, we get fictions that gloss over the contradictions in order to justify capitalism. A writer who is fully committed to or her work would show the transformation of social relationships. The ideal Marxist work would present not just a powerful story but also a workable solution to socioeconomic ills. Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath might have the first part; the second remains to be found.
In www.filmcritic.com/misc/emporum/nsf, Christopher Null states that John Ford's adaptation of the John Steinbeck novel is moving and heartfelt, beside its random structure and rambling, as well as overwrought (and overly political) narrative. Henry Fonda owns the show as Tom Joad, a greedy corporation has ousted a prison parolee in the 1930s that returns to his Oklahoma home to discover his family from their farm when the infamous "dust bowl" hits. The family packs it up for California to try to make a go of it as migrant farm workers, which doesn't necessarily pan out for the best, thanks to Tom's penchant for getting into fights with "Okies go home" types. The Grapes of Wrath pours on the populist and neo-Communist schmaltz, but Fonda's portrayal of the permanently- down-on-his-luck Tom really makes us feel sorry for him.
The reviews of those critics can be used to develop this thesis as a new study which scrutinizes three novels The Dubious Battle, The Mice and Men, and
The Grapes of Wrath in social realism issue revealed from the characters and the
suffering of lower class. Most previous critics discuss the failure of John Steinbeck to be a leftist. However, this thesis will defense that Steinbeck is still a proletarian writer with the spirit of individualism and libertarian by revealing the continuum of three novels from the social context to reach the thematic relation.
B. Review of Related Theories
1.Theory of Character and Characterization
In An Introduction to Literary Studies (1999:17-21), Mario Klarer states that the character can be differentiated into two method of presentation. First, explanatory characterization is the character, which is presented with selective, and judging narrator; in short, it is a kind of telling characterization. Second, dramatic characterization where the character can be analyzed from the way he or she acts. There is no direct judge to recognize the character, but our perception is needed.
M.H. Abrams, in his book A Glossary of Literary Terms (1981:20-21) divides characters in fiction into flat characters and round characters. Flat characters are “a single idea of quality”. Flat characters also has few characteristic and even has no desires, motivations, or conflicts such as man against man, man against his society, or man against himself. Therefore, a flat character does not change from the beginning to the end of the story making the character is easy to remember. Since the character is a simple or static character, it is presented without much individualizing detail and can be described in single phase or sentence. On the other hand, round character is more complex than a flat character. Flat character has many characteristic and complex desires, motivations and conflicts. Because of the characteristics, he must be changing his character from the beginning to the end of work.
M.J. Murphy, in his book Understanding Unseen (1972: 161-173), explains another theory of characterization. The first way is from personal description. He states that the reader from a person’s appearance in many sides can describe a character. The author can tell the details of a character, such as the face, the eyes, the skin, or the clothes. The second way is character as seen by another, besides describing the character directly. The character can be described from another opinion. The third way is from the speech. The reader can understand the character’s way of saying. It can be the clue to the character when she/he speaks, in conversation with the other, give opinion. The forth way is from character’s past life. The character shapes the clue of character’s past life. The reader can understand the character’s past from direct comment of the author, through person’s thought, through the conversation or through the medium of another person. The fifth way is from the conversation with others. The sixth way of the characterization is from the reaction of the character about various events.
The seventh way is from the direct comment from author. The eighth way is from the thought of the character. The last way is mannerism, which author describes from the character’s habits.
2.Theory of Socialist Realism
Pramoedya Ananta Toer explains to us that the socialist realism is an official doctrine governing the authors to write the governmental propaganda in the former Soviet Union. It reveals the hypocrisy of the church and all events accord with the Marxism view that the struggle among economic classes is the through the literature, which is hoped to bring the victory of the communism. The authors must depict the life of the working classes, who are oppressed by the cruel system of the capitalism.
Maxim Gorky, the founder of the socialist realism, in Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s Realism-Sosialis Satra Indonesia (2003: 20) states that literature must be part of the proletarian people. This method brings the triumph of the socialism and the integral part of the human beings to vanish the exploitation and the oppression for the working classes; the peasants and the farmer. Gorky thinks that the bourgeoisies are promoting fascism and discarding their humanism like an out worn mask, which can no longer conceal the fangs of the beast of pray, is discarding. They have come to understand for their personalities and decays.
This theory places the reality as the global ingredient to make the dialectic thought perfect. On the contrary, the bourgeoisie realism or humanism realism only does emphasize on the materialism. It is obvious that humanism realism is just for the rich people who have already in the established position and living in luxury, include their education system for their children.
Socialist realism emphasizes on the lower class’ sufferings. First, the militancy because they have no compromise with the foe is the main feature for class sufferings. Second, the efficiency by making his foes surrender. As stated by Maxim Gorky if the foe does not surrender, he must be destroyed. This system tries to abolish the social stratification, abolishment all the possibilities the rising of minority class who exploits the majority who is productive and creative. This
With this militancy, the social realism author who has controlled the reality tries to change it based on the social justice. The spirit of the changing is completely revolutionary because social realism does not teach people to accept the reality and give up easily. This condition demands the continuum revolution in his thought.
Literature as the device of the struggle must be on the side of the proletarian. Literature and arts, like all other activities, can not be taken apart from the economic and political fields, but they must be included in them.
The social realism authors do not have to be afraid to conjoin with politics. They must bring the patriotic spirit and the triumph of the socialism. Using the dialectic philosophy or the dichotomous way sees the social contradiction and the division between the exploit and exploited class.
Generally, the Marxian thinks that bourgeoisies and capitalists are the prime enemy for the working class people. The capitalists have succeeded to make a significant gap between the capitalist and the labor because they tend to appreciate everything from the parameter of materialism. They are profit-oriented persons and no matter what they do include exploiting the working class and brainwashing for people to think of the suffering of the lower class. It is obvious for the upper class to preserve his position. He has strong position and can get profit from what the lower class. For the lower class, he has to work to get food and salary because he has no other choice. If he does not want to work, other will replace him.
The upper class exploits the lower class continually. This state seems to maintain and support the upper class. Here the bound between the upper class and the state is clearly defined as a fact. They are not undeniable. The minority whose power to rule people with his economical power dominates the structure of the state. The state firstly makes a policy to preserve the ruling class or the upper class. There is always a tendency for the state to maintain the ruling class’ position. No wonder if the state’s policy gives much advantage for the upper class.
3. Theory of Capitalism
Capitalism has something to do with religious point of view, especially that of Calvinist. Heibroner in his book The Making of Economic Society (1962: 54) states that according to the theories of the German sociologist Max Weber and the English economic historian, R.H. Tawney, the underlying cause lay in the rise of a new theological point of view contained in the teachings of the Protestant reformer, John Calvin (1509-1564).
The changing in religious matter based on the attitudes towards the material world. Catholicism and Christianity in general before Calvin “tended to look upon worldly activity as vanity”. In contrast, Calvinism provided a religious atmosphere by encouraging people for wealth seeking and the temper of a business-like world. Calvinists see the energetic merchant as a Godly man. The meaning of work and worth is clearly defined as the arising notion that the more successful a man, the more worthy he is.
4. Theory of Marxism
Charles E. Bressler in his book Literary Criticism (1999: 213) explains the thought of Marxism. According to Marx, history and therefore an understanding of people and their actions and beliefs is determined by economic conditions. Marx maintains that an intricate web of social relationships emerges when any group of people engage in the production of goods. For example, a few will be the employers, but many will be employees. It is the employers (the bourgeoisies) who have the economic power and who readily gain social and political control of their society. Eventually this upper class will articulate their beliefs, values, and even art. Consciously and unconsciously they ill force these ideas, or what Max calls their ideology, on the working class, otherwise known as the proletariat, or the wage slaves. In effect, the bourgeoisies will develop and control the superstructure. In such a system, the rich become richer while the poor become poorer and more oppressed.
In such a system the bourgeoisies’ ideology effectively perpetuates the system on which it is founded. Referred to as false consciousness, this ideology also describes the way in which the dominant class shapes and controls individual’s self-definition or class-consciousness.
In a capitalist society, Marx declares that such an ideology leads to fragmentation and alienation of individuals, particularly those of the proletariat.
As a direct result of division labor within the capitalist society, workers no longer have contact with the entire process of producing, distributing, and consuming as well as from each other; each performing discrete functional roles assigned t him by the bourgeoisies. To rid society of this situation, Marx believes that the government must own all industries and control the economic production of a country to protect the people from the oppression of the bourgeoisie.
James William Coleman in his book Social Problems (1980:16-18) says that class conflicts arise in part because people share the same values. If two groups of people palace a high value on wealth and power and only one group have access to them, conflict is likely to result. Such conflicts are usually class conflict. Many sociologists believe that class conflict over wealth, power, and status is the basic cause of most social problem.
A conflict theorist need not focus only on either class conflict or values conflicts. Indeed, most sociologists recognize that conflict can arise both from differences in values and from difference in the distribution of wealth, power, and status. Class conflict, according to Marx, is a result of an inevitable historical process. He thinks that the workers (proletariat) would develop a growing awareness of their exploitation by the bourgeoisie and predicted that their growing political organization would eventually lead to violent class conflict. A revolution won by workers over their masters would, Marx contended, leads to a classless society. Private property and inheritance would be abolished, steeply graduated income taxes would be introduced; education and training would be free; and production would be organized for use, not profit.
The division employer and employee is the binding system which shows regardless of the interests of the other. In other word, employer exploits the employee. This case depersonalizes employee people relation by turning them into simple economic transactions subject to market forces. The employers however try creating loyalty among their employees by creating ties of a non-economic nature.
For Marxian author, they are hoped to reveal the proletariat consciousness. They become aware of its objective class position vis- á vis the bourgeoisie and the historic role in the transformation of capitalism into socialism. The proletariat would develop its own class. This consciousness would develop out of the working class’s concrete experience of the contradiction between capitalist relations of production based on individual private property and the emerging collective forces of production, which created a proletariat whose power is collectively based and experienced.
C. Review on the Historical-Biographical Background
In October 29, 1929, the stock market crashed, triggering the Great Depression, the worst economic collapse in the history of the modern industrial world. It spread from the United States to the rest of the world, lasting from the end of 1929 until the early 1940s. With banks failing and businesses closing, more than 15 million Americans (one-quarter of the workforce) became unemployed.
The rich people became poor because their money which they invested American share market has got collapsed. They went bankrupt in 1930’s even some of them
By the 1930s money was scarce because of the depression, so people did what they could to make their lives happy. In the Great Depression the American dream had become a nightmare. The land once was the opportunity and now the land of desperation. What was once the land of hope and optimism had become the land of despair. The American people were questioning all the maxims on which they had based their lives - democracy, capitalism, and individualism. The best hope for a better life was California. Many Dust Bowl farmers packed their families into cars, tied their few possessions on the back, and sought work in the agricultural fields or cities of the West - their role as independent landowners gone forever.
Steinbeck witnessed great social changes caused by high spirit of capitalism and materialism. His characters in the three novels above are invested fruitlessly in an effort to achieve social position. During the American experience, the characters are written fully aware of what it suggested about his/her time and place. They have something in common i.e. people intend to go to West America to pursue their dream becomes rich.
Accompanying the flourishing capitalism and the technological innovations they affected almost all of the social interactions of the American society. To Wright et al. The Democratic Experience: A Short American History (1963: 348), the decade was one of profound change in American history, a time when motion picture, radio, automobiles, and electricity were changing the whole scenery of the society.
Writers of the 1920’s experienced a growing dissatisfaction with and alienation from American society and twentieth century values. In particular, they were disillusioned by the ease with which Woodrow Wilson had converted moral idealism into a zeal for war; they were alienated by the triumph of materialism and business values in the postwar period; and they were exasperated by the smug self-satisfaction of the American upper classes.
Capitalism places individuals in their fullest capacity to achieve the most possible expectation in human life. There is no chance for the working class people represented in John Steinbeck’s three novels above to come out of their economic pressures, both from the production and commercial sides will be left aside during the Great Depression.
American government takes the greatest part in realizing the welfare of the nation by emphasizing the expansion of the agriculture, manufacture, and commerce. So that, since capitalism can operate on each of those fields of economy as well as affect the life of the society in general. It was the business of the government to achieve the balance of economy. From social point of view, the balance must include the welfare state of the nation including the interests of both upper and lower class.
In any case, the bad side of capitalism occurs when the accumulation of wealth in certain hands represented by the landowners and Associated Farmers.
The accumulation of power is also in their hand. For the working class people, they become the victims of others’ freedom. They have no access to get
In The Portable Steinbeck (1971: xix), Covici states that Steinbeck has capacity to express his emotional truth, moral value, and social relevance all come down to life upon the page, and the experience of being human. His works should long give to his readers the delight in which all lasting art has its beginning and its end.
Steinbeck’s heart goes out to these humble people. He tries not pitying them; he empathizes. He himself knows how to work hard. In his boyhood, he works as a fruit picker, ranch hand, bricklayer, and delivery boy. His own experience gives him a genuine appreciation for labor. As an adult, Steinbeck travels extensively through the West from Oklahoma to California, experiencing first-hand the sad and frightening conditions of migrant workers. He lives in their camps, listens to their authentic stories and collects material for his writing. The author lives through the Great Depression of the 1930s. The economic collapse grows severest in the center of the country after a prolonged drought turned Oklahoma into a "Dust Bowl."
Parini, his biographer, reveals the painful experience of writing for Steinbeck, who endures numerous ailments from the early days of his career. The biographer In the case of Steinbeck's master work, The Grapes of Wrath, the author carefully researches California migrant camps, a major element of the story as Oklahomans fleeing the great dust bowl resides in them on the way to establishing their own roots moving westward. Steinbeck has an excellent guide, Tom Collins, who managed the Kern County Migrant Camp and became a friend wrote: "To Tom —who lived it." It is a simple dedication which meant so much, so typically earthy, and so typically Steinbeck. Tom Collins, Steinbeck’s chief source, guide, discussant and chronicle accurate migrant information. Collins not only put Steinbeck in touch with the real life prototypes of the Joads and Jim Casy, but also himself serves as Steinbeck’s real-life prototype for Jim Rawley, the fictional manager of the Weedpatch government camp. Collins possesses a genius for camp administration- he had the right mix of fanaticism, vision, and tactfulness.
D. Theoretical Framework
The theory of characters and characterization, social realism, and historical- biographical background will be useful in order to solve the problem formulation that has been stated. The theory of character and characterization is important to understand the pattern of a character and the making of a character.
Some experts explain about the theory of character and characterization. They are Mario Klarer, Perrine, M.H. Abrams and M.J. Murphy. The theories help the writer to analyze the kind of personality from the various characters of both novels have and find the action they are doing in the novel in order to analyze the social injustice issue.
The theory of Social Realism, Capitalism, and Marxism help to understand the basic concept of the proletariat’s suffering and the contribution of author to promote a social revolution. Lenin, Maxim Gorxy, Pramoedya A.T, Charles E. Bressler, Heibroner, R.H. Tawney, James William Coleman, and Wright et al. relation through the very significant for the analysis of the inequality issue of the wage division and the background of the dichotomous system in labor place, and the tendency for the capitalist to exploit the working class people. We will see the accumulated money in the hands of the ruling class, represented by Associated Farmers. The last, the review on the Historical-Biographical Background of John Steinbeck is useful to understand the situation of politic, economy and social during the three novels were written.
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY A. Objects of the Study The Viking Press published In Dubious Battle in New York in 1938. The
central figure of the story is an activist for “the Party” (the American Communist Party) who is organizing a major strike by the migratory workers. They rise up to against the landowners.