Steinbeck’s fifth novel, In Dubious Battle was one of the earliest examples of the stark social realism that would make the author famous. In Dubious Battle was written in California during the mid-1930s, when political radicalism was reaching its apogee in the United States. Centered on two Communist Party organizers’ attempts to stage a small strike in an apple orchard, the novel was Steinbeck’s first attempt to address in his literature the grievous injustices that he witnessed against the migrant laborers who flocked to California during the years of the DUST BOWLand the GREATDEPRESSION. The novel, which takes its title from a line in John Mil-
ton’s Paradise Lost (“In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven”), was published by Covici and Friede in 1936 to mostly positive reviews. Critics on both the Left and the Right praised the book for its lack of propaganda and sentimentality, and for the strength of its characterization, and straightforward style.
Steinbeck struggled with the format for this book. Taking advice from CAROLHENNINGSTEIN- BECK BROWN, his first wife, he investigated the
attempts to organize migrant workers by radical groups in the fertile fields of central California. Ini- tially, he saw the work as an unadorned and objec- tive journalistic account of the “down and out” itinerant farmworker pitted against massive agricul- tural conglomerates holding sway throughout Cali- fornia, from their influence with farm owners to the highest reaches of state government. He attended rallies, and secret meetings arranged by the Can- nery and Agricultural Workers’ Industrial Union, a front for both the American Communist Party, and the Socialist Party of America. He interviewed rad- ical leaders, particularly Cicil McKiddy and Pat Chambers, farm owners, and the workers them- selves, in the hopes of producing a series of articles, or perhaps a full-length, nonfiction book about his observations. Eventually, Steinbeck began to view the ongoing labor difficulties as a metaphor for his nascent views of man as part of a PHALANX and
chose to incorporate his extensive notes and inter- views into this first book of his Labor Trilogy.
What strikes the reader immediately is the pre- ponderance of dialogue. According to Steinbeck himself in a letter to his friend GEORGE ALBEE,
almost 80 percent of the book is dialogue. And it is common speech, it is vernacular, it is ungrammati- cal and profane and sometimes obscene. With In
Dubious Battle, Steinbeck began to earn his reputa-
tion as the most censored author in America. Apart from the dialogue, Steinbeck exhibits his developed gifts for description of natural and artifi- cial settings. From the first chapter when one encounters Jim Nolan, the wide-eyed radical neo- phyte, living in a miserable single room lit only by a flickering neon light, to his death, struck down and made faceless by an anonymous shotgun blast, Steinbeck brings an evocative power with a bare minimum of narrative to the story.
Also for the first time, Steinbeck includes an eponymous “Doc” character, patterned after his closest friend, EDWARD RICKETTS, who speaks as a
Greek chorus, commenting as a neutral observer and critic, inserting the philosophical components into the novel, and acting as its moral fulcrum. “Doc Burton” actually stands in for both Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts in this novel, along with any num- ber of influential acquaintances during this period of Steinbeck’s life. Doc appears and disappears at key points of the book, having contributed neces- sary questions about the motivations of the central players, and a practical concern about the well- being of the minor characters. He is integral as well as the speaker for ordinary human beings, who often find themselves forced into conflicts, manip- ulated by leaders expressing beliefs and urging action outside the ordinary person’s self-interest.
CRITICAL SUMMARY
Jim Nolan and Mac embark on a hastily planned attempt to organize rebellion and stir up ferment among farmworkers in the Torgas Valley. Mac rep- resents the seasoned and hardened veteran of the “people’s movement,” impelled by ideology and the thrill of organizing the various strike movements; Jim, the eager apprentice, determined to take revenge for his own marginalized life, and for his father’s degradation as a “working stiff,” his mother’s humiliation as the wife of a poor and downtrodden man, and even for the unexplained disappearance of his teenage sister, who may have taken to a life on the streets rather than endure her family’s poverty. As the story progresses, Mac becomes less of a dispassionate ideologue, and Jim more of an extremist, blind to anything but the cause. A hint arises even of an unhealthy attach- ment by Mac to this apprentice to radicalism. As his student becomes more proficient and provoca- tive in incitement of the farmworkers, Mac becomes more careful of Jim’s well-being, because he acknowledges the almost monstrous force he has created.
The book is about “monsters” and about vic- tims—monsters on both sides of a “dubious battle,” which cannot be won by either the capitalist or communist side, but whose victims lie in the mid-
dle of the battlefield, the underpaid, underrepre- sented underclass of migrant farmworkers who worked in California orchards and fields to keep a can of beans on the table. It is also about the vic- timized wealthy female contributors to the “Reds,” bemused by the seductive words and actions of Dick, the handsome and charming moneyman for the Communists, who bilks lonely women out of cash, livestock and produce. And it is about the terrorized Andersons, father and son, who both lose their livelihoods to vigilantes standing behind the fruit growers, determined to break the will of the strikers through murder, arson, and thuggery. Steinbeck deliberately avoids choosing sides between the central antagonists of his novel. Instead he posits that the force behind the human antagonisms witnessed throughout history comes from self-hatred translated into group hatred. Not driven by ideology, not driven by economics, not driven by religion, but only cloaked in these incen- tives, humanity finds a reason to do “dubious bat- tle” with others of our own species.
Eventually the “small strike” overwhelms both Mac and Jim. An old man, Dan, falls from an apple tree and suffers grievous injury, providing the immediate cause for a walkout by the fruit pickers. Vigilantes shoot Joy, a brain-damaged supporter of the Reds, furnishing a martyr for the strike, and Mac remarks that Joy has “done the first real, useful thing in his life.” Al Anderson’s diner is burned to the ground by the same vigilante group, and the arsonists then set fire to Al’s father’s barn, which contains his entire crop of apples, simply because father and son have shown sympathy to the strik- ers. Over and over, Mac emphasizes that the end justifies whatever means are necessary, no matter the cost to individuals. He treats the strikers as pawns on a chessboard to further the revolutionary cause among what for him are an ideational collec- tive of farmworkers. In this sense, he is no better than the fruit growers determined to keep the pick- ers in an assembly line, viewing them as the human cogs in a vast agricultural industry. Mac shows no awareness of the similarities between the opposing forces. His choices emerge from his driving force of ideology, his opponents’ perspective from their ledger of assets and debits.
The book comes to a close as Mac mounts a rus- tic stage in the migrant workers’ temporary camp, originally constructed to display the coffin of Joy to all the strikers, and gives a speech to commemorate the death of Jim, with Jim’s mutilated body propped up behind him. Initially faltering in his rhetoric as he memorializes the person who has become his close friend, Mac gathers steam and begins to speak of Jim in the abstract, converting him into another symbol for the revolution. The novel ends in mid- sentence as Mac eulogizes his friend. It ends in mid-sentence to demonstrate the inconclusive nature of the labor struggle, and to show that the “dubious battle” will not end. In a letter to MAVIS
MCINTOSH, Steinbeck wrote, “ . . . where can you
end a story of a man-movement that has no end?” Overall, the tone of the book is very dark, as befits a work whose title comes from John Milton’s
Paradise Lost. Much of the action takes place at
nighttime with faces lit by the flickering flames of lanterns or campfires, a parallel to the fires of hell, or in miserable rainy weather, with overcast skies and the strikers huddled together in the mud like consignees to hell. Throughout lies uncertainty: uncertainty about the outcome; uncertainty about the loyalty of various strike participants; uncer- tainty about the fate of numerous characters, espe- cially Doc Burton, who disappears without explanation toward the end of the book. The reader does not know whether Doc left of his own volition, was taken into custody by sheriffs, or way- laid and murdered by the vigilantes. This uncer- tainty adds to the sense of foreboding.
Largely, Steinbeck’s characterization is excel- lent, though strangely not of the two primary char- acters in the novel. Mac’s determination to use every event and every person, whether minor or major, becomes repetitive and tiresome. From the time he recommends that Jim take up smoking in order to foster trust among the farmworkers, to the time that he assists in the delivery of London’s grandchild, through the bizarre display of Joy’s and Jim Nolan’s corpses, Mac harps on the utility of these events and people to the movement. Stein- beck had no intention of creating a likable charac- ter in Mac, but he also made him somewhat boring and predictable. On the other hand, Jim begins as a
fairly sympathetic character, and although his rea- sons for joining the Communists are largely nega- tive in origin, he initially demonstrates both concern and empathy for the plight of the farm laborers. However, Jim almost instantaneously transforms into a cold-hearted fanatic after being shot during a raid against the “scabs” brought in to replace the striking workers. The alteration is star- tling, and not fully explored. Even Mac mentions that Jim is “getting beyond” him, and that he is “scared” of his protégé.
Nevertheless, many of the other characters emerge as fully realized human beings, not stock figures or one-dimensional creations. Of particular note is London, a natural leader of men because of his honesty, integrity, bluntness, and sincere com- mitment to those around him—a stark contrast to the character of Mac. Also Dakin, the only one of the strikers with more than meager possessions, known for his coolness under pressure, who loses his temper, his new truck, and his freedom in a con- frontation with the vigilantes and the police. There is also Lisa, London’s daughter-in-law who grows from a frightened and naive girl to a compassionate woman, caring for Old Dan as he lies dying from the injury suffered during the fall that brought about the strike.
Taken as a whole, In Dubious Battle presents a forceful and realistic account of a historic period in American history. More than that, it offers a time- less portrayal of the dynamics of power, of organiza- tion, and of group interaction without ideological overtones or preaching. Steinbeck described the book as “brutal,” especially because of his deliber- ate detachment from “a moral point of view.” In this sense, he forces his readers to make their own judgments regarding the worthiness of the two sides—strike organizers and agricultural conglom- erates—and even, perhaps, to choose another way, apart from “group man.” Doc Burton offers that alternative but also makes it clear that opting for disconnection from a group guarantees loneliness.
EARLY CRITICISM
Critics on both the Left and the Right praised In
Dubious Battle for its lack of propaganda and senti-
mentality, and for the strength of its characterization
and straightforward style. As expected, Steinbeck’s friend, JOSEPHHENRYJACKSONof the San Francisco
Chronicle, applauded the novel for its “strength, and
beauty,” and for the fact that it is “splendidly written, excellently conceived and executed. . . .” John Chamberlain of the New York Times called the book a “wildly stirring story” while noting the objections of an unnamed Communist to Steinbeck’s “com- plete caricature” of Mac, the strike organizer.
Newsweek’s reviewer spoke of Steinbeck’s “brutal
directness.” Bernard Smith, writing for the New York
Herald Tribune, said that “Mr. Steinbeck’s narrative
builds and mounts and at last soars” and further adds that the author is “one of the most gifted writers of our younger generation.” Peter Quenell, reporting for the New Statesman and Nation, called the book “one of the best novels of social conflict I have yet read.” The only prominent negative review was writ- ten by Mary McCarthy, penning her “Minority Report” for the Nation. She had already expressed a strong dislike for Steinbeck’s writing in previous reviews. Among other negative adjectives, McCarthy called the book wooden, inert, childish, and tedious.
CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES
What concerns many of the present-day analysts of
In Dubious Battle is the historical accuracy of the
book. From the beginning, left-leaning readers protested the amoral and dispassionate nature of Mac. Certainly, McKiddy and Chambers, the two Communist organizers interviewed by Steinbeck in his research for the book, demonstrated a deep and concerned relationship with the fruit pickers and other farm laborers. Jackson Benson and Anne Loftis point to Steinbeck’s awareness of the misrep- resentation, but also demonstrate this was an artis- tic choice—a way for the author to highlight his primary theme of the mechanistic behavior of men in groups. Led by unemotional machines, men begin to act as unfeeling machines. Others, including Susan Shillinglaw, have noted the lack of Hispanics, Negroes, and Asians among the crop pickers. Stein- beck, having worked among farm laborers from an early age, had a keen awareness of the ethnic and racial diversity of migrant agricultural laborers in California. Again, for the purposes of the novel’s theme, the homogeneity of the group becomes cru-
cial. There can be no extraneous or intervening internal conflicts aside from those occurring between groups in confrontation. As to the “reality” of In Dubious Battle, the author himself, in a letter to CARLWILHELMSONshortly after the publication of
the book, claimed “ . . . the Battle with its tricks to make a semblance of reality wasn’t very close.” Steinbeck consciously chose a fictional format for his first venture into “proletarian” literature, because he had a much grander goal in mind than the depiction of labor strife; he wanted to explore a philosophical viewpoint, which he continued to examine throughout his writing career.
SYNOPSIS
Chapter 1
Jim Nolan checks out of his boardinghouse and crosses the city to the shoddy office of Harry Nil- son, a recruiter for the Communist Party. Harry is interested to learn that Jim’s father is Roy Nolan, a labor agitator. Jim explains that his father was gunned down three years earlier during an attempt to dynamite the slaughterhouse where he worked, and that his mother died only a month earlier while Jim was in jail on trumped-up charges of vagrancy. Jobless and cut off from his past, Jim feels as if he is dead and he hopes that the party will make him “get alive again.” Harry agrees to recommend Jim for party membership and invites him to stay for a few days while they wait for a response from the membership committee.
Chapter 2
Harry leads Jim to a cottage inhabited by three men: Mac, the leader of the group, Dick, a boy, and Joy, a large man with a battered face. Mac explains that Joy has been “screwy” ever since he was left in jail for three days with a broken jaw because the doctor would not treat a “God-damned red.” Jim adopts Mac as his mentor, and asks him to use his influence to get him assigned to work in the field as soon as possible.
Chapter 3
Jim is writing letters to party sympathizers when Dick arrives with the news that Joy has been locked up for stabbing a cop. Mac instructs him to contact George Camp, a lawyer and sympathizer, and then
to try to collect bail money for their friend. He announces that he and Jim are heading to the Tor- gas Valley to organize the apple pickers, whose wages have just been cut by the Torgas Valley Growers Association.
Chapter 4
Early the next morning, the two men stow away aboard an empty boxcar. Late that evening, they arrive in the rural town of Torgas. Mac has a list of 50 active party sympathizers in the town, one of whom is Al Anderson, the owner of a diner. Al serves a hot dinner to Jim and Mac. He is excited about the pending strike, but concerned about how it will affect his father, one of the valley’s few remaining small apple farmers. Jim and Mac walk to the nearest migrant camp and mix with the resi- dents. London, the leader of the camp, is furious because his daughter-in-law is in labor, and the local hospital refuses to attend her. Mac claims to have experience delivering babies. He organizes the men to heat water and donate clean rags. A tangi- ble change comes over the camp as the men begin working together for a common cause. Later, when Jim asks Mac where he learned birthing, Mac admits that he has never done it before, but that he could not pass up such a good opportunity to gain London’s confidence.
Chapter 5
The next morning Jim and Mac begin working in the orchards. Jim meets Dan, a 71-year-old who has been laid off from his job of trimming the tops of apple trees because of his advancing age. The old man tells Jim that things in the camp are coming to a boil; but when Jim suggests that it is time for the men to organize, Old Dan responds cynically, sug- gesting the laborers will kill each other, and new workers will come to replace them. Mac warns Jim that talking to old people will only convert him to hopelessness. Meanwhile, the two men convince London of the feasibility of a strike. They head off in London’s old Model-T to talk to Dakin, the leader of another camp. Dakin looks at the two “radicals” with suspicion. He doesn’t like the idea of a strike, but he agrees to participate when Jim