Steinbeck’s second attempt at a novel after CUP OF
GOLD, The Green Lady was based on an unfinished
play written by his friend WEBSTER“TOBY” STREET,
which, in turn, was derived from a short story writ- ten by Street called “Something o’ Susie’s.” In the original story, conflict arises between a rancher, Andy Wane, and his daughter, Susie, when the rancher decides his daughter has lost all respect for the land and for nature after three years of college. In his attempts to develop a three-act drama from the original story, Street expanded the farmer’s love for the land into an almost mystical, sexual wor- ship, and tied the land worship to his attachment to his daughter. Because the conflicts seemed to be heading into too many directions, and because the farmer’s connection to his daughter hinted at incest, Street asked Steinbeck’s help in resolving the difficulties. Both men became distracted by other responsibilities, and eventually Street gave Steinbeck the manuscript with his permission to turn the idea into a novel.
Steinbeck spent more than two years trying to write The Green Lady before abandoning the project and then beginning again. The radically rewritten book became TO A GOD UNKNOWN, Steinbeck’s
third published novel. By the time the novel was published, Steinbeck had retained the lead charac- ter’s mystical, almost religious attachment to the
land and to nature, but had eliminated the conflict between father and daughter. What emerges from Steinbeck’s revision of Street’s work is a pantheistic amalgam of pagan myths, Greek epics, and the Bible.
“The Harness” (1938)
Originally titled “The Fool,” Steinbeck’s short story “The Harness” first appeared in print in Atlantic
Monthly magazine in June 1938. In September of
that year, Steinbeck included the story in a collec- tion of many previously published works, THE
LONGVALLEY, issued by VIKINGPRESS.
Like Pat Humbert from THE PASTURES OF
HEAVEN, the central character in “The Harness,”
Peter Randall, finds himself constrained by social convention, and by his own habits. One of the most admired men in Salinas Valley, Peter appears to his neighbors to be an exemplar of business pro- bity, and sound personal judgment, whose strong character is underscored by his upright and unbending posture. His fellow valley dwellers hang on his every word, to the point where, when Peter announces, “I am going to kill a pig on Saturday,” nearly all of his neighbors do precisely the same thing, because it appears to be the “good, safe, con- servative thing to do.”
Peter lives with his wife, Emma, in a perfectly maintained home, in the middle of a prosperous farm, without the presence of children to disturb the picture of a flawless life. The only imperfection stems from Emma’s constant ill health. A scrawny, birdlike woman, Emma rules her house with the same indomitable will as her husband runs the farm. Despite her frequent infirmities, exacerbated by Peter Randall’s mysterious once-a-year “business” trips to San Francisco, Emma refuses to hire any domestic help or even accept the help of her con- cerned neighbors; and yet, her house stays immacu- late, “unscarred, uncarved, and unchalked.”
Eventually Emma succumbs to her ailment, refusing to the last to consider home nursing care, insisting that Peter was perfectly capable of tending to her needs. A nurse is brought in only when
Emma lapses into a coma, and largely to assist an increasingly distraught Peter. On the day Emma dies, Peter collapses into hysteria, alarming and sur- prising the next-door neighbor, Mrs. Chappell, who had come by earlier. Peter had, until recently, pre- sented a stoic, rigid demeanor, unaffected by ordi- nary emotion. Mrs. Chappell summons her husband, Ed Chappell, for help, and as Peter’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic and maniacal, the doctor, who had driven by to sign the death cer- tificate, injects Peter with a powerful sedative, after Ed and the undertaker wrestle Peter to the ground. Ed feels shame for the inexplicable and uncharac- teristic outburst of his friend and neighbor.
Ed stays to monitor the sleeping Peter. When the drugged man finally awakes, he begins to expose a persona to Ed that further disturbs and perplexes him. Peter explains he “snapped . . . like a suspender strap” when Emma died. He wonders whether Emma, watching from the afterlife, will approve of his actions now that she is gone, because “she made a good man of me,” and kept him to the straight and narrow. Peter then addi- tionally embarrasses Ed by stripping off his shirt and coat, revealing a shoulder harness and a wide elas- tic belt, which kept his carriage rigid and his stom- ach flat, devices that Emma had insisted he wear. He compares Emma’s death to the removal of the restrictive harness and belt and then asks Ed if he would join him in a bottle of whiskey hidden in the barn. Ed demurs with some shock at the unseemli- ness of the invitation. When Peter returns with the bottle, he continues to disclose aspects of his life that mortify Ed by divulging details of the yearly “business” trips to San Francisco. As it turns out, Peter would spend the entire week during these annual visits becoming drunk and carousing with prostitutes, necessary because “I’d’ve busted if I hadn’t got away,” Peter claims.
Ed chooses to have a drink with Peter, and as he accepts the glass, both men sense a change in the house. Peter becomes more garrulous and speaks of future plans for planting sweet peas down by the river, mostly for their color and smell and also because Emma had never allowed him to consider such a risky and impractical crop. He also plans to keep company with chubby, big-breasted women,
because “I am hungry for everything, for a lot of everything.” It is as if a dam had burst inside him, spilling out a torrent of repressed feelings held in by the trap of his 21-year marriage, and the physical harness. Outwardly devoted to Emma for two decades, Peter expresses a deep resentment of her control of him and of her insistence on convention and conservative conduct.
In the days after Emma’s funeral, Peter goes to work on his farm with single-minded attention, ris- ing long before dawn and turning in shortly after dusk. The farmers in Salinas Valley watch him closely, but none so closely as Ed Chappell, who is concerned that Peter will show signs of his odd behavior on the night of Emma’s death. He notices that Peter is slouching and that his stomach seems to bulge, but other than that, Peter seems to be no different except for a strange secrecy about the crop he has been preparing so hard to plant. As the tiny plants emerge from the carefully tilled soil, the shocking rumor circulating in the valley is con- firmed. Staid and sober Peter Randall has planted his entire acreage in sweet peas, “the most ticklish crop in the world,” requiring almost ideal condi- tions from the sowing of the seed to harvest. The crop of beautiful, difficult flowers represents Peter’s outward manifestation of his desire for freedom from Emma’s influence, and of being able to make his own choices and demonstrate his worth without her constant guidance. As it turns out, Peter could- n’t have chosen a more propitious time to plant the sweet peas. His bountiful harvest yields to Peter a substantial financial windfall.
Sometime later, Ed Chappell encounters Peter at a hotel in San Francisco, drunk, disheveled and, according to his own admission, only recently returned from a bawdy house. Ed challenges Peter about the desire for change he had expressed when his wife died, including the need to visit San Fran- cisco to purge himself of resentment, and pent-up frustration. Peter tells Ed of a constant imaginary hounding from Emma while the sweet pea crop grew, saying, “She’s worried me all year about those peas.” His wife is gone, but he still heeds her admo- nitions. He then announces proudly that he refuses to don the harness again, without realizing he does not need it anymore. He has constructed his own
harness in his mind, as restrictive as the one his dead wife insisted he wear.
Peter, like many of Steinbeck’s characters, can- not break free from his personal patterns of behav- ior, nor the pressures of social conformity, in order to realize his vision of happiness, no matter how flawed the vision might be. In the immediate after- math of Emma’s death, he announced his intention to plant sweet peas and to seek out women wholly unlike his wife. He achieved the first goal, but not the second. The first is in keeping with the image others have of him in the valley—a hardworking farmer, dedicated to his land, even if the crop choice appears bizarre. The second vision of happy and exuberant companionship cannot ever take place in the judgmental environment of Salinas Valley or in his own restrictive parameters. It would betray the image of Emma, and thus undermine his standing in the community.
EARLY CRITICISM
As part of the larger collection The Long Valley, and overshadowed by the inclusion of THE REDPONY,
“The Harness” received secondary but positive remarks during its second publication. William Soskin, from the Los Angeles Times remarked on the “surprising strength, in that borderland story of this world and the mind’s world,” and the invisible pres- ence ruling an old man. Clifton Fadiman, writing for the New Yorker, labeled the story “beautifully written” and the author, Steinbeck, “exceptionally sensitive.” The reviewer for the San Francisco
Chronicle, JOSEPHHENRYJACKSON, referred to “The
Harness” as typical of Steinbeck’s previous work— “a compound of brutality and tenderness, beauty and ugliness.” Finally, Stanley Young, a reviewer for the New York Times Book Review, commented that “The Harness” fulfilled “the fine promise of IN
DUBIOUSBATTLE, and further added that the story
could not be “talked about . . . but must be read.”
CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES
As part of Steinbeck’s early work, “The Harness” demonstrates an underlying pessimism about the capacity of individuals or larger groups of humankind to overcome the barriers of society in the achievement of ultimate goals. In this, it falls
into the nonteleological approach of the author: When we set ourselves to the realization of improb- able, and idealistic enterprises, we are often, and perhaps, inevitably disappointed. Maxwell Geismar asks about “the curse which defeats us” in Stein- beck’s world. Nevertheless, John H. Timmerman observes that in Steinbeck “hope rises ever renewed.” Peter Randall has not lost hope; he has only lost the possibility of ever becoming com- pletely unshackled. He has tasted freedom, and chooses the harness of respectability.
SYNOPSIS
Peter Randall, one of the most highly respected farmers in Monterey County, is married to a stern, sickly woman named Emma. After a long, terrible illness, Emma finally dies. Peter becomes hysterical with grief, sobbing and shouting until the family doctor sedates him. His neighbor, Ed Chappell, agrees to spend the evening with the mourning man. When the morphine finally wears off, Peter wakes up, calm and happy. He explains that he always has done what his wife wanted him to do, ignoring his wicked tendencies, except for one week a year when he went to the whorehouses in San Francisco. Opening his shirt he reveals a web harness that pulls his shoulders back, as well as a wide elastic belt restraining his stomach. The har- ness is an unambiguous symbol of Peter’s enslave- ment. For 20 years he has been controlled by his wife and now he determines that he will do what he wants. He resolves to his friend that he will slouch and let his belly hang out, that he will hire a big fat housekeeper from San Francisco and plant his 45 acres in sweet peas so that he might enjoy the pleasure of their delicate blossoms. Ed is embar- rassed to hear his friend’s indiscretions and nerv- ously goes home. The day after the funeral, Peter Randall begins working furiously on his farm. He prepares his land beautifully and refuses to reveal his plans to his neighbors who observe his strange behavior with curiosity. Finally, when the sweet peas begin to bloom, the consensus spreads that Peter is “touched,” for although the peas will bring a high price if they are harvested, it is a delicate crop that is prone to failure. Peter sits on his porch every evening, looking over his spectacularly flow-
ered fields and nervously awaiting the harvest. Meanwhile Ed is relieved to discover that his friend has neither hired a fat housekeeper nor signifi- cantly departed from his upright habits. Peter has the last laugh when he brings in his entire crop suc- cessfully, earning a small fortune for himself. That fall Ed Chappell takes a trip to San Francisco. In his hotel he runs into Peter Randall. Very drunk, Peter invites his friend to his room for a drink. He explains that he has just returned from the San Francisco whorehouses. He admits that he has been under incredible strain waiting for his peas to come to harvest. Ed asks his friend why he never changed things like he said he would when Emma died. Peter’s response shows that he is still domi- nated by his wife’s memories even though she is not physically there.
FURTHER READING
Fadiman, Clifton. “Steinbeck Again.” New Yorker, April 4, 1942, 55.
Geismar, Maxwell. “Decline of the Classic Moderns.”
Nation, May 7, 1955, 402–404.
Jackson, Joseph Henry. “A Bookman’s Notebook.” San
Francisco Chronicle, September 28, 1938, 13.
Soskin, William. “Varied Art of John Steinbeck.” New
York Herald Tribune, September 18, 1938, Books
section, 7.
Timmerman, John H. The Dramatic Landscape of
Steinbeck’s Short Stories. Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1990.
Young, Stanley. “The Short Stories of John Stein- beck.” New York Times Book Review, September 25, 1938, 7.
“The Harvest Gypsies” (1936)
In 1936, the San Francisco News commissioned Steinbeck to write a series of articles about the large number of DUST BOWLrefugees who were migrating
west to California to work as agricultural laborers. Fascinated by the idea, Steinbeck immediately pur- chased an old bakery truck to sleep and travel in and headed into the state’s agricultural heartland. What he found there shocked and outraged him,
and his anger at the situation is tangible in the arti- cles that became the seven-part essay on the plight of the migrant farmworker titled “The Harvest Gyp- sies” and published between October 5 and 11, 1936. Although based on observations of fact, the vehement articles proved to be incendiary in con- servative rural California, and Steinbeck soon found himself the object of a fierce attack by the powerful Growers Associations. The author was accused of being a communist agitator and spent some time fearing for his personal safety. The essays contained in “The Harvest Gypsies” were later collected and reprinted in 1938 in a pamphlet titled “Their Blood Is Strong” by the Simon J. Lubin Society, an organi- zation dedicated to the aid of migrant workers. Steinbeck added his article “Starvation Under the Orange Trees,” which had been published earlier that year in the Monterey Trader, as an epilogue to the pamphlet. “Their Blood Is Strong” was illus- trated with photos by Dorothea Lange, a photogra- pher from the FARMSECURITYADMINISTRATION. A
fine example of the power of Steinbeck’s writing, “The Harvest Gypsies” became the inspiration for the author’s best-known novel THE GRAPES OF
WRATH.
SYNOPSIS
Chapter I: San Francisco News, vol. 34, no. 239