Final Paper: Conflict and the Power of Ideas

Jim Munoz
Professor Stacey Knapp
English 1B
20 December 2011

Conflict and the Power of Ideas

In the novel In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck, which was published in 1936, we see the battle of ideas and competing ideologies. The novel is set in California in the 1930s at the height of the Great Depression, which began in 1929 with the collapse of the stock market. This was a time of great anxiety and of social-political unrest and insecurity because of the economic crisis that caused 25 percent unemployment in the United States at the time. Because of the severe economic depression, many people lost their jobs, their farms, their businesses and their homes. There was a great migration of people from the Midwest to California. However, in California, the economic conditions were not much better. At trying times like these, people look for solutions. Some people blamed the economic depression on the capitalist system. This was at a time when the Communist Party in America had a strong influence on the national political discourse. The plot of In Dubious Battle is that the capitalist economic model serves only the owners of capital, while it exploits the workers. Wanting to create an economic paradise, Jim Nolan and his comrades seek to replace the current capitalist system with a new model based on the Communist philosophy.           

The first character and the main character in the novel is Jim Nolan. Based on his name alone, we assume that Jim must be a nice guy---and he is. We see that Jim is a nice guy because he does everything his superiors ask him to do, including cooking and typing letters. And in order to understand the novel, one needs to understand the main character, Jim Nolan. However, it is not easy to understand Jim Nolan; he seems to be a complex man. Jim’s character and temperament may be a reflection of his creator, John Steinbeck. When we first meet Jim, his life isn’t going anywhere. He is lonely; he is unhappy; and he is a man without purpose in his life. The first clue of Jim’s frustration is in the opening sentence of the novel, “At last it was evening” (3). Jim is single and lonely; he doesn’t have a wife or children or a girlfriend. To find meaning and purpose for his life, Jim decides to join the Party. And he is interviewed by Party member, Harry Nilson. Through the interview, we learn a lot about Jim’s personal life and about his family. Jim had just spent thirty days in jail for vagrancy. His mother had died a month earlier while he was in jail (7); his sister, May, who was a year older than him and his only sibling, had disappeared when she was about fourteen (12); and his father, Roy Nolan, who according Harry, “had a reputation for being the toughest mug in the country. […] he could lick five cops with his bares hands,” had been killed three years earlier (6). And Jim had also been treated unfairly by his employer, Tulman’s (8). We don’t know Jim’s age, but he is probably in his late twenties. This is Jim’s background and baggage.
          Why are details of Jim’s personal life important? The details are important because we can see whether or not Jim had a happy life, a happy childhood or a happy home. Someone who has never been happy or content in their life would blame their misery on others, or on a system that is unfair and unjust. The emotions are strong motivators to action. Emotions such as: love, hate, anger, resentment or vengeance can motivate people to do things that most people would not do. From the description of Jim’s family---his father, mother and sister---we can see that Jim did not come from a happy home. His only sister disappeared at age fourteen, never to be seen or heard from again. His mother was a nice woman---she was Catholic and she prayed; but his father would not let her go to church. "He hated churches,” Jim says (7). This is not a home where there was harmony and unity in the family. This is Jim’s baggage. Jim can justify his resentment and blame it on an economic system, which is certainly not without fault. However, Jim’s unhappiness may have more to do with his own personal life and his own choices, than with an economic system that is unfair and unjust. Jim doesn’t seem to realize that life is unfair, and that he is not entitled to anything. Perhaps Jim never considered how things might have been different in his family, if Jim’s dad would have joined his wife in church, or joined her in prayer at home. This is the sort of thing that some people do all over the world, and they live happy and fulfilled lives. Nevertheless, choice and freewill are wonderful gifts from God.                             

Jim decides that he’s had enough with a system that is unfair and unjust, and he wants to change it, so he joins the Party. Although not clearly stated, it is understood that Party refers to the Communist Party in America. Jim is now ready to take on the system. He is armed with two-years of high school education; and he has three dollars in his pocket at the time he joins the Party. But Jim is no dummy, when he is being interviewed by Harry, and Harry is impressed with him, Jim declares, “I've read a lot” (8). And this was against the wishes of his old man. “But I read anyway,” Jim says proudly (9). And it happened one day---by providence, perhaps---that Jim met a man in the park, who “made a list of things for me to read” (9). Jim continues, “Oh, I read a hell of a lot” (9). The list includes the works of about fourteen prominent philosophers, including: Plato’s Republic, Nietzsche, and Marx, who wrote Das Kapital, and others. The list of these thinkers and philosophers is quite impressive. It is safe to assume that these great thinkers had all similar ideas and beliefs. Referring to the man who spoke to him in the park, Jim states, “He liked to group books that all aimed in the same direction” (9). Jim doesn’t describe or give details of the man he met in the park; and he gives the impression that he only saw the man once. However, the impact that this man made on Jim was huge.

 A quick look on Wikipedia reveals that all, or most, of these philosophers are Europeans. It is rather interesting that in the Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free, Jim Nolan could not find much inspiration among his fellow citizens. Jim Nolan chose to follow the beliefs and philosophies of these thinkers---which he is entitled to do. But I had never heard of most of these men before---my formal education is limited to a couple of years of ESL education and a couple semesters now back at City College (and I repeated the 3^rd grade in my native country).  So I have not had the opportunity to study these philosophers. I checked on Wikipedia to see who Spinoza was; and I found out that he was a Jewish man from the Netherlands; and Spinoza’s family was originally from Portugal or Spain. Furthermore, Spinoza had, at a young age, renounced God and his Jewish faith. Consequently, the Jewish community in the Netherlands renounced Spinoza and excommunicated him from the Synagogue, because he would not change his ways. Seeing that Baruch de Spinoza would not repent, the Jewish leaders pronounced a course on Baruch de Spinoza, who was twenty-three years old at the time. Spinoza went on with his life, and he wrote books about his beliefs. And twenty years after he was excommunicated and cursed, Baruch de Spinoza died at age forty-four.                                                                

Jim Nolan’s father “hated churches” (7); what this really means is that he hated God.  So Jim Nolan, or rather his creator, John Steinbeck, chooses to follow the philosophies of these thinkers, who probably all have much in common---maybe they all hated God. It is evident that Spinoza hated God; and from what I’ve heard, Nietzsche also hated God. I had never read Steinbeck before; as I have stated, I am man with a very limited formal education. Before I began to read In Dubious Battle, I had no opinions about Steinbeck, one way or another. I had heard his name and understood that he was a famous and accomplished writer. But I had no idea what his books were about. Steinbeck seems to have been a man fascinated with God; a lot of his books have a title with references to God and to heaven. The title of In Dubious Battle comes from another work, Paradise Lost, which I have never read. I do not know what Paradise Lost is really all about. However, Steinbeck takes a quote from Paradise Lost and uses it as a preface for In Dubious Battle. I don’t know if I understand what is really being said in this quote, but it seems to be loaded with meaning. Here is the quote:

Innumerable force of Spirits armed,
That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring,
His utmost power with adverse power opposed
In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven
And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?
All is not lost—the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome?

                                                           Paradise Lost

Works cited

Steinbeck, John, and Warren G. French. In Dubious Battle. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.

Wartzman, Rick. Obscene in the Extreme: the Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. New York: PublicAffairs, 2008. Print.