Revised Rough Draft Second Paper

The Depression and Movement

In Dubious Battle is published in 1936 by John Steinbeck. The author describes the struggle of working class and farmer workers throughout the difficult years during the Great Depression in the novel. There is a main character, Jim Nolan, going through the activity of an apple pickers' strike in a small California town. At the beginning of the book, Jim feels hopeless and powerless against the capitalist system that brought down him and his family. Jim wishes to find purpose and meaning in his life by joining the Party in order to attain the power to fight against the system. After joining the Party, Jim meets Mac McLeod, and Mac takes him along to the Torgas Valley to try to organize the apple pickers on strike after the growers’ association announced a pay cut to fifteen cents. The author points out clearly the pictures of how the working class and farmer workers lived and suffered and were exploited by the capitalist system. The author uses Mac and Jim to lead farmer workers on strike with hope to improve life for the poor and lower class workers.

             The Great Depression had a huge impact on American life during 1930s. “The start of the Depression is usually pegged to the stock market crash of “Black Tuesday,” Oct. 29, 1929, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell almost 23 percent” (Taylor). As the price of stock went down badly, most of people tried to sell their stocks and no one wanted to buy. Since the stock market crashed, there was an immense impact to banks because many banks used most their clients’ saving to invest into the stock market.  There were many banks were forced to close after the stock market crashed. As a result, “Bank failed, millions of citizens suddenly had no savings. Factories locked their gates, shops were shuttered forever, and most remaining businesses struggled to survive.” (“The Great Depression”).  Most of Americans faced to job loss, wages cut or even homeless, the worst of all they found difficulty to stay on their feet. “By 1932 the unemployment rate had soared past 20 percent. Thousands of banks and businesses had failed. Millions were homeless. Men (and women) returned home from fruitless job hunts to find their dwellings padlocked and their possessions and families turned into the street” (Taylor). Working class worker, such as Jim Nolan the fictional character that Steinbeck created In Dubious Battle, suffered the harsh life and struggled so hard to survive during the Depression.

             Jim is one of main character in the novel to present for working class worker who is affected badly during the Great Depression in 1930s. After being released from jail for thirty day of vagrancy, Jim feels hopeless with his life because he thinks his “Whole family has been ruined by the system” (Steinbeck 6).  His father was so much in labor trouble and always got beaten; his sister was disappeared suddenly; his mother died while he was in jail. His father was always frustrated to the system that he found difficulty to bring home enough money for living, as Jim’s comment about his father “The house where we live was always filled with anger. …, vicious anger against the boss, against the superintendent, against the groceryman when he cut off credit” (Steinbeck 20).  His father was angry to the system and always fought the battles alone, and finally his father was shot in the chest from a riot gun. Learning from his father’s experience, Jim decides to join the Party because it makes him feel powerful to belong to something bigger than just the individual. Jim is dissatisfied with himself because he does not see any hope in his life, and also Jim is disappointed with the capitalist system because it is unfair. Finally with a cause, Jim wants to join to the Party as a part of a group to pursue his goals to help the poor and working class workers getting out of starving and frustrated.

            During the Great Depression, millions of people were out of work across the United States. Especially farmers from southern Great Plain were hit hard with both drought and dust storms. Unfortunately they lost their homes, farms, crops and they hardly survived at their hometown. “Driven by the Great Depression, drought, and dust storms, thousands of farmers packed up their families and made the difficult journey to California where they hoped to find work” (“The Migrant Experience”).  Farm owners were so greedy, they attempted to attract more migrant workers coming to their farms to work by posted “Flyers advertising a need for farm workers in the Southwest were distributed in areas hard hit by unemployment” (“The Migrant Experience”). There were thousands and thousands of migrant workers arrived to California, however there were limited jobs for everyone.  Therefore, farm owners took advantage that there were more workers than work available, so they tried to pay the lowest wages plus provided a poor working condition. The farm owners were aware that the migrant workers had no choice to refuse the lower wage job, because they had to spend all their money to travel to the ranch; in addition, they needed to make some money for foods and living.

 In Dubious Battle, after Jim is introduced to Mac, Mac is veteran and also Jim’s mentor while Jim is the member of the Party. One day, Mac learns that the Growers’ Association announces a pay cut to the apple pickers. Mac tries to train Jim in field work by taking him to the apple orchard to organize the apple pickers on strike. Mac explains to Jim that, "Now these few guys that own most of the Torgas Valley waited until most of the crop tramps were already there. They spent most of their money getting there, of course. They always do. And then the owners announced their price cut" (Steinbeck 26).  Mac points out that the Growers’ Association is greedy and tries to exploit the workers, and he shows his anger to the Growers’ Association.  The Growers’ Association knows that the workers will accept the lower wage job.  When Mac and Jim arrive to the Valley, they meet the group of migrant workers with London is a leader, during their conversation Lean-face says that “If we don’t pick ’em, somebody else will” (Steinbeck 41). Later Mac and Jim help London’s daughter-in-law going to labor. After helping the girl, they gain the trust within the workers quickly and gather the men into the group. Then there is an accident with old Dan, Mac and Jim eventually gather the men to start the strike.

           

Works Cited

Steinbeck, John. In Dubious Battle. New York: The Penguin Group, 2006. Print

Taylor, Nick. “A Short History of the Great Depression.” The New York Times. 3 Dec. 2011.

<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/g/great_depression_1930s/index.html>.

“The Great Depression.” United States History. 3 Dec. 2011.

< http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1569.html>.

“The Migrant Experience.” The American Memory – Library of Congress. 3 Dec 2011.

  <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/afctshtml/tsme.html>.