Creation Of A Perfect Character in In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck

Zohreh Shojaee

Stacey Knapp

Eng 1B

Dec 12, 2011

Creation of a Perfect Character In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck

Sun light (White light) is a compound of all the rainbow colors and when the prism separates all of its colors we see many different colors, which are totally different from the white light. They have different wavelengths and different effects. ‘In Dubious Battle’ by John Steinbeck, is a wonderful epic novel. This novel is about a small strike in an orchard valley. Before writing this novel, Steinbeck had worked as a reporter, he spent a long time traveling to some area in Central California where agricultural industry had the best number of employment for workers. Steinbeck claimed that ‘In Dubious Battle’ was more than a reporting some events in the process of a strike, but he had wanted to underpin a philosophical work. His greatest master-piece in this novel is his “exploration of human behavior” (An Introduction to Marxist Criticism), which has crystallized in Jim Nolan .The main characters in the novel are Mac, Doc Burton and Jim, who are fighting for the same goal, and their hearts beat for the same people. They all are seeking a permanent peace for human and fighting for a constructive change in the whole world. All three of them believe in a man as a part of nature and the fact that how powerful a man in the group is.  But, they express themselves in the different ways. Steinbeck has created three characters with three different prevailed dimensions. Mac has practical dimension; Doc Burton has the theorist dimension; and Jim has a sensitive dimension with his great potential to have all dimensions equally. He believes that human behavior needs to have all of these three dimensions. So during the novel we see how these three characters were affected by each other to create a perfect character as one powerful human. To build such a perfect character to represent the human being, Steinbeck needs to choose one of these three men to accommodate all of these qualities. His choice is Jim Nolan. Steinbeck’s novel shows that as much as the unification of these three characters creates a much powerful character than the individual, the men do in a collective.

  Mac has all three qualities; however, above all he is a practical man. He has a dream for which he is fighting. He is fighting for equality and happiness in a peaceful place, which is the essential desire of human nature. Mac believes in man as a part of a nature and the enormous power in men as a group. “It is a big animal. It’s different from the men in it. And it’s stronger than all the men put together. It doesn’t want the same things men want- it’s like Doc said- and we don’t know what it’ll do” (Steinbeck, 323). He gradually observes what Doc Burton says about the cells in the body and agrees with him. “The animal don’t want the barricade. I don’t know what it wants. Trouble is, guys that study people always think it’s men, and it isn’t men. It’s a different kind of animal. It’s as different from men as dogs are” (323). He doesn’t know why men in the group are totally different from men as individual. He has done plenty of group works practically. But Doc Burton knows theoretically, but has not seen it practically, and now he wants to see. Mac has provided a chance for Doc Burton to see what he wants to see. This is the process of the unification of Doc and Mac as practical and theoretical dimension.

Despite his cold and rough appearance, Mac's heart is full of love; love of the people whom he is fighting for. In many cultures, young boys’ crying is disapproved by their parents. They are told that crying indicates weakness and has been allocated for women and not for men. Mac doesn’t divulge his feeling to the people and why he is fighting for them. “Everybody hates us; our own side and the enemy. And if we won Jim, if we put it over, our side would kill us. I wonder why we do it” (161). He has been hiding his feeling so that he even has forgotten why he is fighting. As Lisa says to Jim, “you helped me with my baby”. “Mac helped you more than I did,” Jim replied. “Yes, but he don’t look at me-nice”(344). Mac thinks that he should be absolutely practical without showing sentimental feelings, the same that that little boy doesn’t want to cry.  But we see that somewhere in the novel he can’t hide his sensitive feeling as Mac said to Doc, “I’m not an actor at all. Speech has a kind of a feel about it. I get the feel, and it comes out, perfectly naturally. I don’t try to do it. I don’t think it could help doing it” (148). He even, when slung the dead body of Jim over his shoulder, didn’t want to use his dead body; it is just a feeling, a deep feeling. “Mac marched through them as though he did not see them “Mac shivered. He moved his jaws to speak, and seemed to break the frozen jaws loose. His voice was high and monotonous. “This guy didn’t want nothing for himself” (349). This sentence is the most sensitive sentence that he can use when he is mourning. He is full of feeling and emotion; he has the love of humanity in his heart. His dream is to establish a communist society that nobody is better than the other, and nobody can exploit humanity. But he doesn’t know how to explain it in a correct way. Or maybe he doesn’t even  aware of having this much of love in his heart,  or maybe he ashamed to divulge that he has some spiritual point in his mind.   However, somewhere we see that Mac is talking about what Doc Burton has said, he says “well Jim, it’s a bunch of bunk; but here’s something that isn’t bunk. You win a strike two ways, because the men put up a steady fight, and because public sentiment comes over to your side” (154).  “Those cops out in the road are special deputies, just working stiffs with a star and a gun and a two-week’ job. I thought I’d try and sound’ em out; try and find out how they feel about the strike. I guess how they feel is how the bosses told But I might get a line on ‘em, anyway” (154).

Doctor Burton also has all three qualities however; above all he is a theorist man. He has the same goal that Mac has. He wants to travel through a way which there is no oppression. He also has the love of humanity in his heart. He  believes in man as a part of a nature, and wants to go in a way that all men are becoming a collective as a one. “Group-men are always getting some kind of infection. This seems to be bad one. I want to see, Mac. I want to watch these group-men, for they seem to me to be a new individual, not at all like single men. A man in a group isn’t himself at all; he’s a cell in an organization that isn’t like him any more than the cells in your body are like you. I want to watch the group, and see what it’s like. People have said ‘mobs are crazy; you can’t tell what they’ll do.’ Why don’t people look at mobs not as men, but as mobs? A mob nearly always seems to act reasonably, for a mob”(151). Doc believes that the reason that the other side of strike kills the people is that “the other side is made of men, men like you, man hates himself” (151).

Doc Burton has a broader perspective of the world. He believes that life is always moving without any pause. As he says “you say I don’t believe in the cause. That’s like not believing in the moon. There‘ve been commune before, and there will be again. But you people have an idea that if you can establish the thing, the job’ll be done. Nothing stops, Mac. If you were able to put an idea into effect tomorrow, it would start changing right away. Establish a commune, and the same gradual flux will continue” (149). While Mac thinks that when they establish a communist society, they have done their jobs and it would be the end of the way.

Doc Burton wants to see everything exactly as they are, not to judge. “Listen to me, Mac. My senses aren’t above reproach, but they’re all I have. I want to see the whole picture-as nearly as I can. I don’t want to put on blinders of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and limit my vision. If I used the term ’good’ on a thing I’d lose my license to inspect it, because there might be bad in it. Don’t you see? I want to be able to look at the whole thing.”(149). While Mac sees the world through a lens, a lens which has limited his vision to see the whole picture, a lens which labels everything as a ‘good or ‘bad’ things.

Jim is a character who has an enormous ability to understand other’s feeling and problems. He “is affected by group behavior and group or societal norms” (An Introduction to Marxist Criticism). He has a wonderful outlook on life.  Jim just looks closely at all the process of the strike and all characters without any intolerance. That is what Mac asked Jim. Mac has found something really valuable in Jim. Jim has a powerful talent that can" see the whole picture"(French, xxxix).So Mac decides to take him in this travel. Jim demands Mac to take something to do, but Mac asks him just to watch everything closely.

 Like Mac and Doc, Jim believes in the big different between men as individual and the men in group.  Jim always talks to Lisa, as if he talks to readers. He looks at Lisa as the symbol of the people who has been victims by the system. "Everything's crumbling down and washing away. But this is just a little bit of the whole thing. This isn't anything, Lisa. I'm telling it to myself, but I understand it better with you listening."(318). In a conversation between Jim and Lisa: “I heard guys say the cops’ll throw bombs, an’kill us all,” she said lightly. Jim was puzzled. “It doesn’t seem to scare you much.” “No. I ain’t never been ascared o’things like that.” (344). He is inspired by the insane character of Lisa ,who  does not scare of anything. Jim can see what Doc Burton tried to see (the whole picture) and has the ability to throw away what makes Mac to make mistakes. At the end of the strike, when it comes the time that Jim has to talk to the strikers and persuade them to continue fighting, he says "I can pull off this bandage and get a flow of blood. That might stir'em up" (347). He really wanted to do that in the best way, and he did by his bloody dead body.  He stired’em up in his own way. He did his job great. He created the best end for this battle. “Sometimes sacrifice of the individual to some larger good is necessary”(xxvi).

“A secret of Steinbeck’s technique in his greatest work is his ability to avoid telling readers what they should feel and to make them participate in discovering the characters’ feelings by collaborating with the author in creating them. He sought-as he often argued-to promote understanding through his work, not to provide sentimental self gratification.”(xxv)

Steinbeck’s dream to create a character that is combined of all three dimensions came true. So I discovered that creating  a personality such Jim, who represents human behavior, is possible. Maybe it needs a hard work, but it is possible. I can imagine if each of us ask ourselves who we are, what our part in this world is, and what our role is in the world, then we can change our world as a safe place where all the people can be happy and live as a one. 

"Human beings are members of a whole,
In creation of one essence and soul.
If one member is afflicted with pain,
Other members uneasy will remain.
If you have no sympathy for human pain,
The name of human you cannot retain."
"Saadi "

Works cited

Knapp, Stacey. "An Introduction to Marxist Criticism." instructorknapp.blogspot.com. 25 09 2010. Web. 16 Dec. 2011. <http://instructorknapp.blogspot.com/2010/09/introduction-to-marxist-criticism.html>.

Steinbeck, john. in dubious battle. Print.

French, Warren. introduction in dubious battle. Print.