To be rich and grasping and unhappy

The Winter of Our Discontent
John Steinbeck
Bantam Books

The Winter of Our Discontent is a richly imagined novel by John Steinbeck. Right from its first chapter, this book plunges the reader into the borderlands between opposing forces; between youth and age, exclusion and privileges. It is a blending into the classical and the familiar, the opalescent and the pure and takes off soaring high into the subsequent chapters. The story is about a New Englander named Ethan Allen Hawley who works as a clerk in a grocery store that he once owned. But fate has turned the hands and the ownership of the store has changed and is now owned by an Italian immigrant named Marullo. Ethan's family, the Hawleys, were sea captains and were respected for their place. Ethan himself had been in the army. But fate, playing its strange games, brought misfortune and the family lost everything. Ethan was left with the drudgery of minding the store.
The book is a first person narrative. Ethan lives in the quiet American town of New Baytown. The paradoxes of life begin for him when his wife and children want more from him than his lowly clerkship is able to provide. Ethan goes through the daily routine and yet at heart he is discontented. He knows that his family desires more from him than the bare necessities and yet he is unable to make any radical changes in his life. His wife Mary sees light at the end of the tunnel through her friend Margie Young Hunt, who is a fortuneteller. Margie speaks of sudden wealth coming into Mary's family. Mary's belief in Margie is so firm that she tries to convince Ethan that there is a golden future out there for them; only Ethan is not seeking it. She implores him to cross the boundaries and find a better life for them through the help of Margie. She invites Margie and has her read Ethan his fortune so as to have him believe that he really can make changes in their life. Ethan does not believe Margie's prophesies and yet cannot put them out of his mind either.
Unsettling affairs at home have Ethan in troubled waters. While his wife sleeps peacefully he takes a night walk. He goes to a cave by the seashore. It is his escape from the harsh realities of life. Ethan wonders if everybody has a place like this to offer solace in hard times. Ethan has been living strictly upon his principles. But his determination is now wavering and he thinks of getting more out of life even if it means giving up his moral beliefs. He wants his children to have a place in society, to be known as "Hawleys" with pride. He has tried to win a place of means while sticking to his principles but that has not paid so far. Turned into a bitter man and taking respite from his normally high standards of life, Ethan turns Marullo, an illegal alien, over to the law and receives the store by deceiving him. The story turns a corner when Ethan gives the town's drunk, his childhood friend Danny, enough money to get so incredibly intoxicated as to die shortly of an overdose. There is an arrangement made with the drunk prior to his death and Ethan inherits a large, valuable tract of land. Ethan is aware that he is a wrongdoer and yet he reasons the wrong with his own needs. In his words, "It has to be faced. In business and in politics a man must carve and maul his way through men to get to be the King of the Mountain. Once there, he can be great and kind---, but he must get there." And Ethan is on his way to the top.
The author portrays the character of the protagonist remarkably. Here is the picture of a man who tries to live honestly but becomes bitter when honesty does not pay. He is a man with his back against the wall. This is a man torn between two desires, one to remain honest and one to please his beloved wife and children. At one stage he does strive for happiness by shedding his moral code. Ethan's attitude to life is that of a peaceful man and yet the peace is broken when he reaches out for ill-gotten wealth. He loses tranquility of his mind. The reader is reminded of the story in the classic novel Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Ethan and of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment seem to find some common ground.
Ethan draws some truths out of life. From his own experience he finds that a man who handles poverty badly will handle richness equally badly. Hence he concludes, "In poverty he may be envious. In richness he is a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only symptoms." Ethan does become somebody in the town but his dreams trouble him, he calls them his night thoughts. And as he says, "Sometimes I can direct them and other times they take their head and come rushing over me like strong unmanageable horses." There is a dark shadow always following him after he breaks the shell of goodness.
The Winter of Our Discontent spans decades and continents and deftly bridges the personal and the universal. The writer skillfully portrays the roles of Ethan as a loving husband, a devoted father and as a man who lives up to his standards. However, as he begins to swerve from his virtues the reader cannot help but sympathise with him. What can a man say when his children ask him, "Father, when are we going to be rich?"
Tulip Chowdhury writes fiction and poetry and is a teacher .