In Dubious Battle

by John Steinbeck

  The focal characters who do mature--even if they do not survive--in all of Steinbeck's fiction through The Grapes of Wrath also pass through a pattern of experiences that resemble his own as a struggling writer. The novels are in no way specifically autobiographical, like those of his contemporary Thomas Wolfe. And Steinbeck was too secretive to wish to transform himself into a legend like Jack Kerouac, who admired Wolfe; but his early works all trace histories of characters with ambitious dreams who consider themselves unappreciated and rejected by a decadent society.

  Steinbeck certainly did not share Jim Nolan's aspirations to become a labor organizer by committing himself to some abstract cause beyond himself, but he did seek to influence readers' attitudes through his fiction. He shunned commitments because ultimately he believed in himself and his talent, although it was many years before he could display this self-confidence publicly. Ironically, his fiction declined in public esteem when he began to cast his alter egos in the role of savior, as in The Wayward Bus.

  The power of his early works lies in his ability to infuse his characters with dreams resembling his own in intensity, although he avoided the familiar portrayal of a young writer's struggle for success. Through his portrayal of Jim Nolan's self-discovery of his leadership capabilities in In Dubious Battle, Steinbeck is making a case for the recognition of his own talent. Although he had become a nationally known success before the novel was published, he had written it when he considered himself a failure, when he could conceive of Jim Nolan's faceless doom as possibly his own. Small wonder at the violence of his outrage over the interference of a New York "parlor pink" who threatened to jeopardize his career just when it seemed to be taking off.

  As Steinbeck perceived the "battle" of the novel's title, it is dubious not because the outcome is uncertain--his mood when he was writing it was too alienated to render plausible any fate for Jim but the one the author elected--but rather because it was the kind of struggle that should never have occurred at all. It was similar to Milton's war in heaven because there should have been no occasion for conflict; but there the similarity ends, for Steinbeck was not trying to justify God's ways to man but to call for an end to man's inhumanity to man. Steinbeck's aim in writing In Dubious Battle had been to promote understanding, though he probably had little hope of doing so and resorted to shock tactics to try to shake people out of their complacent self-seeking by portraying its consequences.

  The difference between the motives and tactics of the two sides in the strike depicted may at first seem clearcut; but in the long run both are determined upon the triumph of their particular program, and they are not concerned about the means--including exploiting people--that they use to achieve their ends. Both are insensitive to the isolated dreamer like Doc Burton who seeks only to ameliorate people's situations, not to impose systems upon them. In an ideal situation, Jim Nolan would have been guided but not indoctrinated by Doc Burton. Instead, when his talents were recognized, he was exploited by the side he chose to support and destroyed venge-fully by the one he opposed.

  Steinbeck's concern was with self-realization, not just for himself, but for others, through mutual understanding. The abortive novel "L'Affaire Lettuceberg," which Steinbeck wrote after In Dubious Battle, was, on the basis of what little we know of it, an attack upon the leading citizens of his home town of Salinas for using the vigilantes he detested to break up a local lettuce strike. In die long run, he decided that he would only create new conflicts by direct intervention; he chose rather to destroy the draft of "L'Affaire Lettuceberg" and supplant it with The Grapes of Wrath, in which Tom Joad, who, after a painful struggle has finally learned to devote himself to trying to make people understand each other, chooses to do so by encouraging them from a distance rather than provoking hostilities.

  Wherever there was open warfare between implacable forces that could not see beyond narrow self-interest, Steinbeck perceived the result could only be irreparable loss and a triumph for those who mistook victory for permanent peace. He aimed to promote an understanding of the necessity for orderly, rational change and the use of the talents of the gifted in facilitating the effort--as Doc Burton in this novel wished--"to see the whole picture," so that there might be an end to dubious battles and a more consecrated effort toward constructive change.

  Suggestions for Further Reading

  Astro, Richard. John Steinbeck and Edward F. Ricketts: The Shaping of a Novelist. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1973.

  Benson, Jackson J. The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer New York: Viking Press, 1984.

  Bernstein, Irving: Turbulent Years: A History of American Labor, 1933-1941. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970.

  Fontenrose, Joseph. John Steinbeck: An Introduction and Interpretation. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1963.

  French, Warren. John Steinbeck. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1961.

  ----. John Steinbeck Revisited. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1992.

  Levant, Howard. The Novels of John Steinbeck: A Critical Study. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974.

  Lisca, Peter. The Wide World of John Steinbeck. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1958.

  Martin, George. Madam Secretary: Frances Perkins. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976.

  Owens, Louis. John Steinbeck's Re-Vision of America. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985.

  Shimomura, Noboru K. A Study of John Steinbeck: Mysticism in His Novels. Tokyo: Hokuseido Press, 1982.

  Woodress, James. "John Steinbeck: Hostage to Fortune." South Atlantic Quarterly 63 (Summer 1964), 385-92.

  A Note on the Text

  The Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics edition of In Dubious Battle reproduces the original text of the novel, published in 1936 by Covici-Friede, Inc.

  In Dubious Battle

  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

  1

  AT last it was evening. The lights in the street outside came on, and the Neon restaurant sign on the corner jerked on and off, exploding its hard red light in the air. Into Jim Nolan's room the sign threw a soft red light. For two hours Jim had been sitting in a small, hard rocking-chair, his feet up on the white bedspread. Now that it was quite dark, he brought his feet down to the floor and slapped the sleeping legs. For a moment he sat quietly while waves of itching rolled up and down his calves; then he stood up and reached for the unshaded light. The furnished room lighted up--the big white bed with its chalk-white spread, the golden-oak bureau, the clean red carpet worn through to a brown warp.

  Jim stepped to the washstand in the corner and washed his hands and combed water through his hair with his fingers. Looking into the mirror fastened across the corner of the room above the washstand, he peered into his own small grey eyes for a moment. From an inside pocket he took a comb fitted with a pocket clip and combed his straight brown hair, and parted it neatly on the side. He wore a dark suit and a grey flannel shirt, open at the throat. With a towel he dried the soap and dropped the thin bar into a paper bag that stood open on the bed. A Gillette razor was in the bag, four pairs of new socks and another grey flannel shirt. He glanced about the room and then twisted the mouth of the bag closed. For a moment more he looked casually into the mirror, then turned off the light and went out the door.

  He walked down narrow, uncarpeted stairs and knocked at a door beside the front entrance. It opened a little. A woman looked at him and then opened the door wider--a large blonde woman with a dark mole beside her mouth.

  She smiled at him. "Mis-ter Nolan," she said.

  "I'm going away," said Jim.

  "But you'll be back, you'll want me to hold your room?"<
br />
  "No. I've got to go away for good. I got a letter telling me."

  "You didn't get no letters here," said the woman suspiciously.

  "No, where I work. I won't be back. I'm paid a week in advance."

  Her smile faded slowly. Her expression seemed to slip toward anger without any great change. "You should of give me a week's notice," she said sharply. "That's the rule. I got to keep that advance because you didn't give me no notice."

  "I know," Jim said. "That's all right. I didn't know how long I could stay."

  The smile was back on the landlady's face. "You been a good quiet roomer," she said, "even if you ain't been here long. If you're ever around again, come right straight here. I'll find a place for you. I got sailors that come to me every time they're in port. And I find room for them. They wouldn't go no place else."

  "I'll remember, Mrs. Meer. I left the key in the door."

  "Light turned out?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, I won't go up till tomorrow morning. Will you come in and have a little nip?"

  "No, thank you. I've got to be going."

  Her eyes narrowed wisely. "You ain't in trouble? I could maybe help you."

  "No," Jim said. "Nobody's after me. I'm just taking a new job. Well, good night, Mrs. Meer."

  She held out a powdered hand. Jim shifted his paper bag and took her hand for a moment, and felt the soft flesh give under his fingers.

  "Don't forget," she said. "I can always find room. People come back to me year after year, sailors and drummers."

  "I'll remember. Good night."

  She looked after him until he was out the front door and down the cement steps to the sidewalk.

  He walked to the corner and looked at the clock in a jeweller's window--seven-thirty. He set out walking rapidly eastward, through a district of department stores and specialty shops, and then through the wholesale produce district, quiet now in the evening, the narrow streets deserted, the depot entrances closed with wooden bars and wire netting. He came at last to an old street of three-storey brick buildings. Pawn-shops and second-hand tool dealers occupied the ground floors, while failing dentists and lawyers had offices in the upper two flights. Jim looked at each doorway until he found the number he wanted. He went in a dark entrance and climbed the narrow stairs, rubber-treaded, the edges guarded with strips of brass. A little night light burned at the head of the steps, but only one door in the long hall showed a light through its frosted glass. Jim walked to it, looked at the "Sixteen" on the glass, and knocked.

  A sharp voice called, "Come in."

  Jim opened the door and stepped into a small, bare office containing a desk, a metal filing cabinet, an army cot and two straight chairs. On the desk sat an electric cooking plate, on which a little tin coffee-pot bubbled and steamed. A man looked solemnly over the desk at Jim. He glanced at a card in front of him. "Jim Nolan?" he asked.

  "Yes." Jim looked closely at him, a small man, neatly dressed in a dark suit. His thick hair was combed straight down on each side from the top in a vain attempt to cover a white scar half an inch wide that lay horizontally over the right ear. The eyes were sharp and black, quick nervous eyes that moved constantly about--from Jim to the card, and up to a wall calendar, and to an alarm clock, and back to Jim. The nose was large, thick at the bridge and narrow at the point. The mouth might at one time have been full and soft, but habitual muscular tension had drawn it close and made a deep line on each lip. Although the man could not have been over forty, his face bore heavy parenthetical lines of resistance to attack. His hands were as nervous as his eyes, large hands, almost too big for his body, long fingers with spatulate ends and flat, thick nails. The hands moved about on the desk like the exploring hands of a blind man, feeling the edges of paper, following the corner of the desk, touching in turn each button on his vest. The right hand went to the electric plate and pulled out the plug.

  Jim closed the door quietly and stepped to the desk. "I was told to come here," he said.

  Suddenly the man stood up and pushed his right hand across. "I'm Harry Nilson. I have your application here." Jim shook hands. "Sit down, Jim." The nervous voice was soft, but made soft by an effort.

  Jim pulled the extra chair close and sat down by the desk. Harry opened a desk drawer, took out an open can of milk, the holes plugged with matches, a cup of sugar and two thick mugs. "Will you have a cup of coffee?"

  "Sure," said Jim.

  Nilson poured the black coffee into the mugs. He said, "Now here's the way we work on applications, Jim. Your card went in to the membership committee. I have to talk to you and make a report. The committee passes on the report and then the membership votes on you. So you see, if I question you pretty deep, I just have to." He poured milk into his coffee, and then he looked up, and his eyes smiled for a second.

  "Sure, I know," said Jim. "I've heard you're more select than the Union League Club."

  "By God, we have to be!" He shoved the sugar bowl at Jim, then suddenly, "Why do you want to join the Party?"

  Jim stirred his coffee. His face wrinkled up in concentration. He looked down into his lap. "Well--I could give you a lot of little reasons. Mainly, it's this: My whole family has been ruined by this system. My old man, my father, was slugged so much in labor trouble that he went punch-drunk. He got an idea that he'd like to dynamite a slaughter-house where he used to work. Well, he caught a charge of buckshot in the chest from a riot gun."

  Harry interrupted, "Was your father Roy Nolan?"

  "Yeah. Killed three years ago."

  "Jesus!" Harry said. "He had a reputation for being the toughest mug in the country. I've heard he could lick five cops with his bare hands."

  Jim grinned. "I guess he could, but every time he went out he met six. He always got the hell beat out of him. He used to come home all covered with blood. He'd sit beside the cook stove. We had to let him alone then. Couldn't even speak to him or he'd cry. When my mother washed him later, he'd whine like a dog." He paused. "You know he was a sticker in the slaughter-house. Used to drink warm blood to keep up his strength."

  Nilson looked quickly at him, and then away. He bent the corner of the application card and creased it down with his thumb nail. "Your mother is alive?" he asked softly.

  Jim's eyes narrowed. "She died a month ago," he said. "I was in jail. Thirty days for vagrancy. Word came in she was dying. They let me go home with a cop. There wasn't anything the matter with her. She wouldn't talk at all. She was a Catholic, only my old man wouldn't let her go to church. He hated churches. She just stared at me. I asked her if she wanted a priest, but she didn't answer me, just stared. 'Bout four o'clock in the morning she died. Didn't seem like dying at all. I didn't go to the funeral. I guess they would've let me. I didn't want to. I guess she just didn't want to live. I guess she didn't care if she went to hell, either."

  Harry started nervously. "Drink your coffee and have some more. You act half asleep. You don't take anything, do you?"

  "You mean dope? No, I don't even drink."

  Nilson pulled out a piece of paper and made a few notes on it. "How'd you happen to get vagged?"

  Jim said fiercely, "I worked in Tulman's Department Store. Head of the wrapping department. I was out to a picture show one night, and coming home I saw a crowd in Lincoln Square. I stopped to see what it was all about. There was a guy in the middle of the park talking. I climbed up on the pedestal of that statue of Senator Morgan so I could see better. And then I heard the sirens. I was watching the riot squad come in from the other side. Well, a squad came up from behind, too. Cop slugged me from behind, right in the back of the neck. When I came to I was already booked for vagrancy. I was rum-dum for a long time. Got hit right here." Jim put his fingers on the back of his neck at the base of his skull. "Well, I told 'em I wasn't a vagrant and had a job, and told 'em to call up Mr. Webb, he's manager at Tulman's. So they did. Webb asked where I was picked up, and the sergeant said 'at a radical meeting,' and then Webb said he never heard of me.
So I got the rap."

  Nilson plugged in the hot plate again. The coffee started rumbling in the pot. "You look half drunk, Jim. What's the matter with you?"

  "I don't know. I feel dead. Everything in the past is gone. I checked out of my rooming house before I came here. I still had a week paid for. I don't want to go back to any of it again. I want to be finished with it."

  Nilson poured the coffee cups full. "Look, Jim, I want to give you a picture of what it's like to be a Party member. You'll get a chance to vote on every decision, but once the vote's in, you'll have to obey. When we have money we try to give field workers twenty dollars a month to eat on. I don't remember a time when we ever had the money. Now listen to the work: In the field you'll have to work alongside the men, and you'll have to do the Party work after that, sometimes sixteen, eighteen hours a day. You'll have to get your food where you can. Do you think you could do that?"

  "Yes."

  Nilson touched the desk here and there with his fingertips. "Even the people you're trying to help will hate you most of the time. Do you know that?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, why do you want to join, then?"

  Jim's grey eyes half closed in perplexity. At last he said, "In the jail there were some Party men. They talked to me. Everything's been a mess, all my life. Their lives weren't messes. They were working toward something. I want to work toward something. I feel dead. I thought I might get alive again."

  Nilson nodded. "I see. You're God-damn right I see. How long did you go to school?"

  "Second year in high-school. Then I went to work."