Steinbeck, the American-2

11 CHAPTER I THE DREAM My great-grandfather decided to skip town before the soldiers came and annihilated everyone. He was raising a lot of hell around the house about the soldiers coming, making small escape plans, preparing his family for their imminent destruction. He was a man who read the news for chrissake, he listened to the goddamn radio. This was inevitable, he could feel it. He was having dreams of his family’s home caught up in a smoldering blaze, the whole town filled with fire where once there was quiet. His family didn’t agree with his predictions. He was really starting to come off as only paranoid, like his mushy brain was being weighed down by doomsday thoughts. But to him, the soldiers weren’t getting any farther away. He had to leave. It looked like it was just going to be him. My great-grandfather packed the essentials: a change of clothes, some lunch, and a pitchfork. He walked along the side of the road, pitchfork over his shoulder. Just as he predicted, the soldiers did in fact come. They often stopped him, too. They’d ask him what his business was. He’d tell them, “I’m going to tend that field over there,” and motion in the direction of the nearest field. He walked along the side of the road, motioning to every field in sight to any soldiers who asked, all the way to a border where he met some more soldiers. They asked him what his business was, and he said something about tending a field. They also asked him what his citizenship was, and he might have said something about being “German” instead of “Polish.” Somehow, he found himself in Langenburg, Germany. Somehow, he found himself married to a woman with a child. Somehow, he had to figure out how to tell her who he actually was, which was a bit tough because her uncle was an SS 12 officer. But she understood and she loved him. He packed a bag and worked on a boat that took him to Canada. He bounced around Nova Scotia and New Brunswick for a while, until his wife and stepson got on the Queen Elizabeth II one October. They docked in New York Harbor and took a train together to Detroit. His whole family got their American citizenship. His stepson retired from Cadillac with a generous retirement package. By all standards, he successfully fulfilled the American Dream. And, of course, just as he predicted, his entire family was slaughtered by the Nazis in Poland. To dream is to acknowledge the possibility of an idea never being fully realized. Yet, for Americans, the notion of a dream is embedded deeply within their cultural identity. To be an American is to be inherently participating in the American Dream, even despite the dispute over its existence or plausibility. This American Dream has meant many different things to many different Americans. But in the early 1960s, when Steinbeck finds himself travelling across the country to understand it -- and when my great-grandfather was working in an automotive factory in Detroit -- Steinbeck believed the American Dream was in jeopardy, weighed down by materialistic desires and the yearning for attention. At its heart, this is the premise of Steinbeck’s ​The Winter of Our Discontent​. The discontent of the title is a discontentedness with the perversion of the American Dream, with the loss of an intrinsic frontier. This loss is the cause of a dependency on rootedness, on status, on social capital. First, before any of Ethan Hawley’s all-too-American plight is addressed, we must first define the dream he spends the novel chasing. When the American Dream is mentioned, images of an almost nuclear paradise come to mind: the two-story house with the two-car garage; two kids and a labradoodle. You might also picture white people, and that adds a sigh-filled layer of dull 13 resignation. Perhaps it is partially because of this that it seems so closely related to the idea of the frontier. It is a defined arena of historic white-success, canonized forever in the American myth, hands clean of the help of the forgotten (non-white) others. What we find is that Steinbeck is very concerned about the American Dream, just as much as he’s concerned about Americans. To him, the state of the Dream is a diagnosis of the American soul. Amid the backdrop of nonstop socio-political turbulence that was the 1960s, Steinbeck predicts a grave diagnosis. The Dream is in shambles. We as Americans are in shambles. We have lost something -- that something being our internal frontier spirit -- that which makes us deeply American. If the American Dream is a constant, something consistently and permanently within Americans, then Steinbeck’s writing concerning Americans and the idea of an American-ness would inherently be speaking to and in conversation with the omnipresence of the American Dream. Therefore, taking the Introduction’s definition of the American Dream -- loosely defined as the highest achievement per one’s natural capability -- it’s worth considering what dream and what myth is being reinforced. Frederic I. Carpenter presents some possibilities in his essay “John Steinbeck: American Dreamer”. Interestingly enough, Carpenter’s essay was published in 1941, an easy twenty years before Steinbeck released ​The Winter of Our Discontent​. Carpenter presents the interesting theory that Steinbeck’s body of work “illustrates the logical development of an idea: they describe successive phases of the American dream” (455). However, Carpenter feels that Steinbeck’s early novels failed to fully realize that dream, instead presenting failures of the American Dream. A notable example, ​The Pastures of Heaven​, features characters who find themselves at odds with nature. Only one character 14 “seems wholly admirable” because “he is child both of nature and of civilization” (Carpenter 495). The frontier is, in a limited sense, the meeting between man and nature. Because of this, it presents one of the many ways the American Dream is tangled up with the frontier. The importance of the above observation is that Steinbeck’s work advocates for and “describes the individualistic survival of the old American dream” (Carpenter 463). Steinbeck’s American Dream is also the frontier. “Security, independence, a piece of land, the pioneer’s dream and once almost the American reality,” Carpenter writes, “but now it’s ‘just in their head.’ This is the American tragedy” (464). This is Carpenter’s most explicit description of Steinbeck’s vision of the American Dream. Again, it sounds much like the frontier. Carpenter even mentions pioneers in his description. This is the “old” American Dream that Carpenter mentioned, the one whose survival Steinbeck means to ensure. Another thing worth understanding about Steinbeck’s American Dream is the relationship between an “old” American Dream and the fluidity of that dream. If this is the old dream, then it seems fair to say that the American Dream at a different point and time would not look like that dream. In fact, one can likely come to the conclusion that the American Dream of the 1940s in which Carpenter was writing -- an era dominated by the Greatest Generation, an era of deep poverty, triumph, and reinforcement of an American spirit -- is likely not at all recognizable when the social upheaval of the 1960s comes into focus. By the 40s, the dream Steinbeck was advocating for was already an old one, and one that obviously gets older by the time Steinbeck finds himself discontented. One of the things Carpenter makes a point of expressing is that a hero in a Steinbeck novel is fundamentally different than the protagonist. A hero is someone who submits fully to the American Dream -- and upholds it -- while a 15 protagonist could easily be one who fails at that dream. “These ‘heroes’ achieve significance because they give expression to the American dream in its simplest form,” Carpenter writes on 464. “They become heroic because they refuse to deny their dream.” For Carpenter, the most heroic Steinbeck character (of the time, that is) is Tom Joad of ​The Grapes of Wrath​. Tom Joad is a hero because he fully upholds the old American Dream, and brings it to fruition. Carpenter builds on this, saying Tom Joad leads a new westward migration. He rediscovers America, and recognizes that its land is not being used nor its opportunities kept open. He becomes a leader of the new pioneers, spiritually as well as physically (466). Tom Joad’s a real American because he is a pioneer, leading the people to an unknown land. He is a man of both nature and people. Therefore, he is a hero, if only an American (and Steinbeckian) one. This brings us to Steinbeck’s ​The Winter of Our Discontent​. Published in 1961, the novel follows Ethan Allen Hawley: a father, a lover, a grocer. Most importantly, though, he’s the descendent of a once-powerful family in New Baytown, where Ethan lives. Only, the Hawleys are not as powerful as they once were. In fact, the last thing they used to own -- the town grocery store -went bankrupt, and they had to sell it to an immigrant. Now Ethan works at that same grocery store, but as a meager grocery clerk. This is a thorn in Ethan’s side. This is a thorn in the side of his wife, and even his children. Ethan feels an intense amount of shame at having this incredible legacy, and yet nothing to show for it. He feels like a failure, and he’s certain his family sees him as one. With his back seemingly against the wall, Ethan takes matters into his own hands to elevate both his status and his wealth. He does away with the integrity and morality he attempted to instill in his children. With the 16 help of others, Ethan quickly learns how to accept bribes, to be more ruthless. In a matter of time, Ethan quickly comes to control the underground marketplace. Ethan gets his boss deported, he even manages to convince his childhood friend to drink himself to death, but still Ethan isn’t happy, having corrupted his own family. In the end, Ethan strongly considers killing himself. This is the basic plot of the novel, but it isn’t the whole story. Ethan’s struggles are rooted in the fact that he ignores the old American Dream for the new one, focusing instead on material and status, and forgoing morality to obtain them, which leads to his downfall. If these were ideas in Ethan’s own head, one could fault the individual. But instead, Ethan’s notions of success are ideas that come from other people, fully demonstrating not only how influential society is overall, but how Ethan is a model of the American, whose society and environment is perpetuating the perversion of the American Dream. It is reasonable to say that Ethan is middle class. Working as a grocer does not afford him a life of luxury. This of course bothers him, as he mentions to Mr. Baker, a local banker, that “it’s the first time in history a Hawley was ever a clerk in a guinea grocery” (​Winter​ 13). This is evocative of the American symptome. Ethan is frustrated. He feels like he is owed something, and he was robbed that by this immigrant that now owns his family’s grocery store. It’s clear that if anything matters to all characters in this novel, it’s money. The conversations Ethan has with his neighbors, his boss, customers -many of these revolve around money, as if the townspeople are putting ideas in his head, reminding him that he is lower than them. For example, early on, Mr. Baker comes to Ethan and says of some money that Ethan’s wife, Mary, inherited, “Well, it’s just lying in the bank. Ought to be invested. Like to talk to you about that. Your money should be working” (​Winter​ 13). Of course, Ethan 17 protests. He can’t invest that money, his family needs it in case they go under like he did after he came out of the war, as Ethan tells Mr. Baker on page 13. But this bug in Ethan’s head has taken root. This isn’t the only time that Mr. Baker brings up the importance of money. Much later on, Ethan’s friend Joey Morphy, another banker, tells Ethan “​we all bow down to the Great God Currency” (​Winter​ 132). Not longer after, ​Mr. Baker tells Ethan, “​your only entrance is money” (​Winter​ 144). In this way, the importance of money is reiterated, maintaining money’s presence as a consistent antagonist against Ethan. The antagonism of wealth is certainly wreaking havoc in Ethan’s own mind. As Mr. Baker tries to convince Ethan that he ought to invest Mary’s money, Ethan seethes, telling Mr. Baker, suppose I get sick and can’t sweep this goddam sidewalk? Course you don’t understand. It’s slow. It rots out your guts. I can’t think beyond next month’s payment on the refrigerator. I hate my job and I’m scared I’ll lose it. How could you understand that (​Winter​ 14). In this scene, Steinbeck juxtaposes Ethan against Mr. Baker, each as archetypes. Ethan is the American spirit -- weak, confused, he “is the microcosm to his macrocosm America, grotesque and shrunken in on itself” (Heavilin 103). Indeed, he “represents the psychically wounded Every American in this novel, which Steinbeck’s opening address to readers1 maintains ‘is about a large part of America today’” (Heavilin 103). Mr. Baker is the temptation of material and money, preying on the anxieties Ethan carries, a parallel made especially obvious by Mr. Baker’s profession. Mr. Baker presses Ethan, attempting to sway him to invest the money rather than sit on it. But Ethan is working to survive. Losing the money would be dangerous to his family, and the 1 “Readers seeking to identify the fictional people and places here described would do better to inspect their own communities and search their own hearts, for this book is about a large part of America today.” 18 temptation is a cruel one. Ethan gets near constant reinforcement of the meagerness of his class and finances even at home. Rushing into the house, Mary tells Ethan that she has “so much to tell [him]. Can’t wait” (​Winter​ 29). Mary’s own enthusiasm gets Ethan excited. But when she returns, she tells him that Margie Young-Hunt, a local woman, read her fortune, which was all about you. You’re going to be one of the most important men in this town -- that’s what I said, most important. And it’s not going to be long either. It’s very soon. Every card she turned showed money and more money. You’re going to be a rich man (​Winter​ 31). Mary’s enthusiasm, coupled with Ethan’s understanding that the fortune is fake, sends Ethan into a fit. Margie had told Ethan just that morning, “Know what I’m going to do? I’m going to read one hell of a fortune this morning. You’re going to be a big shot, did you know? Everything you touch will turn to gold -- a leader of men” (​Winter​ 18), essentially solidifying his “fortune.” There’s something slightly insidious with Mary’s infatuation with the fortune. She’s clearly infatuated with the prospect of more money. Her enthusiasm to tell Ethan her fortune indicates she’s excited about the wealth and status that the fortune predicts. This suggests that money is what Mary cares about. At the same time, it solidifies what Mr. Baker and Morph had been saying. Money is what rules Ethan’s world. However, Mary’s infatuation hints at something else, too. The fact that Mary mentions, and reiterates, that Ethan will be one of the “most important” men in town demonstrates that Mary is dissatisfied with their class standing. She would prefer if he were one of the more important men in town -- just like his ancestors were -- rather than a mere grocery clerk. Ethan’s confrontation with Mary about her love of money reinforces not just the sense of desperation, but also how Ethan is seen in town. Ethan asks 19 her squarely if she loves money. Mary tries to hold herself at a distance, but explodes saying, You said it! You started it. I’m not going to let you hide in your words. Do I love money? No, I don’t love money. But I don’t love worry either. I’d like to be able to hold up my head in this town. I don’t like the children to be hang-dog because they can’t dress as good -- as well -- as some others. I’d love to hold up my head (​Winter​ 34). Mary represents the damage yearning for class and status does to the American soul. Of course Mary loves money. She loves status, and with status, she associates money. The irony of this exchange is that Mary slips, allowing the fact of her own lower class to appear in her speech. This demonstrates that her dissatisfaction is a personal one, an internal one. She hates the class in which she was born, as denoted by her improper English. However, she directs this dissatisfaction at Ethan, acting as one of the societal pressures. “Everybody’s laughing at you,” she tells him. “A grand gentleman without money is a bum” (​Winter​ 34). These are Ethan’s antagonists: money and status. They antagonize by being constant pressures -- pressures on every aspect of his life, from his home life to his social life. He is a failure in all eyes, including his own and his wife’s. Therefore, to alleviate this dissatisfaction, these things become Ethan’s American Dream. Per the previously mentioned definition of the American Dream, Ethan needs to complete the highest achievement he can concerning both wealth and status, pertaining to his own ability. However, there’s a twist. The twist is that these pressures are so intense, so influential, that they corrupt the dreamer. One’s ability is akin to “whatever means necessary.” ​In trying to capture this perverted American Dream, Ethan is failing at more than the old American Dream. By focusing on money and status, by ignoring the original 20 dream, Ethan isn’t even a hero in Steinbeck’s eyes. He is a model of the corruption and perversion of American culture. But there is more than money and status at stake. One of the biggest components of Ethan’s American Dream -- as well as Steinbeck’s critique of it all -- is the Hawley family name. That is, the roots that are connecting Ethan to New Baytown. In fact, “Ethan depends on his family house and name to give him that sense of worth -- a means, he believes, to both identity and meaning. So deep is his attachment to his house that he fears that its loss may lead to his being ‘canceled,’ or being removed ‘from real’” (Heavilin 111). This is to say that a large part of Ethan’s discontentedness stems from his family, his rootedness to New Baytown, which creates a very false sense of responsibility and ownership. Ethan ruminates on this rootedness in relation to his childhood friend, Danny Taylor. Reflecting on Danny’s own troubles with his family name, Mr. Baker tells Ethan what “a fine family the Taylors were. It makes [him] sick to see [Danny] this way. [...] He’d probably drink himself to death” (​Winter 106). In many ways, Danny is not a minor foil to Ethan, but a reflection. Danny and Ethan both come from prominent New Baytown families, and both are failures to that name. Only, Danny’s an impoverished drunk on the brink of death and Ethan’s just not as well off as he hoped. In this way, Danny is a sort of premonition into Ethan’s future, demonstrating the consequences of failing to chase the American Dream. Ethan could end up like Danny: destitute. Further, Ethan knows how similar he and Danny are, and compares their struggles, saying, Hawley was more than a family. It was a house. And that was why poor Danny held onto Taylor Meadow. Without it, no family -- and soon not even a name. By tone and inflection and desire, the three sitting there had canceled him. It may be that some men require a house and a history to reassure themselves that they exist -- it’s a slim enough connection, at 21 most. In the store I was a failure and a clerk, in my house I was Hawley, so I too must be unsure. [...] Without my house, I too would have been canceled. It was not man to man but house to house (​Winter​ 107). Ethan is measuring his worth -- as well as Danny’s -- not by their individual successes as the old American Dream would have him do, but rather by their house. This house is not only the physical house Ethan lives in, but also “house” as in clan, name, tribe. Ethan is evaluating both him and Danny in terms of their successes relative to house Hawley and house Taylor, weighing their achievement against history. Because Ethan has achieved so very little, he is discontented by virtue of his measurements. In the above quote, Ethan admits that he is one of the men who need “a house and a history to reassure themselves that they exist.” Were it not for the Hawley name, Ethan would be nothing. Without Ethan’s home, without his family, without that family’s history, he isn’t real. “Without it, no family,” Ethan says, “and soon not even a name.” At the same time, living in New Baytown exacerbates this misery that Ethan feels because he sizes up so small to the Hawley name. After all, Hawleys have been in New Baytown since its founding -- their mark is everywhere and Ethan cannot escape that. Of the church the Hawleys spend their Easter in, Ethan says, “Hawleys have sat for God knows how long, and that is no figure of speech. [...] I remember every desecration, and there were plenty of them. I think I can go to every place where my initials are scratched with a nail” (​Winter​ 99). This place that Ethan cares so deeply for, that he and his family are embedded in, does not even hold entirely positive memories. Part of being in the church where Ethan’s ancestors worshipped is a reminder of “every desecration” he’d committed. I imagine one of those desecrations is what he’d done to the family name. It’s important to be mindful that Steinbeck is not suggesting we feel bad 22 for Ethan. Yes, Ethan is America, and yes Ethan is being preyed upon by the temptations of the material, but that doesn’t mean he’s a good person. Steinbeck means to make explicit that Ethan is no hero. The problem with Ethan is that everything he cares about, everything that matters to him, is connected to material. The people he loves, what he wants out of life, and the town that he wants so deeply to be important in -- all of these things are material. The status, the blood, the history, none of this ought to matter, but it does. Ethan seethes inside about all this. He says, You can’t know people like the Bakers unless you are born knowing them. Acquaintance, even friendship, is a different matter. I know them because Hawleys and Bakers were alike in blood, place of origin, experience, and past fortune. This makes for a kind of nucleus walled and moated against outsiders. When my father lost our money, I was not edged completely out. I am still acceptable as a Hawley to Bakers for perhaps my lifetime because they feel related to me. But I am a poor relation. Gentry without money gradually cease to be gentry. Without money, Allen, my son, will not know Bakers and his son will be an outsider, no matter what his name and antecedents. We have become ranchers without land, commanders without troops, horsemen on foot. We can’t survive. Perhaps that is one reason why the change was taking place in me. I do not want, never have wanted, money for itself. But money is necessary to keep my place in a category I am used to and comfortable in. All this must have worked itself out in the dark place below my thinking level. It emerged not as a thought but as a conviction (​Winter​ 104). These are Ethans most serious ruminations on status. Clearly, status is just as important to him as it is to his wife. Even though his father lost their money, Ethan is “still acceptable as a Hawley.” Acceptable, but not welcomed. This is 23 what frustrates Ethan. He is a ghost in a world he no longer belongs in. He cares about status, and by association money, as its “necessary to keep [his] place in a category [he is] used to”. But Ethan isn’t used to being a part of this category. Ethan thinks he belongs in this category, and is comfortable in it, because historically, his family has belonged to it. But he never has. Ethan is asserting something his wishes to be true, much the same way his wife slipped up on her grammar; both are frantically trying to convince the other, and themselves that their status is a matter of accident, that they belong and are owed something more. Yet they aren’t. His admittance to not even being a part of the “gentry” implies that Ethan understands this already. Ethan wants to be a part of this category. It is his desire, his dream. To achieve it, he needs money. Thus, his dream is material. Ethan is not a Steinbeckian hero, as he is not a man of both nature and civilization the way Tom Joad was. Ethan cares about status and money. He’s a man whose environment and person is dominated by social status. Ethan has no integrity for his dream. Recalling from Carpenter earlier2, Ethan doesn’t refuse to deny his dream, because he does make a point of attempting to achieve it. But his American Dream is a false one because it is only for material, and at the sacrifice of others. Further, Ethan feels this so strongly that “all this must have worked itself out in the dark place below [his] thinking level” (​Winter​ 104). Ethan is honest about how immoral his desires are. He knows they come from a dark place, somewhere so honest that he wasn’t even consciously thinking about it. And yet these desires burst from him as “conviction” (​Winter 104), as imperatives, something that must be carried out. Therefore, because Ethan is aware that his desires are wrong, but feels so deeply for them that he means to pursue them anyway at whatever cost demonstrates how corrupted Ethan 2 “They become heroic because they refuse to deny their dream” (464). 24 is. Further, because Ethan is a symbol for the American spirit, it demonstrates America’s own state of corruption. But is this all for nothing? Certainly, if Ethan is following his desires, attempting to ensure they are fulfilled, then he must be accomplishing something, even if he is chasing a false dream. Unfortunately not. Ethan fails to express any kind of potential whatsoever. Not because he’s chasing a false dream, but because his desires are at the expense of other people’s lives. Other characters are forced to unknowingly put themselves at risk, all for Ethan to decide that none of it was worth it. Ethan is not just failing to participate in the American Dream. He’s failing to participate at all. First, there’s the business with Ethan’s boss, Marullo. Admittedly, Marullo did not enter the country legally, but Marullo has made something of himself. As an immigrant, Marullo came to own his own business in town and become an important man. Given that he is an illegal immigrant whose status, if known, would be subject to legal action, one can reasonably come to the conclusion that, given the circumstances, Marullo has achieved the American Dream. He has produced the highest achievement according to his own innate abilities and circumstances. Marullo truly is the embodiment of the true American dream; “he knew the words on the bottom of the Statue of Liberty. He’d memorized the Declaration of Independence in dialect. The Bill of Rights was words of fire. And then he couldn’t get in. So he came anyway” (​Winter​ 227). Marullo is even sympathetic to the help he’d been given over the years. In Chapter 9, Marullo helps Ethan out in the store during a big rush. Over and over, Marullo praises Ethan, almost the way a father would. “You’re a good friend;” “You’re smart, kid;” “You’re honest, kid” (​Winter​ 140-141). Each time, Ethan rebuffs him, joking, “Honest is a racket with me” (​Winter​ 140). Marullo, the actual American Dreamer, tries to think the best of Ethan, but Ethan, in a 25 strangely honest moment, can’t manage to be serious about it. He knows he’s a bad person, chasing something wildly different from the dream Marullo so successfully brought to fruition. The deportation of Ethan’s boss is truly a turning point for Ethan, one in which the American Dream becomes utterly destroyed. Ethan’s friend Joey Morphey puts the idea in his head first, after some federal agents come around asking about goings around town. Morph tells Ethan that the first emergency immigration law was passed in 1921. Morph explains that Marullo might never go back to visit his home country because “he came in after 1921 by the back door. So he can’t go home because he can’t get a passport to get back” (​Winter​ 132). Marullo essentially confirms this when he talks about his family. But despite Marullo’s praises, Ethan goes to a dusty phonebook and looks up “‘Immigration & Naturalization Svce, 20 W Bway, BA 7-0300, Nights Sat Sun & Holidays OL 6-5888. [...] If everything’s proper and aboveboard, nobody gets hurt’” (​Winter​ 167). The last thing Ethan utters must be for himself, to reassure himself that he’s a good person. He knows that everything isn’t proper and aboveboard. During their conversation, Ethan narrates, “Morph seemed to have hit it on the nose. Maybe bankers and cops and customs men get an instinct” (​Winter​ 138). So Ethan knows about Marullo. He’s calling immigration on purpose, deliberately, knowing what will happen. When Marullo does get deported he sells the store to Ethan for a remarkably low price. Yet this makes Ethan feel sick, because “for a long time [Ethan] scared [Marullo]. He tried to figure out [Ethan’s] racket, and he discovered [Ethan’s] racket was honesty” (​Winter​ 227). He gave Ethan the store because he was honest. Ethan deported the American dream out of the country, taking everything from it, metaphorically but effectively killing it. On the other hand, Ethan almost literally kills Danny Taylor. A better term is inadvertently, because the implications are equal to murder and 26 pillaging. Ethan gives Danny Taylor $1,000 to get treatment to take care of Danny’s alcoholism. Earlier, Mr. Baker and Mary were so horrified at the idea of giving Danny even a dollar because “no one would dare do that, [...] that would be after killing him” (​Winter​ 106), which Mr. Baker agrees. Even when Ethan does give Danny the money -- which he wants to do so that Mr. Baker won’t get Taylor Meadow for the airport he wants to build -- Danny tells Ethan that he “hope[s he’s] convinced [Ethan] what a drunk’s promise is worth” (​Winter 120). Danny means he’ll likely lose the money or drink it away. Ethan knows this, too. He ruminates on it, narrating, “I knew better. Danny was gone. I knew Danny was gone. [...] I knew what I had done, and Danny knew it too” (​Winter​ 153). Ethan’s honest about this with Mr. Baker, too, using Danny’s death as leverage to take the majority of Baker’s profits. Ethan tells this to Baker, saying, “Danny was fond of my Mary. [...] He gave me these.” I pulled the two pieces of ruled paper from my inside pocket, where I had put them, knowing I would have to draw them out like this. [...] When the son of a bitch looked at me there was fear in him. He saw someone he hadn’t known existed” (​Winter​ 259). Baker is scared of Ethan because, the whole time, Ethan walks around the streets of New Baytown pretending to be the down-and-out American everyman. But really, he’s out for gain, for profit, doing so at the expense of others. What Ethan pulls out is Danny’s will, which gives Ethan ownership of Taylor Meadows. Ethan gives Danny the money to drink himself to death (which came with a healthy serving of sleeping pills) and uses his friend’s death as an intimidation tactic. He is not the disenfranchised American everyman. He is the sickly, demented, twisted American Dream. Ethan doesn’t really suffer any consequences for this. Ethan sometimes 27 beats himself up over this. He is aware that his actions are wrong, saying time and time again that he “did not ever draw virtue down to hide what [he] was doing from [himself]. No one made [him] take the course [he] had chosen” (​Winter​ 201). But he does these things anyway. Even still, his “objective was limited and, once achieved, [he] could take back [his] habit of conduct. [He] knew [he] could. War did not make a killer of [him], although for a time [he] killed men” (​Winter​ 201). Ethan sees himself as an American hero, someone who had to kill people for the greater good, equating killing Nazis with his own pursuit. In the end, what strikes Ethan most is the world that drove him to do those things. Reflecting on what he’d done -- and what he means to do -- Ethan says, “I want to go home -- no not home, to the other side of home where the lights are given. [...] It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone. The world is full of dark derelicts. [...] there comes a time for decent, honorable retirement, not dramatic, not punishment of self or family -- just good-by, a warm bath and an opened vein, a warm sea and a razor blade” (​Winter​ 279). Suicide is Ethan’s “honorable retirement,” as if he were being discharged from the military rather than taking his own life because he had become a bad person who corrupted his family. What strikes me is the way he blames the world, this dark place. He curses it for being unfair, for giving him light and then snuffing it out. But that light is one he imagined. It was his Hawley’s and grocery store and New Baytown. Steinbeck writes these all down to illustrate that, if he had just let all that go, gotten rid of all those roots tying him to this miserable town, maybe he would have never caught a glimpse of those false lights. Maybe he wouldn’t be so discontented.