In Dubious Battle Character Analysis

In Dubious Wrath In Dubious Battle, published in 1936, was written by American author John Steinbeck. The story was given in the context of 1930s, when The Dust Bowl, Okie Migration and The Great Depression took place. Steinbeck was horrified by the workers’ plight as he had many direct contacts with labor organizers, strikers and communists. In the book of In Dubious Battle, Steinbeck depicts how desperate the labors look for solutions to their economic misery under the time of the Great Depression, and how desperation leads labors to engage in the Party. The three main characters in the book, Mac, Jim and Doc, represent the labor organizer, the labor striker and the watcher respectively. By portraying the three characters’ transformation of personalities throughout the novel, Steinbeck shows the issue that America’s economic system starved and oppressed labors during the Great Depression, and questions the motives of Communism Party members given the desperation of the time. There are two aspects of each character that suggest Steinbeck’s dubious attitude towards the motives of Communism Party members. Mac represents a labor organizer, who is an utilitarian that never aims to win the battle, but to change people. The first aspect of Mac is his transformation of enhancing ambition for the “cause” and loss of sympathy, which is …show more content…
The battle in Heaven insinuates the battle in novel — the struggle between good and evil with unevenly matched power. While Steinbeck portrays the negative side of labors, he apparently does not regard them as evil. Instead, Steinbeck concerns the plight of workers and points out that the labors’ questionable motives come from the vigilante violence, oppression and hunger. By questioning the purpose of the battle, Steinbeck reflects what causes the battle — the economic system in