The Winter Of Our Discontent Analysis

The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinback was written in the early 1960’s about the life of Ethan Allen Hawley, a poor man born from a rich family. The 1960’s not only were the times of the rise of materialism amongst America, but also the corruption of good morals from the longing need of money. John Steinback wrote around these problems of morality and wealth and the conflicts between them through the classical masterpiece that is The Winter of Our Discontent. Ethan Hawley, Allen Hawley, and Mary Hawley, along with numerous other people in New Baytown, displayed the conflict of moral disintegration from the idea of wealth.
The temptation of money and wealth corrupted the morality of Ethan Hawley in The Winter of Our Discontent substantially. Ethan Hawley was born from a family of wealthy sea captains that went broke. In the opening chapter of The Winter of Our Discontent, Ethan seemed to be questioned by not only his friends but also family on his way of living. Ethan, a reliable grocery clerk, worked for another man, Alfio …show more content…
Allen saw his father as a poor man. Allen was raised thinking that being dishonest and immoral was okay. When Ethan confronted Allen about how the previous “I Love America” contest was rigged, he thought that there was nothing wrong with it because the writer still obtained the money. “Everybody does it... That’s the chance you take – the way the cookie crumbles.” (190) Allen complained that his family did not have a car or a TV set and that there “must be twenty kids with motorbikes” (82) accept him. With the idea of only wealth on Allen’s mind, he resolved to plagiarize his entire "I love America" essay just so he could attain all the wealth and fame from it. It seemed as if the people who organized the contest were not even bothered by the fact that Allen copied his whole essay from other famous