Talk:The Winter of Our Discontent

Summary requires rewriting

The plot summary is oddly written and inaccurate. It sounds like it was lifted directly out of a poor Cliff's Notes summary. "The story resolves when Ethan gives the town drunk/bum enough money to get so incredibly intoxicated as to die shortly thereafter of acute alcohol poisoning" - this sentence is ridiculous. Hawley speaks of Danny Taylor like a brother, not as a "bum". Taylor commits suicide with sleeping pills, not by alcohol poisoning. The summary fails to elaborate on the Hawley family's past, the bank robbery ploy, and Margie's character. Also, it isn't Margie who encourages Ethan to accept bribes from the grocery wholesale "drummer." That was Joey's advice: "Take it? I'd sit up and beg for it. 76.235.234.54 (talk) 23:14, 6 July 2014 (UTC)Deb P.76.235.234.54 (talk) 23:14, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't trust my literary skills enough to rewrite this section, but it clearly needs serious work.

70.152.49.206 20:24, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Reviewing the summary in 2011, it is evidently much improved from 2007; however there are still major omissions: First, Margie is not even mentioned (as noted above): the fact that Ethan describes her as a 'witch' is surely significant. Second, the Faustian bargain inherent in the plot should be brought out; there are at least four Mephistophelian characters who 'tempt' Ethan: Baker, Joey, Marullo and Margie. Third, the corrupt society around Ethan is also significant, both locally with the town council (and police), and society at large with the Quiz Show scandals of 1958 (Allen says, "Everybody does it"). brymor (talk) 20:08, 08 August 2011 (UTC)

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Uneven, Lacking credibility, Unfinished?

IMO this novel is one of the most uneven in Steinbeck's oeuvre. Some ideas a developed with characteristic thoroughness and aplomb; but others lack credibility, with characters acting contrarily to the personalities with Steinbeck imbued them with. We also encounter plot elements being introduced, then left as loose ends. Altogether, the novel gives the impression of having been rushed through editing.

As for lack of credibility/integrity, how do we deal with the transformation of quiet, mild mannered Ethan, honest, but afraid to step over his own shadow at the beginning, into a man planning an unlikely armed bank robbery (next door to the shop he works in, nonetheless!), icily dispatching his childhood friend in a plot to gain control over the town council, and betraying his employer (who also departs from script to adopt a naive and sentimental persona) to federal agents.

An example of an undeveloped plot element is Margie's consternation upon reading Ethan's horoscope. (Was Steinbeck preparing the way for a metaphysical explanation for Ethan's transformation?)

I'm tempted to bring up some of these points in the article. Opinions?

--Philopedia 15:58, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with some of the above - the particular episode which I find lacking in credibility is the planned bank robbery - luckily for us, it doesn't happen. However, this is typical Steinbeck: the equivalent in East of Eden is the iced vegetable transportation scheme.

However, I strongly disagree with the comments following "how do we deal with the transformation of quiet, mild mannered Ethan?" The whole point of the novel is to show that even an innocent everyman can be corrupted by the classical Faustian bargain: success hurts other people. Ethan is a model for all of us in Western Capitalist societies, any one of us could do what Ethan did.

In The Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck exposes Capitalism from the point of view of the victims; in Winter, he does something arguably more difficult: he exposes the moral venality required for success from inside the mind of an entrepreneur. brymor (talk) 20:50, 08 August 2011 (UTC)

Moral degeneration of American Culture

One has to wonder at the following text in the article: "Steinbeck clearly states he wrote the novel to address the moral degeneration of American culture in the 1960s." In addition to the fact that the article contains no footnotes, note that the novel was copyrighted in 1961 and the action takes place at the tail end of the Eisenhower Administration. In fact Eisenhower (as the then President) is mentioned multiple times in the book. If this quote is to be believed, Steinbeck certainly must have been champing at the bit to "address the the moral degeneration of American culture in the 1960s" since the action of the novel FINISHES just seven months into the year 1960. Seems to me Steinbeck was addressing the 1950's rather than the '60's. Could this quote have been simply inaccurate, or are we being treated to someone's idea of (trumped up) evidence on the part of a 'cultural warrior'? -William Malmstrom, Clearwater, FL 24.160.80.225 (talk) 23:19, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Since it's set in 1960, I changed it to say it was addressing both the 1950s and the 1960s. 67.22.244.97 (talk) 00:26, 6 December 2010 (UTC)Eman91

Explanation of the novel's title

IMHO it's relevant to mention it's the opening sentence of the play. Would you agree? Thanks Kvsh5 (talk) 20:48, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Agreed - done the edit. In fact it is the first two lines... Also the original article said ...son [or sun] of York. My texts of the play both have the word as 'sun', so I have reversed the bracket. Arguably we don't need the bracket, but I think it is helpful to clarify Shakespeare's pun. brymor (talk) 20:37, 07 August 2011 (UTC)

Citations

This article is tagged as needing citations. I can provide these for the initial favourable and unfavourable criticisms of the novel, however it is impossible to provide a citation for: "Throughout the book, Steinbeck tends overtly to tell the reader what characters are thinking rather than allowing the plot and structure of the novel to reveal their thoughts." This is a very strange comment (POV?), as most of the novel is first person narrative, so what we get are the views of the narrator, not other characters, so the comment is factually wrong, and should be deleted [Done] . I also have a problem with: "so Literary critics and scholars have condemned Winter for its poorly concealed moral emphasis, citing that the novel lacks the stylistic integrity of previous Steinbeck works." This needs rewriting to accomodate the fact that Steinbeck was ahead of his time with Winter, as reflected in the change of view of critics as they caught up with the author between 1961 and now. I will get this done as soon as I track down the references. brymor (talk) 21:04, 07 August 2011 (UTC) [Done]

Critical response early and later

"... early consensus found this a disappointing work." Only one contemporary review is cited and it is exceptionally favorable. I add the Nobel Prize citation (1962); downgrade "early consensus" to "most reviewers in America"; and mark that {{citation needed}}.

The source for Steinbeck's aesthetic & philosophical decline is Lisca 1965, so I call it "a few years later". That for Steinbeck's "superficial" moralism is Kasparek 1983, so I expunge that from the pattern supposedly transformed by Watergate and leave Kasparek hanging alone in chronological order.

The account no longer distorts the record we have cited but it doesn't yet work. We don't establish the pattern(s) supposedly changed by Watergate and Wall Street and reference to those events seems to be original research. --P64 (talk) 18:26, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Altered "most reviewers" to "many reviewers", and added Bellow. Brymor (talk) 20:50, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Narrative point of View

I have added this section because the switches in the Narrative point of view in Winter are a very noticeable feature of the novel. Can anybody find a critical discussion of these switches, perhaps offering an explanation of why Steinbeck employed this technique? One possibility is that he started writing the book using Free Indirect Discourse from Ethan's POV (as in Chapters 1&2), then decided this wasn't working, and switched to first person. Obviously, I cannot include such a speculation in the article, so I have stuck to a factual description - I just wondered if anybody knows of a useful reference to expand on this topic. I have seen it mentioned, but not discussed. Brymor (talk) 15:56, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

As an example of a mention - but not discussion - of this topic, here is the throwaway comment by Susan Shillinglaw (San Jose State University) in her otherwise excellent introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of Winter (2008): "After two chapters in each section of the novel’s two sections, point of view switches from third to first person." That's it - there is no analysis of the significance of the switch, in a complex essay that goes on for 5,500 words.Brymor (talk) 16:33, 16 October 2016 (UTC)