Rough Draft of 'In Dubious Battle'

Erika Hernandez

English 1B

Finial Paper

The Injustices Movement

Injustice, inequality, impoverish, broken down; these are perhaps some of the sentiments that Mohamed Bouazizi experienced when unable to find a job after obtaining a college degree. Needing to earn a wage, Mohamed turned to selling fruits and vegetables in Tunis, Africa. Tired and broken-down, enough was enough; frustrated after an officer confiscated his fruits and vegetable. In retaliation and nonviolent protest, Mohamed set fire to himself-ending his life (Witnesses...). This event is not one that happened hundreds of years ago, this is an event that occurred on the 18^th Of December, 2010 and sparked the Arab Spring. Inspired by the revolt of the Arab world, and with the growing gap from the' haves and the have not', the same injustices and inequalities are facing American more and more each day, springing forth the Occupy Movement. Also frustrated by the inequalities, where the rich stay rich and the poor get even poorer, the Occupy Movement spread like wild-fire. These same thoughts and feeling are brought forth in John Steinbeck's, In Dubious Battle, where he illustrates the same injustices and inequalities that migrant farm worker were faced during the 1930s. Steinbeck personifies the struggles that man must face in order to obtain self sufficiency, and exemplifies the challenges that one must face in order to succeed.

The story takes place in the apple orchards in the central valley of California, where the two main character Mac and Jim pose as apple pickers to infiltrate the ideology of the socialist movement and to help unit the working men. Jim, a new comer to the cause, becomes a 'Party member' after being inspired by the demonstration that occurred in Lincoln Square. Jim describes to Mac, “All the time at home we were fighting, fighting for something-hunger mostly. My old man was fighting the bosses...Anger hung in the house like smoke; that beaten, vicious anger against the boss, against the superintendent, against the groceryman when he cut off credit...And while there was anger in them[(being the man who were in jail with Jim)], it wasn't the same kind of anger. They didn't hate a boss or a butcher. They hated the whole system of bosses, but that was a different thing. It wasn't the same kind of anger...The hopelessness wasn't in them...but in the back of every mind there was conviction that sooner or later they would win their way out of the system they hated...there was a kind of peacefulness about those men”(164-165). Spending time in jail with the men who were protesting at Lincoln Square granted him the opportunity to really see the that the void he felt, of hopelessness, was also something that others felt except that they were doing something about it. He was able to make the clear distinction that the real villains are not the bosses and people who are having to follow orders, but rather the system it self. The other men in jail had a fire burning inside them that Jim at the time did not have, they had hope of change, hope that they were making a difference because they had a cause to believe in. These men had hope in themselves and felt that change could only happen if they stood up and fight, that determination and pride oozed out, making Jim want to be apart of the cause, because he too share the same hardships.