Essay: The discourse of Steinbeck

Steinbeck celebrates the fragmentary nature of his society, he believes that these differences have fused together to build the main strengths of his nation, thus, we need to preserve people’s right to be different. We should pause for a while to consider that any totalitarian system spreads sameness everywhere to make the mission of controlling them easier. Anything that distinguishes itself is unacceptable and should be eliminated. Steinbeck works on reversing the attack and subverting this logic, he leads a movement of decentralization; it’s a movement that aims at shaking the certainties as it gives back the value to the marginalized categories of the American society. This reforming movement invokes a continuous war between the authoritarian systems and the peripheral enemies of them. Steinbeck wants to distort the binary opposition of good and bad, blurring these lines that separate people will shorten distance and guarantee an efficient communication among individuals.
This research study investigates the means by which the mainstream culture imposed its norms, beliefs, and assumptions on the wide majority of the American society. By so doing, Steinbeck intends to reread and decode these means. Power uses the concept of common interest as an excuse to legitimize its corruption. What Steinbeck has focused upon is the way authorities use the power of language in identifying concepts for people, for instance it defines for them what is happiness and what is comfortable life. Falsifying truths and trying to subordinate people’s minds and control their choices through media. Steinbeck is writing a text that answers totalitarianism back and calls for cultural resistance. Being part of the community, any kind of change or intellectual revolution demands from all of us a kind of involvement. Together we can change laws and rules overnight, we can reconstruct our reality, and we simply need to dislodge the myth that power is undefeatable.
The discourse of Steinbeck is counter hegemonic; he serves as a watchdog against any threat menacing his society. Steinbeck doesn’t want his people to be hypnotized by the discourse of those in power. Spreading consciousness amongst common people is really important. Democracy is built upon awareness and not upon educated elite leading a blind mob. The role of every writer is therefore, to elevate the level of thinking of his people; he should not allow power to use hegemonic speech to control people. Thus, the role of an intellect is to speak truth to power. This novel asserts the prophetic function of the writer as a truth revealer and as a catalyst who causes agitation, and who brings things together to create new visions and motivates the social change. A novelist is the memory of its nation; his novels should insight people to act, its importance lies mainly in the unsaid, thus, readers have to be able to decode it. POWER DISCOURSE LANGUAGE AS A TOOL OF RESISTENCE BY SUBVERTING POWER DISCOURSES FROM WITHIN.
The capitalist system represents a major threat for the real American principles of brotherhood, equality, and human rights. This danger that threatens the unity and solidarity of the American society and the next generations. Allen and Mary Ellen for instance, is the product of consumer society, they adopt all the practices and beliefs of modern life. From the priorities of the capitalist society, there is something missing; religion, yet Mary seems to keep the presence of holiness in her life.
Ethan is the breadwinner of his family, he is astrocized from society. He masks is weakness by resorting to language games; language has been dislocated, it doesn’t have the power to define anymore, everything he says is blurred and vague. He also escapes reality by talking to himself, he minimizes any problem, it seems to bother him no more. Ethan is not in harmony with his world, that’s why he uses madness as a refuge, he is unable to decide or frame his identity. Ethan’s problem is a problem of recognition; he feels that his society doesn’t recognize him as an autonomous individual after losing his ancestors’ wealth. Ethan has a double discourse, he subverts what he asserts; if he succeeds then it’s his effort but if he fails it’s always someone else’s fault. He always gets rid of the blame. Ethan asserts the supremacy of rich people; as if empirically proved and not to be negotiated or doubted.
Steinbeck couldn’t have accomplished such an amazing fictional work without being inspired by the agonies lived by his people; I assure therefore that the majority of his well known characters are nothing but a reflection of real life people. Yet Steinbeck skills appear when he combines these linguistic skills of humor and irony with his sense of responsibility towards his nation. Steinbeck foregrounds himself and defamiliarizes his work What immortalizes a fictional work is its language; this novel will never wither, it will always please its readers because it’s beautiful in itself.
The American society is internally divided, this division is based mainly on economic features, for this reason Steinbeck refuses the classification that categorizes people into first class and second class citizens on the basis that some individuals are economically underdeveloped.
Any dictator system sheds light on trivial matters in order to deflect attention away from core problems and mainly from criticizing its regime. Food prices, safety matters, terrorism concerns, celebrities news, and media outlets, are all made by authorities to disguise people’s attention from real problems.
Ethan is giving himself a sense of nobility, honor, and value; he sometimes adopts the mainstream thinking. He is trying his best to adjust himself to the harsh conditions imposed by the mainstream culture of the American society. Ethan has a very minimalist and reductionist reading of his history and his current situation. Transvaluating, rewriting, and rediscovering oneself.
Now I want to argue that this idea has a great importance in the issue I want to discuss in the second part of this chapter. These characters have been mutilated by the aspects of modern life, they became assimilationists. Malehood is related to wealth and no longer to maxulinity and bravery. The end justifies the means in a world of race and brutality. AIMLESSLY DIASPORIC PEOPLE
Mary doesn’t seem to side with anyone in the family, she fights fragmentation and she longs for unity and harmony in her house.
Religion rationalizes death with rituals, it doesn’t solve the problem. The world of death for Ethan is still undiscovered AN THIS SHOWS THE LIMITAION OF THE HUMAN MIND.
Literature is about the shame of being a human being.
We are ruled by an idea rather than physical power, for any kind of tyranny has its own ideological machine that works to spread its ideas and maintain people under control.
For Steinbeck it’s a matter of commitment to make his people’s voice heard.
Legitimization of power use / it transcends/ I believe that there are many problems with this statement, the first is…/ / it seeks a way to../  It disallows / This discourse seeks to dismantle /
Every piece of fiction Steinbeck wrote is a protest in itself.
Some would say that up siding social classes remains a utopian idea
AMERICA EXCEPTIONALISM/ THE CONCEPT OF THE SUBALTERN/ CULTURAL CAPITALE IS STEINBECK MAIN FOUS / Let’s use Derrida’s discourse analysis
The shortest road to the future is always through studying the past and learning from its fruitful experiences.
The self always gain value, identity, and uniqueness by setting itself off from the Other and by showing that it’s morally at a higher level. For this reason, every character tries to dehistoricize and desocialize him. Understanding the Other, therefore, is only possible if the self could in one way or another control the perspectives, assumptions, and ideologies of his own culture. ETHAN AND MARULLO