Dependent Independence

John Steinbeck took a liking to the common folk of the Great Depression era, and in his stories, demonstrated his skill at expressing life truths through the common man's tongue. In his two most famous, The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, he gave everyday man the wisdom that he seemed genuinely to believe he possessed. Through characters like Casey the preacher in The Grapes of Wrath, in fact, you find that Steinbeck felt strongly about the potential for salvation-- despite widespread suffering-- to be found within the community.

Into this theme, however, that the community was the lifeblood of the family and that the family was the lifeblood of each person, Steinbeck weaves a seemingly contradictory message. His male protagonists expressed fierce independence, and would rather starve than depend on the charity of others. It was from this independence that a man held onto his dignity, even within the depths of poverty. Still, this independence seemed to assume an independence from those outside the family, not from those within it; and it is here-- in this dependent independence-- that Steinbeck seemed to express the zeitgest of Depression-era working-class society. Read some of these quotes from Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck at once celebrates and derogates the need for others, and it is-- in my opinion-- the fact that he balances so well a person's need for the dignity found in independence and his real need for others that makes Steinbeck's writing so appealing, not least because we can see in his characters a little of ourselves.

“I ain't got no people. I seen the guys that go around on the ranches alone. That ain't no good. They don't have no fun. After a long time they get mean. They get wantin' to fight all the time. . . 'Course Lennie's a…nuisance most of the time, but you get used to goin' around with a guy an' you can't get rid of him."

"S'pose you didn't have nobody. S'pose you couldn't go into the bunk house and play rummy 'cause you was black. How'd you like that? S'pose you had to sit out here an' read books. Sure you could play horseshoes till it got dark, but then you got to read books. Books ain't no good. A guy needs somebody - to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya, I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick."

"'Well,' said George, 'we'll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens. And when it rains in the winter, we'll just say the hell with goin' to work, and we'll build up a fire in the stove and set around it an' listen to the rain comin' down on the roof...'"

"'Ain't many guys travel around together,' he mused. 'I don't know why. Maybe ever'body in the whole…world is scared of each other.'"

“George's voice became deeper. He repeated his words rhythmically as though he had said them many times before. 'Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place. They come to a ranch an' work up a stake, and the first thing you know they're poundin' their tail on some other ranch. They ain't got nothing to look ahead to.”