The Winter of Our Discontent discussion

Just finished the book. I was a little confused about the ending. Did Ethan survive or not?

Ethan survives. He was going to kill himself but found the stone in his pocket, a talisman from his daughter, and realized that he was needed by his family.

This novel speaks to the loss of a moral compass in our daily lives. The title, taken from Shakespeare's Richard III, reminds us of a man whose guile and success were based on a similar lack of morals. Now that I think of it, I wonder if Ethan's near-drowning refers back to the way in which Richard kills his nephews, who were heirs to the throne he then usurped.

Thanks, I see it now that he does survive. Haven't quite made my mind up on this one. I enjoyed it but, I don't know it just didn't wow me. I gave it three stars.

I enjoyed this one and its ending - probably my favorite Steinbeck. In a funny way it always makes me think of a favorite Ogden Nash poem: The Strange Case of the Pleasing Taxi-Driver.

Why are we so certain that he survives? My interpretation is that we don't know.

SPOILERS BELOW:

The question might be what survival means for Ethan. He tricked his way to success while holding his family banner high and thinking he deserved all that came his way. "Crime is a something others commit", he tells Baker--holding himself above anything immoral.

One thing that remains unclear to me is whether duping Danny into leaving him his land is something he planned or not--his past with his friend keeps me from believing that this was so, but with everything else that happened, I wouldn't be surprised.

In the end, there is family--and maybe more importantly--children and the future. It is Ethan's daughter that saves him in the end and perhaps she is the moral compass that will right the Hawley family: She rats out her brother's dishonesty and "saves" her father--but because she is intentional or because she has ulterior motives?

Just finished it yesterday , gave it 5 stars , I was confused like u , but then i Knew that he survived , i agree with Norman's view , and I have another view : part of Ethan dead that night , which is connected with look to the world around him .. every one wearing a mask .. even his son .. even him .. and i think that what made him sad .. and pushed him to kill himself , that his son thought that he was a honest man , but in fact he was not !!

He didn't dupe Danny, did he? Danny was clear about what would happen and understood why Ethan was doing it, which is why he had the property put in Ethan's name. Stinky thing for Ethan to do but very pragmatic and Danny was "in" on it -- knowing he was going to do himself in one way or another anyway. Seemed to me that Ethan took the legally "ok" path in all his pragmatism. Not a path in which he martyred or humbled himself or made himself out a saint, but a technically correct path. I didn't see that he thought he was morally above anything -- he seemed to know exactly what he was doing -- hated himself for it and did it anyway. I began to skim at some point due to description overload, so I may have missed something. He did plan to rob a bank, be unfaithful (I think?) and kill himself, but didn't do any of those things in the end. I loved the book. Loved his dancing with words, descriptions of characters -- I could see them all, his plotting and planning under the surface . . .

Strikes me that his daughter did exactly what he did when she turned in her brother on the sly -- just what he did to his boss.

Yes, Lucy's observation rings true: Ellen's ratting out Allen parallels Ethan's ratting out Marullo. It seems that life consists in dealing perpetually with the stinky and slightly underhanded--I think Steinbeck's moral message is more complicated than what the back of the Penguin edition would suggest, quoting the review of the book from the SF Chronicle, as "a deeply ironic comment on the lessening of American standards." Ethan repeatedly reflects on how thoughts make morality, and so morality is all relative. The book is thus skeptical from the get-go, as is the question (I don't think it's an answer, even though several times asserted by Ethan in his thoughts) that his "vacation" from morality will only be temporary. Can a vacation from morality be merely temporary? Was that what the Town Manager, who hung his head so low before Ethan after the news got out about the indictment of the town politicians, had initially told himself?

My question about the ending would be this: is Ethan at all embarrassed about his squealing daughter, or does his despair spring solely from his son's immorality and what it stands for in this new generation?

OK, maybe I am brain dead, it's a real possibility, but why does Ethan want to kill himself? I missed that completely. Just finished the book and I get all of the moral ideas and implications, but why get the land from Danny, get rid of the "wop" so he would get the store, plan out the "robbery", defend his wife and turn down Margie and then is about to slit his writs?

Michael wrote: "OK, maybe I am brain dead, it's a real possibility, but why does Ethan want to kill himself? I missed that completely. Just finished the book and I get all of the moral ideas and implications, but ..."

I just finished it as well, and had the same questions. I think he operated in a in a world with relative moral clarity, but once he starts enacting his plan he understands just how muddy everybody's lines are. All of the characters can be found along a moral spectrum; Mr. Baker is fairly clearly on one end, but many of the characters are fundamentally decent, however flawed. Morph is a worldly, decent dude, though capable of improprieties; Margie's activities are unscrupulous but she still protects and cares about her 'friends.' Even inocuous characters, like the police staff, are trying to be fundamentally decent (taking care of their friends and neighbors), but their actions are against the law, and thereby indecent. I think Ethan was able to conceptualize and categorize all these activities along a fairly just moral spectrum until he gets bogged down in it himself. I think he has a bit of a crisis of conscience when he sees the same corrupt striving tendencies so confirmed in his son. He starts to see the world as hopelessly lost, until he remembers her daughter, and, despite her many flaws, her fundamental decency and drive to do the right thing.

I think he realizes that the world is a morally muddy place, and in a dark moment the thought it hopelessly so, and wants to end it. Then he remembers that there are people like his daughter who are still fundamentally good, and he wanted to be around to help her navigate life's ambiguities.

Just my thoughts.

Is it that he discovers the will to live as he's dieing or that he actually dies? Or does his will and his Talisman get him out? I always took the reference to the color red to mean that he did cut himself and that he did die. On my second read 25 years later I'm almost certain that he lives. I think we can't know. The Place is nature and like the old Cap'n's ship, once a fire starts...Maybe his fortune has turned and the love of his daughter and great Aunt save him, but maybe nothing can save us once we've placed ourselves in compromising positions. I like the idea that maybe like the snake Margie saw, he simply shed his old skin, and in a baptism, he is renewed. We can change our fortunes by being immoral but maybe we can transgress and move on, be forgiven, forgive ourselves and others when we trespass. Not that I believe there is an overt Christian theme, but the story pivots with Easter.

Just what to thank everyone for leaving a comment. I enjoyed the them.

Pandora wrote: "Just finished the book. I was a little confused about the ending. Did Ethan survive or not?"

Norman wrote: "Ethan survives. He was going to kill himself but found the stone in his pocket, a talisman from his daughter, and realized that he was needed by his family.

This novel speaks to the loss of a mora..."

that's why he felt her fist in his pocket. she planted the stone there and saved him...lovely...

I think Ethans light went out. He wanted this body found by the shore so the talisman could be found. He got to use it already. I loved most of the book. To me it was about how little we know what goes on inside another person. I thought Ethan as too much a goody two shoes but I loved how smart he was. The true insides of others is the story in my mind.

Cristy wrote: "Why are we so certain that he survives? My interpretation is that we don't know."

Although I lean toward thinking Steinbeck wants us to think Ethan survived, it is somewhat ambiguous given that he will have to fight the crashing waves. He is determined to go back, but the waves are still crashing. In my Penguin edition is a note that Steinbeck added the last six paragraphs at his editor's request to "make it clearer".