Steinbeck's novel The Winter of Our Discontent (1961) has often been compared, almost always unfavorably, with the short story from which it grew, “How Mr. Hogan Robbed a Bank” (1956). Though both works were written late in his career, the short story has been called “vintage Steinbeck” and praised for its objective, nonteleological point of view, whereas the novel has been criticized for its heavy-handed moralizing and cited as proof of the author's decline.¹ How can two so closely related works supply such opposite evidence of Steinbeck's art?

One answer is genre. Expanding a short story into a novel can be tricky, even when considering only the most obvious generic differences. Simply incorporating short pieces into longer works was nothing new to Steinbeck. Earlier in his career he had drawn on such stories as “The Raid” (1934), “Breakfast” (1936), and “The Snake” (1935) in the making of novels In Dubious Battle (1936), The Grapes of Wrath (1939), and Cannery Row (1945). But never before had he attempted to construct a longer narrative upon the frame of a shorter one.

This is precisely the relationship between The Winter of Our Discontent and “How Mr. Hogan Robbed a Bank.” Steinbeck uses the same basic characters, setting, and situation in each. Protagonists in both works plan to rob a bank. Although Ethan Allen Hawley in Winter aborts his robbery, he, like Hogan, betrays friends and neighbors to increase his own wealth. Similarities between the two works abound, even in such small details as the Mickey Mouse mask each man chooses as disguise and the “I Love America” essay contest that both the Hawley and Hogan children enter. But whereas in the short story Steinbeck succeeds with these materials, in the novel (most critics agree) he fails. Reloy Garcia explains why. The Winter of Our Discontent, he says, is “a bloated short story rather than a full-fledged novel.”²

What went wrong? Why in Steinbeck's most autobiographical novel is the protagonist barely credible and the setting vague? Why is the narrator, who espouses Steinbeck's deeply held beliefs, so intrusive? Why does the point of view shift illogically? And why do the themes of degeneration, malaise, and spiritual bankruptcy in America during the 1950s and early sixties turn muddy? For these questions, genre can provide some answers.

Between the short story and the novel I will make a simple distinction: “A short story is short, and a novel is long.” In this view, the qualitative differences between the two genres derive primarily from length. As Janet Burroway explains, the short story can “waste no words.” The novel, in contrast, aims for “scope, breadth, and sweep.” The story focuses on “one central action and one major change” in character. The novel can range through several consciousnesses and can include digressions and subplots. Hallie Burnett uses a “tightwire” metaphor to illustrate these differences: “In a short story,” she says, the author must “balance on a tightwire of total consistency.” In a novel, he or she must stride on several wires, “juggling characters and plot and values at the same time,” yet avoid “falling off.”³

John Steinbeck was one year away from receiving the Nobel Prize when he published The Winter of Our Discontent. This novel shows that even a Nobel laureate is susceptible, like the tightrope walker, to “falling off.” The tale of Ethan Hawley's moral decline has many sources in addition to “Mr. Hogan”—Shakespeare, the Bible, T. S. Eliot, the English Romantic poets, and early American history. Steinbeck invested increasing emotion in the project as he proceeded, writing with a kind of “desperation,” says Jackson J. Benson, and an overriding moral purpose. The epigraph—“This book is about a large part of America today”—suggests that Steinbeck envisioned himself as an “American-conscience figure,” a prophet like Isaiah warning his wayward people from the brink of disaster. Add to this the burden of autobiography—characters closely resembling himself, his family, and neighbors, setting reflecting his adopted hometown of Sag Harbor on Long Island, and a time frame (Easter through July 4, 1960) nearly identical to the dates of composition—and one can see how Winter evolved into a novel with more conflicting aims than its author could sustain.⁴

Moreover, Steinbeck allowed no one but his typist to see the manuscript. “All the mistakes in this one are going to be my own,” he told his agent, Elizabeth Otis. Though he read some passages to his wife, Elaine, on his instructions she listened without comment. Later she recalled the manuscript to Benson: “It was awfully false and coy to me, but that was one thing I couldn't say to John. I didn't like it at all.” She lamented not telling her husband to rethink his project. “But I simply couldn't,” she said, “He'd asked me long before not to, and then he got into it so deeply that nobody could correct it.”⁵

“How Mr. Hogan Robbed a Bank” has a happier history. Published in the prestigious Atlantic and almost universally praised, the short story represents Steinbeck's best work during this phase of his career. Mr. Hogan is a middle-aged grocery clerk who lives in the mid-1950s among the aspiring middle class. The Hogan's house on Maple Street looks identical to another house on the block, and no doubt like many others in town. Mr. Hogan, himself, resembles his neighbors in every respect but one. While they succumb to blinding routine, he keeps his eyes open. As the narrator tells us, “Mr. Hogan was a man who noticed things, and when it came to robbing a bank, this trait stood him in good stead.” Steinbeck's tongue-in-cheek treatment of Hogan's perfect crime leads Warren French to call the story a lighthearted, “frivolous” satire.⁶

Though French's reading of the story—suggesting little thematic likeness to the novel it inspired—has by now become standard, “How Mr. Hogan Robbed a Bank” does indeed develop similar themes. As John H. Timmerman says, “The moral concerns that sparked the novel are implicit in the short story.”⁷ Both reveal the hypocrisy of those who publicly endorse values of hard work, religion, and the American way of life, yet privately betray these values. Some examples from the story: Although Mr. Hogan belongs to the Knights Templar Lodge, a chivalric order, he nonetheless robs a bank. Although Mrs. Hogan is nominally religious, she divines messages in her teacup and has her fortune read with tarot cards. And although the Hogan children enter the “I Love America” contest for apparently patriotic reasons, they think only of the “all-expense-paid” trip to Washington, D.C., they may win, as well as instant celebrity on radio and T.V.

Just as “How Mr. Hogan Robbed a Bank” foreshadows the thematic concerns in The Winter of Our Discontent, so too do several key lines in the novel recall the short story: “A guy got to make a buck,” “Look out for number one,” “Everybody does it,” “Strength and success—they are above morality, above criticism,” and, finally, “Are the eaters more immoral than the eaten?” Both Ethan and Mr. Hogan outwit their unsuspecting neighbors. Does this make the two men less moral than those they dupe? Or does it show the protagonists, on the contrary, to be superior—smarter, nimbler, and more alert? In the story, these questions are whispered; in the novel, they are broadcast.⁸

The difference between the two works, then, lies not so much in theme as in contrasting ways Steinbeck develops theme and other elements in these genres. Let's consider point of view, characterization, and setting, as well as theme. First, the most obvious difference between the works is narrative point of view—consistently third person and objective in the short story; omniscient and shifting from third person to first person in the novel. A short story, to recall, must maintain a consistent focus, whereas a novel can range through several consciousnesses and points of view, precisely the difference between “How Mr. Hogan Robbed a Bank” and The Winter of Our Discontent. Save one authorial comment—“Mr. Hogan was a man who noticed things” (p. 631)—the short story is told without intrusion and entirely from outside the mind of the protagonist. Mr. Hogan's thoughts and feelings, his motives for robbing a bank, and any pangs of guilt he may suffer remain a mystery. In contrast, the novel includes editorial intrusions from shifting points of view, leaving the reader to wonder sometimes who is talking—the narrator, the protagonist, or the author himself. During one rambling commentary Ethan pauses and says, “Strange how the mind goes romping” (p. 121). Even the most patient reader may think “strange” too benign a word.

Next, characterization and setting are other differences. Since a short story can “waste no words,” it often focuses on a single character and few scenes, depicting these economically. In “How Mr. Hogan Robbed a Bank,” Steinbeck deftly sketches the protagonist—a stereotypical family man and clerk of Fettucci's Grocery. As mentioned, Mr. Hogan is conventional in every respect except one—he “noticed things.” He is a “quiet, capable man,” according to French, “who brooks no nonsense and appears supremely satisfied with himself, his family, and his inconspicuous position.” With few words, Steinbeck establishes the type. He also captures the essence of the middle-class neighborhood in which the Hogans live: “East Maple Street,” “brown-shingle house,” “big tree in the yard” (p. 629). The images are crisp.⁹

In contrast, Ethan's family (based on Steinbeck's) and their New Baytown home (resembling Sag Harbor) seem vague. Their autobiographical origins, which could have rendered characters and setting vivid, compelled Steinbeck, instead, to disguise. As Benson points out, Steinbeck was afraid the Sag Harbor setting might create another tourist nightmare as happened at Cannery Row. He also feared for his privacy and that of his neighbors. Therefore, Steinbeck generalized Sag Harbor and its people. In the novel he calls New Baytown “handsome” (p. 43) and “lovely” (p. 181), but gives few of the real place names and descriptions that made such novels as Cannery Row memorable. The Hawleys' “white-painted shiplap [house] with a fanlight over the front door” and “widow's walk on the roof” (p. 8) approaches this kind of graphic detail; yet after its introduction, since no one again mentions the “fanlight” or “widow's walk” or other memorable features, the house recedes into the prevailing fog that envelops the novel. Only Marullo's grocery (which mirrors Fettucci's in the short story) stands out crisply: side door on the alley just steps from the bank, gleaming cans and jars stacked to the ceiling, “counter, cash register, bags, string, and that glory in stainless steel and white enamel, the cold cabinet” (p. 14). Marullo's grocery sticks in the reader's mind because it is detailed, concrete, and revisited often. Few other images in the novel have such sharp outlines.

In the novel Steinbeck displayed a similar reluctance to depict his characters vividly. Ethan Allen Hawley, the most autobiographical protagonist Steinbeck ever created, differs from Mr. Hogan in being neither consistent nor a recognizable type. Ethan is a quirky, eccentric Ivy Leaguer and unlikely grocery clerk who “sermonize[s] to canned goods” (p. 16) and calls his wife such names as “Miss Mousie,” “Darling chicken-flower” (p. 5), and “Duck blossom” (p. 105). Benson attributes these eccentricities to the protagonist's autobiographical origins. “A small town shopkeeper,” says Benson, “end[s] up with the fancies and sensibilities of a big-time writer.”¹⁰ Hawley's wife calls him “silly” (p. 6) and wishes he were something more. “Everybody's laughing at you,” she says. “A grand gentleman without money is a bum” (p. 40). Even his children are “sick of being poor” (p. 85).

Ethan's problem, no doubt like Mr. Hogan's, is what Steinbeck called the “social-economic bind” (p. 196) in which middle-class breadwinners often find themselves—a home to provide, children to support, appearances to maintain. But whereas Mr. Hogan solves the problem without “hanky-panky” (p. 630), Ethan wavers indecisively, talks to himself, and belatedly stumbles upon some solutions. He has Marullo deported and takes over the store, he swindles his alcoholic best friend, Danny, out of his family's land, and he outwits the greedy Mr. Baker, who wants the land to build an airport. Ethan's quick moral decline has troubled critics. As Garcia says, he goes from “one flat condition (unadulterated goodness) to another (complete evil), never going through the internal conflict necessary to infuse him with life and interest.”¹¹ Although successful in creating Ethan's prototype (Mr. Hogan) in the short story, Steinbeck fails to flesh out this prototype in the novel.

Finally, Steinbeck also handles theme differently in these two genres. His contrasting approaches stem, I believe, from his different purposes in writing. As frequently happened in his career, some works he expected to be “major” failed, whereas others he wrote merely for relaxation won critical acclaim. As he told Elizabeth Otis: “I had no intention of writing [“How Mr. Hogan Robbed a Bank”].” The story emerged from “a vagrant tendency of my mind” which if resisted “goes into a pout.”¹² While Steinbeck apparently “dashed off” this short story for “entertainment,” the novel it inspired he wrote with a kind of “desperation” to indict a morally slipping America. He seems, in fact, to have subjugated his art to his patriotism. Consequently, as Granville Hicks argues, “The book is neither convincing as a piece of fiction nor persuasive as a sermon.” And Timmerman brings us back to our genre comparison when he says, “For Mr. Hogan we have no why, no motivation for the action. … For Ethan Allen Hawley, however, the why becomes a roar of confusion.”¹³

Expanding a short story into a novel can be tricky. Never before had Steinbeck attempted it. He worked in self-imposed isolation. His sources were many. And the onus of being an “American-conscience figure” coupled with the burden of autobiography weighed on him. Although The Winter of Our Discontent remains a valuable document revealing Steinbeck's troubled vision of America at the dawn of the 1960s, to recall the “tightwire” metaphor, Steinbeck—balancing on too many wires and juggling too much—fell off.¹⁴

Notes

1. Warren French, John Steinbeck (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1975), 158.

2. Reloy Garcia, “Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent” in A Study Guide to Steinbeck: A Handbook to His Major Works, ed. Tetsumaro Hayashi (Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1974), 250; 254.

3. Janet Burroway, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, 2nd ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1987), 15-16; Barnaby Conrad, The Complete Guide to Writing Fiction (Cincinnati: Writer's Digest, 1990), 243; Hallie and Whit Burnett, Fiction Writer's Handbook (New York, Harper Collins, 1975), 133.

4. Jackson J. Benson, The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer (New York: Viking Press, 1984), 870; French (1975), 160, 167. The “American-conscience figure” label comes from Steinbeck's son, John IV, in his autobiographical book, In Touch, as quoted by French, 167.

5. Benson, 871-72.

6. John Steinbeck, “How Mr. Hogan Robbed a Bank,” in The Portable Steinbeck (New York: Viking, 1971), 631. All further references to this work appear in the text; French (1975), 160; see also French's 1961 edition of John Steinbeck, 170.

7. John H. Timmerman, The Dramatic Landscape of Steinbeck's Short Fiction (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1990), 275.

8. John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent (New York: Viking Press, 1961). Text quoted is the Penguin paperback, 1982, 54, 190, 211, 255. All further references to this work appear in the text.

9. Burroway, 15-16; Warren French, “Steinbeck's Winter's Tale” in Modern Fiction Studies, 11 (Spring 1965), 73.

10. French, Steinbeck's “Winter's Tale,” 73; Benson, 872.

11. Garcia, 251.

12. “To Elizabeth Otis” (3/7/56), Letters to Elizabeth; A Selection of Letters from John Steinbeck to Elizabeth Otis, eds. Florian J. Shasky and Susan F. Riggs (San Francisco: The Book Club of California, 1978), 65 (letter dated 3/7/56).

13. Granville Hicks, “The Winter of Our Discontent” (rev.), Saturday Review, 44 (June 24, 1961), 11 (quoted in Garcia); Timmerman, 276.

14. French, John Steinbeck (1975), 167.