The Winter of Our Discontent - Literary Significance & Criticism

Literary Significance & Criticism

Atlantic Monthly (Edward Weeks) immediately reviewed The Winter of Our Discontent as a Steinbeck classic: "His dialogue is full of life, the entrapment of Ethan is ingenious, and the morality in this novel marks Mr. Steinbeck's return to the mood and the concern with which he wrote The Grapes of Wrath." The Swedish Academy agreed and awarded Steinbeck the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. The presentation speech by Secretary Anders Österling remarked specifically on five books from 1935 to 1939 and continued thus:

In this brief presentation it is not possible to dwell at any length on individual works which Steinbeck later produced. If at times the critics have seemed to note certain signs of flagging powers, of repetitions that might point to a decrease in vitality, Steinbeck belied their fears most emphatically with The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), a novel published last year. Here he attained the same standard which he set in The Grapes of Wrath. Again he holds his position as an independent expounder of the truth with an unbiased instinct for what is genuinely American, be it good or bad.

Most reviewers in America were disappointed. A few years later Peter Lisca called Winter "undeniable evidence of the aesthetic and philosophical failure of the writer’s later fiction".

In various letters to friends before and after its publication, Steinbeck clearly stated that he wrote the novel to address the moral degeneration of American culture in the 1950s and 1960s. American criticism of his moralism started to change in the 1970s following the Watergate scandal; here is how Reloy Garcia describes his reassessment of the work when asked to update his original Study Guide to Winter: "The book I then so impetuously criticized as somewhat thin, now strikes me as a deeply penetrating study of the American condition. I did not realize, at the time, that we had a condition," and he attributes this change of heart to "our own enriched experience".

In 1983 Carol Ann Kasparek condemned the character of Ethan for his implausibility, and still called Steinbeck’s treatment of American moral decline superficial, although she went on to approve the mythic elements of the story.

Increasing awareness of the Faustian bargain underlying the American Dream, famously articulated as "Greed is good" by Gordon Gecko in the 1987 film Wall Street, has generated a new American consensus. At a conference celebrating the 100th anniversary of Steinbeck's birth, Stephen K. George declared: "With these authors I would contend that, given its multi-layered complexity, intriguing artistry, and clear moral purpose, The Winter of Our Discontent ranks in the upper echelon of Steinbeck’s fiction, alongside Of Mice and Men, Cannery Row, East of Eden, and, of course, The Grapes of Wrath."

The novel was the last that Steinbeck completed before his death in 1968; The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights and the screenplay for Zapata were both published posthumously in unfinished forms.