Class struggle in in dubious battle (1936) by John Steinbeck and Devil on the cross (1982) by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar



251658240

Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines

Département de Littératures et Civilisations des Pays de langue anglaise

Mémoire de maîtrise d'anglais

Class struggle in In Dubious Battle (1936) by John Steinbeck and Devil on the Cross (1982) by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Présenté par Sous la direction de :

Ndiaga SYLLA Dr Oumar NDONGO,

Docteur d'Etat ès Lettres



Année académique 2009/2010

Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar



251662336

Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines

Département de Littératures et Civilisations des Pays de langue anglaise

Mémoire de maîtrise d'anglais

Class struggle in In Dubious Battle (1936) by John Steinbeck and Devil on the Cross (1982) by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Présenté par Sous la direction de :

Ndiaga SYLLA Dr Oumar NDONGO,

Docteur d'Etat ès Lettres



Année académique 2009/2010

Dedication

This piece of work is dedicated to my parents whose contributions I value dearly. May God grant them long life and fulfillment for their ambitions.

This is also an opportunity to salute the dedication of my two departed teachers (Mr. Diakham, History and Geography teacher, and Mr. Mbodj, French teacher). Both of them taught me at Louga Malick Sall high school.

May Allah grant them eternal peaceful rest.

Acknowledgements

I would like first of all to express my heartfelt thanks and gratefulness to my supervisor Professor Oumar Ndongo for having accepted to supervise this research project.

I must admit that I am highly indebted to him for his benevolence, understanding, and willingness to supervise my work even though everybody knows that supervising M.A theses while performing international responsibilities is not an easy task.

Through the process of writing this MA thesis, I have learnt so many valuable things from him which I hope have contributed positively to enriching the work.

My gratitude to all those who opened my mind to the world, from primary school to university through secondary school.

I would thank Professors of the English department for their enlightened courses and dedication despite the daunting task of serving a community of more than six thousand students.

Finally, I thank my classmates who took time to proofread my text.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I Introduction

I. Social contexts in both novels

1. Critical social backgrounds and the reasons for the commitment of John Steinbeck and Ngugi wa Thiong'o

2. The protection of the downtrodden in a world of exploitation

II. Class divisions

1. Confrontation between the working and the dominant classes

2. The victimization of the working class

III. Resistance to oppression

1. Emergence of a new leadership

2. The outcome of the struggle as illustrated in both novels

II Conclusion

Note to the reader

Whenever In Dubious Battle and Devil on the Cross are used in the body of my text, I will just insert IDB followed by a page number for In Dubious Battle and DOC for Devil on the Cross.

Editions used in the course of this study are the following:

John Steinbeck, In Dubious Battle, Peguin Books USA Inc.1936

Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Devil on the Cross, London, Heinemann, 1982

Therefore, all subsequent references to those novels will be inserted directly with a page number.

III Introduction

In the USA, the fate of the working class has always been the concern of a good number of writers during the Depression era. That period gave them a good opportunity to tackle so many issues related to the failure of the American dream. In fact, they started getting rid of their dreams and confronted the idea they still had of America with the reality that was pressing on them. Writers such as Henry James for instance were particularly severe and their criticisms were most negative. Their aims are in that respect, oriented towards denouncing through their writings social ills in their country and beyond. America needed such writers in the sense that they displayed all that was wrong economically and socially.

The US history gave the world a generation of talented writers who succeeded that of the Lost Generation. Writers including John Dos Passos, James T. Farrel, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein defined a sense of moral loss or aimlessness apparent in literary figures during the 1920s. Later on, with the development of the social novel, John Steinbeck chose to tackle the low class workers, the peasants in particular. In Dubious Battle published in 1939 examines the interdependence of antagonistic social classes living in the same geographical sphere. The novel is set in a small rural part of California known as Torgas Valley during the Depression Years when Roosevelt was President of the USA.

John Steinbeck was born in the scenic and fertile Salinas valley of California on February 27, 1902. His father was the county treasurer and his mother was a school teacher. At the age of 14, Steinbeck's strong wish was to become a great writer and of course in 1919 he enrolled at Stanford University. It so happened that the aspiring writer took only classes that he was interested in, mostly from the English department and as a result never earned a degree. As soon as he dropped out of the university in 1925, he travelled to New York to earn a living as a journalist and freelance writer. After being sacked from his job, the author experienced many jobs (an apprentice painter, caretaker, surveyor and fruit picker) before he released his first work of fiction, a historical novel called Cup of Gold in1929.

John Steinbeck wrote about underprivileged populations--groups of people who had tough times surviving and would sometimes resort to any means necessary. During his lifetime Steinbeck wrote, there was a huge push to unionize in order to protect the rights of people, especially those who may be underprivileged.  Unionization was a large part of the novels In Dubious Battle and The Grapes of Wrath.  Many Americans considered unions to be communist, and Steinbeck was often dubbed a "commie" or a "red".  Steinbeck spent much of his life traveling up and down the California coast in search of work, and as a result he understood the difficulties the lower class faced.  This understanding is reflected in many of his novels, including Of Mice and Men, and by advocating for the under-privileged Steinbeck was touted as controversial in a context of Great Depression.

The Depression Years are seen as one of the most outstanding periods in the social US history due mainly to the fact that the economic downfall which is a by-product of the Depression Years that resulted in many social dissensions. Then, the unprecedented shift of the migrant workers towards the rural areas appeared at first as the main factor of destabilisation. Due to the Industrial Revolution, there were no longer any large industries to support the overflowing amount of workers. Thus, the farms were the only places that needed a large work force. Therefore many of the workers had to move to the rural lands to be in a position to support their needs and survive.

It is not surprising that John Steinbeck`s reaction to environmental challenges could be seen as a way to respond to the cause of the oppressed masses. This fact is clearly expressed in most of his novels such as In Dubious Battle in 1936, Of Mice and Men written in 1937 and The Grapes of Wrath in 1939. The Grapes of Wrath which is central in Steinbeck's publications, it is an account of the many struggles faced by a migrant working family in Oklahoma that was evicted and forced to leave their home and relocate to California during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Despite his critical, cynical, and sometimes impetuous outlook on American government, he was the only American Nobel Prize Winner in Literature from California of his time. However, most peculiarly John Steinbeck was also considered the most popular American author in the Soviet Union during the Communist era.

One outstanding feature of John Steinbeck stems from the fact that he cultivates a quite optimistic conception of man. He believes in man's goodness and places him on a high pedestal. His respect and love for human beings are not verbal; he actually lived such experiences as his life with the apple- pickers in their lot and aspirations. Steinbeck is entirely acquainted with poverty and he wants his writings to be an expression that leads to salvation for the masses. Being basically optimistic, he does not share the pessimism of the writers who find man resourceless, weak and doomed to failure forever. On the contrary he believes in man's capacity to solve all impediments and in most of his novels, he draws the workers' attention that only combined minds and joint efforts can collapse the system of establishment.

In Dubious Battle examines the various groups vying for power and place for California; the large landowners, the Communist Party (which moved into the State in early 1930's to organize farm workers), and of course the workers themselves who mostly want a decent condition of existence. In this complex socio-economic environment where each group is trying to have the stranglehold on the social and economic control, it is clear that the working class which has no means of production will be the downtrodden and the exploited group, John Steinbeck's sympathies are clearly with the latter and of course he sees the other two groups -communist organizers and powerful landed interests in California ( the Associated Farmers) as equally responsible for manipulating the workers for their own ends.

Criticizing communism and capitalism, John Steinbeck in his great strike novel In Dubious Battle does not just simply praise communism or capitalism for that matter. He is simply telling the positive and the negative aspects of both. Steinbeck criticizes communism by showing how it dehumanizes an individual by making the person view people as simply objects to be exploited for the Party. He praises communism by displaying the intense dedication that Jim, Mac, and others have to the cause and by demonstrating the extreme oppression that the few rich landowners impress upon the working men. By proceeding in this fashion throughout the novel Steinbeck does give a truly accurate depiction of communism.

Through his writing there is no doubt that Steinbeck takes side with the downtrodden workers whose conditions of existence get worse and worse every passing day. However, it must be noted that Steinbeck is not the only writer who cares about the lot of the workers. In other continents, in Africa for instance, writers raise their voices to denounce exploitation. Like John Steinbeck, due to the ruthless exploitation and domination of the masses by the few, Ngugi undertakes to denounce the neo-colonialism in African countries and then advocates changes for the benefit of the people who are in a state of hopelessness and frustration. Those denunciations of African committed writers give birth to the publication of committed novels such as My Son's History by Gordimer, A Walk in the Night by Laguma, A Man of the People by Chinua Achebe. These novels mark a turning point in the history of African literature but at the same time in the Eastern Africa mainly in Kenya a bulk of work is marvellously achieved by Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

There is need, before going any further to look at an ideological portrayal of Ngugi. This will help understand better his literary work. First of all Ngugi reveals his Marxism through the way he analyses social facts, his rejection of capitalism, his siding with the popular masses in their struggle against the international Bourgeoisie and in serving as watchdog as for the dispossessed.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o, currently Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine, was born in Kenya, in 1938 into a large peasant family. The Kenya of his birth and youth was a British settler colony (1895-1963). As an adolescent, he lived through the Mau-Mau War of Independence (1952-1962), the central historical episode in the making of modern Kenya and a major theme in his early works. He is also Honorary Member of American Academy of Letters. A many-sided intellectual, he is novelist, essayist, playwright, journalist, editor, academic and social activist. After Amnesty International named him a Prisoner of Conscience, an international campaign secured his release a year later, December 1978. However, the Moi Dictatorship barred him from jobs at colleges and university in the country. He resumed his writing and his activities in the theater and in so doing, continued to be an uncomfortable voice for the Moi dictatorship. While Ngugi was in Britain for the launch and promotion of Devil on the Cross, he learned about the Moi regime's plot to eliminate him on his return, or as coded, give a red carpet welcome on arrival at Jomo Kenyatta Airport. This forced him into exile, first in Britain (1982 -1989), and then the U.S. after (1989-2002), during which time, the Moi dictatorship hounded him trying, unsuccessfully, to get him expelled from London and from other countries he visited.

Motivated only by the great desire to denounce the exploitation of the upper class against the lower one or the exploitation of the capitalists against the workers `class, Ngugi uses the only weapons he has, his pen in order to analyse and even criticize vehemently the attitude of the new African leaders namely labelled «watchdogs». Ngugi deals with the impact of political independence on African nations, especially on the people of Kenya. His view is that this independence has been usurped by the elite who took over power from the colonial officials but did not attempt to change the socio-economic and political structures of the colonial era. According to him, this class has only used its position to enrich itself at the expense of the masses. Ngugi argues that the retaining of the capitalist economy by those who took over the leadership when his country became independent has left it open to exploitation by both western nations and the local elite. He shows that this economic system supports theft and sectionalism which is responsible for social disintegration. He illustrates the way cultural values are corrupted and put to the service of those in power and how politics becomes a means to material gain under neo-colonial conditions. He believes that this helps perpetrate an economic system that is based on the exploitation of the country's natural and human resources. However, he strongly suggests that this exploitative environment can be changed through a joint effort of all the oppressed groups in the community. In many ways, Ngugi's goal is reminiscent of Marxist ideology, as the novel is ultimately meant to educate Kenyan on the corruption of their society and the power of non-compliance within such a repressive system. The central event in the novel is the «Devil's Feast,» a sort of conference in which Kenya's elite boasts of their cutthroat achievements. In allegorical form, the «Devil's Feast» attests to the exploitation of peasants and workers by foreign business interests and a greedy indigenous bourgeoisie.

Devil on the Cross tells the tragic story of Wariinga, a young woman who emigrated from her small rural town to the city of Nairobi only to be exploited by her boss and later a corrupt businessman. Ngugi uses Wariinga's story, common to many young women in Kenya, to critique the political workings of contemporary Kenya as faced with the so-called «Satan of capitalism.» The novel follows a group of characters who meet on a bus, each with their own tragic story, as they attend the «Devil's Feast» in a thinly disguised satirical account of capitalist business practices and Western cultural and political dominance in post-colonial Kenya.

The publication of Devil on the Cross in 1982 is enough to illustrate that a new African writer committed to the liberation and the masses' cause was born. Devil on the Cross is in the line of those novels shedding light on economic problems and sexual harassment. It was written when Ngugi was a detainee for having co-authorized a play entitled I Marry When I Want which is about the theme of economic religious and sexual exploitation. These two books represent Ngugi's commitment to the cause of the poor social classes and they were first written in a national language in Gikuyu for the masses.

Both writers Steinbeck and Ngugi emerge in a context when a life of bondage and wretchedness is quite the same lot for the poor kept under the constant yoke by the rich. The common ground of these authors lays in the fact that they both share Marxist ideology. Marxism is basically founded on means of production and according to Karl Marx; it is because of means of production that social classes exist. This is the very reason why Steinbeck as a white writer and Ngugi as a black writer focus their attention on social stratification rather than racial identification. They want the reading audience to not only witness the truth about the power of the establishment but to also incite the reader to understand the fact that joining efforts is the only way to bring a new social era and economic uplift in their societies.

Both of them stand as mouthpieces for the doomed class as they harshly bring discredit to the ruthless class which confers on the disadvantaged workers a life of misery and despair. Therefore the authors try to liberate them from the shackles of obscurantism and hopelessness. Their ultimate aims reside in the eradication of all social evils which thwart the individual aspiration, one of which is the possession of wealth and decent home.

Through In Dubious Battle and Devil on the Cross, Steinbeck and Ngugi show that the class struggle between the haves and the have-nots is basically related to economic problems and social consideration. With the prospect of wealth accumulation and with little care for moral considerations, owners could use then all available means, the treacherous ones in particular to take as much advantages possible from the doomed class as clearly illustrated in Devil on the Cross.

In In Dubious Battle the monopoly of agriculture and the advent of the greedy land-owners take place at the expense of the large number of workers, for the labour people find themselves deprived of any means of production and compelled to rely on the big farmers to earn a livelihood by selling their forces. But instead of the deserved fair wages that could help improve their conditions of living, they are often granted starvation wages hardly enough for their survival and fulfilment.

The authors' handling of the opposition between labour and capital is not limited to the sociological level; rather it is viewed under a broader religious angle as we can notice it through the titles of the novels under study.

In Dubious Battle takes its title from Milton's Paradise Lost, Book I (1658), in which Satan vows to engage the forces of Heaven «in dubious battle· even if it means eternal loss and defeat. That reference sets a tone for Steinbeck's novel, and suggests a way to view the main characters: as Satan like figures, not because they are inherently or necessarily evil, but because they are determined to preserve in their battle against capitalism even when odds for success are overwhelmingly against them.

In Devil on the Cross, the Devil symbolizes those who want to accomplish devilish deeds. They are the people who want to sustain the colonial discourse by earning a living with the workers' sweat. In a nutshell, the allusion to the Devil is necessarily linked to the top ranking-class whose main strategies are to squeeze the masses out of everything. The allusion to the word Cross which is recurrent in Ngugi`s work although an atheist, keeps paradoxically a Christian connotation. Then, the devil which is the embodiment of the watchdogs should be crucified once for all to put a curb on that situation of permanent exploitation.

It is clear that class struggle in In Dubious Battle and in Devil on the Cross which is the subject of our work occupies a prominent position in the novels as it portrays violent turmoil and clashes between the poor majority and the minority which owns all means of production. Then, the novels put stress on the social and economic inequalities from which stem two antagonistic camps: the owners and the masses.

The power is concentrated into the hands of the minority whose strongest desire and lust is to maintain and sustain its supremacy over the oppressed and exploited majority whose aspirations are to be fulfilled politically, economically and socially. In this respect, it is obviously clear that there exist strong diverging interests of the two camps: the need to gain profits by all means on the one hand and the need to survive and to be fulfilled on the other hand. Therefore, it is important to highlight that such antagonistic and opposite interests could only result in strong clashes, and stress will be laid on the fact that the labour force conscious of its strength and the will of the owners to preserve their interests, try reverse the situation through an efficient leadership and take advantage of life.

Our present work will be divided into three chapters. The first chapter dealing with social contexts in both novels contains two main sections. The first section will focus on critical social backgrounds and the reasons for commitment of Steinbeck and Ngugi; the second one will address the protection of the downtrodden in a world of exploitation.

The second chapter will be devoted to class divisions and it will include two sections. The first one will lay emphasis on the confrontation between the working and the dominant classes while the second one will describe the victimization of the working class.

The last chapter of our work will be centred on the masses' resistance to oppression. It will be divided as well into two sections. The first one will point out the emergence of a new leadership and the second section will emphasize the outcome of the struggle as illustrated in both novels.

I Social contexts in both novels

1. Critical social backgrounds and the reasons for the commitment of Steinbeck and Ngugi

In Dubious Battle and Devil on the Cross are essentially written in critical social contexts. The Great Depression was the worst economic slump that has ever existed in the United States history. In In Dubious Battle, the social and economic environment in which the workers were evolving shows clearly how difficult it was for them to sustain and maintain adequate existence. The Depression began in late 1924 and lasted for about a decade. In this respect one can notice that there are many factors which played a role in bringing about the economic Depression; however the main causes of the Great Depression were the overproduction in industry and agriculture, the high tariffs and war debts, the stock market speculation and financial panic, and the combination of the greatly unequal distribution of wealth throughout of the1920's. But all these causes were first of all behind the expansion of almost every sector in the country.

Written in a context of neo-colonialism and imperialism, Devil on the Cross exposes the plight of the masses and the workers in the present-day political set-up in Africa in consonance with the belief of Ngugi that African writers should address themselves «to the crisis or conflict between the emergent African bourgeoisie and the African masses. Rodney, Cabral and Ngugi claim that neocolonialism prevails today in Africa because of the continuation after "independence" of the economic, political and social practices established by colonialism. Alex La Guma explains in this regard that:

^1(*) «Artistic creation can not remain outside the struggle of classes,

outside politics, for each writer whether he likes or not, expresses

in his work the interest of some one class.»

An analysis of the economic, political and social contradictions created by colonialism is, therefore, necessary in understanding and effectively countering neocolonialism. African economy is dependent on international capitalism and capitalism can never bring about equality of people. The exploitation of one group by another is the very essence of capitalism. The peasants and workers are very much exploited in Kenya because they get very low pay, very poor housing, and unemployment affects them more than anyone else. Women are doubly exploited and oppressed and this is clearly expressed in Devil on the Cross. Against the backdrop of continuing socio-economic crises in Africa stoked and sustained by Western imperialism and its agents, Ngugi wa Thiong'o shows his concern and perspectives on Africa's march towards selfhood and independence via his novels Petals of Blood and Devil on the Cross which represent an effort towards the liberation of Africa from the claws and shackles of imperialism as they deal with neo-colonialism in all its virulent manifestations. As political novels, they are unambiguous in their support of the views of the proletariat and condemnation of bourgeois philosophy and practice, as manifested in international capitalism, and thus reject neo-colonialism as a viable way of life for African people.

Ngugi realizes that Kenya is poor, not because of anything internal, but because the wealth produced by Kenyans ends in developing the western world. Their aid, loans, and investment capital that they gloat about are simply a chemical catalyst that sets in motion the whole process of expropriation of Kenya's wealth, with, of course, a few leftovers for the 'lucky' few. This is what Ngugi is trying to show in Petals of Blood: that imperialism can never
develop African countries or develop Kenyan people. In doing so, he castigates the expansion of capitalism which constitutes one source of the economic troubles of African countries.


John Steinbeck at the other hand severely criticizes capitalism in his novels In Dubious Battle and The Grapes of Wrath, but he is not advocating communism. John Steinbeck took a chance when he published The Grapes of Wrath in 1939. He wrote a clear criticism of capitalism at a time when the United States was experiencing the remnants of a 1920s "red scare". He begins the novel by showing the reader the sickness of capitalism, and then reveals the greed of those men who support it. Steinbeck mainly criticizes the large landowners and banks for being insensitive and disconnected from the people.

Steinbeck and Ngugi portray capitalism as a disgusting system, leaving entire families with nothing more than a couple of dollars or shillings a day to live on. Even though Steinbeck obviously has distaste for capitalism, he is not necessarily advocating communism. He is instead sending out the message that in order for society to be successful, everyone in it needs to work together as a community. That does not mean people should not be able to make as much money as they want, but to be aware of how their actions are affecting their fellow citizens.

The year 1977 forced dramatic turns in Ngugi's life and career. His first novel Petals of Blood was published in July of that year. The novel painted a harsh and unsparing picture of life in neo-colonial Kenya. It was received with even more emphatic critical acclaim in Kenya and abroad. The Kenya Weekly Review described as «this bomb shell» and the Sunday Times of London as capturing every form and shape that power can take. The same year Ngugi's controversial play, Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want), written with Ngugi wa Mirii, was performed at Kamirithu Educational and Cultural Center, Limuru, in an open air theatre, with actors from the workers and peasants of the village. Sharply critical of the inequalities and injustices of Kenyan society, publicly identified with unequivocally championing the cause of ordinary Kenyans, and committed to communicating with them in the languages of their daily lives, Ngugi was arrested and imprisoned without charge at Kamiti Maximum Security Prison at the end of the year, December 31, 1977. An account of those experiences is to be found in his memoir, Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary (1982). It was at Kamiti Maximum Prison that Ngugi made the decision to abandon English as his primary language of creative writing and committed himself to writing in Gikuyu, his mother tongue. In prison, and following that decision, he wrote, on toilet paper, the novel, Caitani Mutharabaini (1981) translated into English as Devil on the Cross, (1982) and it focuses on the Kenyan class division.

In Dubious Battle is as well a quite good illustration pinpointing that American society was a profoundly divided society during the Depression era. The misdistribution of wealth in the 1920's existed in many levels. Money was distributed disparately between the rich and the middle class; between industry and agriculture within the US and between US and Europe, the imbalance of wealth created an unstable economy. In this respect the automotive industry Mogul Henry Ford provides a striking example of the misdistribution of wealth between the rich and the working class. A major reason for this large and growing gap between the rich and the working class could be accounted for by the increased manufacturing output throughout this period. For instance, .from 1923 to 1929 the average output per worker increased 32 percent in manufacturing. During the same period, of time average wages for manufacturing jobs increased only 8 percent. The wages increased at rate one fourth as fast as productivity increased. So, this large and growing disparity of wealth between the well-to do and the middle-income citizens made the US economy unstable.

One obvious solution to the problem of the vast majority of the population not having money to satisfy all their needs was let those who wanted goods buys products on credit. Then the concept of buying now and paying later caught on quickly. By the end of the 1920's, 60 percent of cars and 80 percent of radios were bought on instalment credit. That strategy made the downfall worse by telescoping the future into the present when the «future» arrived there was little to buy that hadn't already been bought. In addition, people could no longer use their regular wages to purchase whatever items they did not have yet, because so much of the wages went to paying back past purchases.

No part of the world was left untouched by the Great Depression although there were national variations. Industry and agriculture were engulfed by a rising tide of bankruptcy. On a human level, the most visible measure that the world economy has failed was the tremendous and unprecedented surge in unemployment. The official figure is impressive 14 million in the US. Many of the unemployed remained without work for 3 or 4 years, with younger age groups hit disproportionately hard. Rural unemployment resulted in poverty but was often disguised as underemployment. In In Dubious Battle and Devil on the Cross when the workers can no longer keep on living that life of misery and utter destitution, they endeavour to demonstrate out in the streets of the town. Seeing that that situation is not in favour with them, the owners urge the police, the army and the courts to react against that demonstration. Then, all the underprivileged class of workers are banned to wander or to enter the city where the owners live in In Dubious Battle. When the workers intend to lead the procession in Devil on the Cross, they only find the police armed up to their teeth and ready to mop all resistance. When the workers keep on striking because they just want the wages to be bettered so that they might live decently, they are asked by the rulers by foul means or fair to leave the camp and the city as it can be noticed in In Dubious Battle:

«May be not, but resisting officers does. Now I am talking fair with you, so you'll know what to expect. At daylight tomorrow a hundred men, in ten trucks like this, are coming out .Every man will have a gun, and we have three cases of Mills bombs. Some of you, men who know can tell others what a Mill bomb is.» (IDB, 340)

Ngugi and Steinbeck resort constantly to their arts to challenge the social and economic status quo. They treat their characters with gentle humanity and value what they have to do or say. As a case in point, in Of Mice and Men when Lennie is mentally disabled and without a family, George takes care of him and Lennie is portrayed as sensitive and loyal. Readers take side with Lennie when characters such as Curley treat him with disrespect. Moreover, there is Crooks who represents the inequality that African-Americans received at that time. He is forced to live in the barn to take care of the horses. The men do not want him to come in the bunkhouse because they say he stinks. Ironically, he becomes disabled because he is kicked by a horse and then receives the nickname Crooks. Disparate treatment causes him to feel lonely and isolated in society. Then there is Curley's wife who is never given a first or last name in the story. She is thought of as Curley's property and she does not have a say in her own destiny. The readers feel her pain when they hear of her broken dreams of stardom. Possibly she is not able to attain her dreams due to the sexism in society at that time and the mistreatment that she receives from her husband. Wariinga in Devil on the Cross faces the situation of Curley's wife in Of Mice and Men meaning mistreatment when she was immature. In addition, there are the laborers who are depicted as men who are strong and worth being admired in Of Mice and Men, in In Dubious Battle and Devil on the Cross. Wariinga is described as realistic and thought of as having integrity because she does not rely on anybody but only on herself to give her life a new turn. Finally, Steinbeck describes Candy as a senior citizen. Unfortunately, elderly people are still treated with some injustice, however, Steinbeck allows him to dream by having him get excited about co-ownership of the farm.

Since Steinbeck and Ngugi depict their characters with openness and honesty, the reader is able to face their own sexism, ageism, racism and classicism. Steinbeck and Ngugi provide the argument that we all share the human condition of wanting to dream and have companionship. At the end of the day, they acknowledge that people are more alike than they are different. They advocate a mutual understanding of humankind to ease efficiently social problems.

The impact of the Great Depression and the neo-colonialism is disastrous on the lives of Americans and Africans and becomes in this respect a social problem. Physically, and psychologically, The Great Depression was devastating to many people who not only lacked adequate food, shelter and clothing but felt that they were blamed for their desperate state. Although few people died from starvation, many did not have enough to eat. Some people searched garbage dumps for food or eat weeds. Then, malnutrition was too widespread that almost all the children of the lower classes face it. The psychological impact was equally damaging during the prosperity of the 1920's, many Americans believed success went to those who deserved it. Given that attitude, the unemployment brought by the Depression was a crushing blow. If the economic system really distributed rewards on the basis of merit, those who lost their jobs had to conclude that it was their own fault. Self-blame and self-doubt became soon epidemic. These attitudes declined after the New Deal showed the establishment of the government programs to counterattack the Depression which induced the unemployment and economic insecurity; it was a large social problem, having to ask assistance was humiliating for many men who had thought of themselves as self-sufficient and breadwinners for their families. Social tensions increased considerably in Devil on the Cross and In Dubious Battle with a rising intolerance towards groups or individuals who perceived to be economic rivals or outsiders: many people began to blame their neighbours for the economic collapse, be it other countries or competing economic groups, individualists, bankers, farmers and workers.

Because society expected man to provide for his family, the psychological trauma of the Great Depression was more often severe for men than women. Many men agreed that women, especially married women should not be hired while their husbands were hired. Yet, the percentage of women in the workforce actually increased slightly during the Depression as women took jobs to replace their husbands' lost pay checks or to supplement spouses' reduced wages. In some cases, married women workers were forced to resign from the workplace by the State legislation in a campaign against so called «double-earners» (because their husbands also brought home a wage packet.) Women teachers were sacked. In some industries, employers kept women in preference to men because they were cheaper and more prepared to work part time. Some fields that had been defined as women`s work, such as clerical teaching attracted men.

The social context is so critical that Ngugi and Steinbeck can help writing for defending their own communities. Through their numerous plays, essays and novels, Ngugi and Steinbeck have consistently positioned themselves as advocates for the ordinary peasants and workers. Some writers in the world have been as committed as Ngugi and Steinbeck to using their work to encourage the political advancement of exploited and oppressed peoples. In Africa, as elsewhere, the genuine Marxist (i.e., non-Stalinist) tradition has been marginalized in political discourse. Immersed in the postcolonial African milieu, Ngugi can only offer hints in Devil on the Cross of the international struggle necessary to achieve a democratic, egalitarian society in Kenya, and, in fact, the rest of the world. Ngugi's intelligence, integrity and passion suggest his great potential to overcome this political malady, which indeed afflicts the global progressive movement. And yet, as evidenced by his important 1977 novel Petals of Blood, Ngugi is still searching for a political strategy to successfully end "the whole thing" - global monopoly capitalism of which Africa is a constituent part. The slogans and demands that informed independence struggles such as Mau Mau have succeeded only in elevating a new ruling elite, merely replacing white oppressors with black ones. Ngugi is perhaps the most persistent literary voice in Africa condemning the depredations of imperialism, the highest form of capitalism. However, Ngugi is a product of his society, and his political outlook is shaped by the cultural and social environment of Kenya and reflects its shortcomings. The effects of imperialism in Africa are so damaging as the ones of the Great Depression in the US.

The effects of economic Depression on the children were often radically different from the impact on their parents. During the Depression many children took on greater responsibilities at earlier age than later generation would. Some teenagers found jobs when their parents could not, reserving the normal role of the provider. Sometimes children had to comfort their despairing parents. A 12-year-old boy in Chicago for example wrote to President and Mrs Roosevelt in 1936 to seek help for his father who was always «crying because he can't find work and I feel sorry for him.» Through his writing Steinbeck and Ngugi manage to draw the readers' attention that situation of utter destitution does not even spare children and babies: every one of them has their part of the game in their books and the result is suffering. In many ways, Ngugi's goal is reminiscent of Marxist ideology, as the novel is ultimately meant to educate Kenyan on the corruption of their society and the power of non-compliance within such a repressive system.

The Great Depression of the twenties lasted about ten years, it was different from crisis. It caused a miserable and despicable life to the population. It was obvious that the result was penury rather than abundance. It was an event that was completely marked by the crisis downfall of the system of repartition of wealth and properties and the incapacities of the leaders of the national economy. Since the crisis was not due to natural causes but rather human ones, it was obvious that the government should have reacted. But this was not the case. President Hoover believed the crisis would resolve itself. He would turn down any proposition of national help to unemployed people and to those suffering from starvation. At first, he belittled the crisis but later he took some positive measures like a programme for the construction of roads public buildings and airlines. The Joads in Steinbeck's book and the other farmers clearly represent Marx's proletariat. The entire struggle they face is that of finding work or dying on the most basic of levels. Still, they fall victim to the conditions of the Great Depression, resulting in their continued inability to procure such a job. The migrants appear strongly as the proletariat condemning loitering here and there in search of work.

In 1932, there were 12 million jobless , over 5000 banks closed , the trade got worse , the product of agriculture had the lowest level never seen in the US , and the middle class was about to disappear. The national income had decreased from 80 billion dollar to 40 billion dollar. The whole economy of the country was affected and the Americans were extremely unhappy. With their nation in a dreadful situation, the Americans found it necessary to change leaders. They chose the democrat candidate Franklin Roosevelt as President.

The Depression is at the climax, and the country's economic system was nearly to collapse. Resolved, Roosevelt attacked the crisis and succeeded to make people vote laws permitting to correct the misdeeds before the end of his first mandate. These were based on the New Deal, an approach he took to tackle the issue of the economic problems. It was composed of measures of economic development on the one hand, and measures of reforms on the other hand.

John Steinbeck and Ngugi wa Thiong'o have always been viewed as radical writers simply because through their writings they vehemently castigate and denigrate the attitude of the dominators and exploiters of the low class workers. They consider that it is their duty as writers to be mouthpieces and protectors of the downtrodden in a world plagued by exploitation at every level.

2. The protection of the downtrodden in a world of exploitation

In Dubious Battle is undoubtedly one of the most powerful novels by Steinbeck which is generally labelled a manifesto against injustice. However, it is quite clear that this is not his only novel dealing with the theme of social injustice. In this respect Steinbeck and Ngugi talents lay in the fact that they both understand man and have a close understanding of their immediate expressions, reactions and feelings. Both of them see man individually and collectively as well. Such facts are easily perceived in In Dubious Battle and in Devil on the Cross, which can be considered as novels of protest against social injustice. The characters who people their books suffer a lot from social injustice and the authors both lay the blame on a capitalistic system which stands as an abstract force and in this respect becomes evil. And this is the reason why the characters in the novels under study are helpless and hardly know or understand where their present hardships stem from.

The plight of the working class with its extremes of sufferings and humiliation gain momentum every passing day. Then, this oppression ranging from the meanest expression of hatred to the trampling down of civil rights includes not only workers themselves but also the sympathisers of their cause. Such brutalities sponsored by capitalist lobbies and carried out by manipulated forces among which the Devil's Angels in Devil on the Cross and the vigilantes in In Dubious Battle who neither spare the few things owned by the masses nor their physical integrity. Ngugi and Steinbeck think that it is the duty of the writer to stand as mouthpiece of the oppressed and castigate the sufferings and the torments that the workers' class endures. Ngugi depicts the Devil's Angels as a band of rascals, a clan of tormentors which has no pity on the innocents and is always in a state of readiness to vent its anger on those who do not bend to the owners' whims and will. Regardless of the law, the Devil's Angels like many other groups of thugs employed by the high class armed up to their teeth and furnished with drugs, are ready to make use of violence and kill even necessary, those who dare mingle in their bosses' activities.

Richard Wright in his novel Native Son shows the plight of the African Americans. They do not have the choice, and they must depend on white exploitation or perish. This is the reason why when Bigger`s mother asks him to work for the Dalton's, a rich white family, he hesitates and Wright explains:

^2(*)«Yes he could take the job at Dalton's and be miserable,

or he could refuse it and starve. It maddened him to think

he has any choice of actions.»

In In Dubious Battle, the ferocity of the vigilantes and their propensity to destroy any worker's good appears in the aggression of Dakin, one of the strikers' leaders and his following sabotage of his truck. It is clear that the authors take side with the popular masses and they intend to show the misfortunes of the working class. The same ferocity befalls on Al Anderson, a worker sympathiser who provides them with meals in his restaurant is the first to be victimised by the vigilantes. Then Al's father accounts of the aggression reveals the fierceness of the attack:

«Bunch of men burned up Al's wagon last night. They jumped on Al an» broke his arm an' six ribs right down». (IDB, 126)

The savage attacks on those who lend support to the workers' struggle are designed to isolate them and prevent the establishing of any good relationship between them and the local people. Through their books, one can notice that it is the duty of any writer to serve his own community by shedding light on taboo issues even if that might endanger his career or life. That is why Ngugi decides to castigate the postcolonial Kenyan society plagued by corruption. In Devil on the Cross, in the competition of theft and robbery when Mwereri gives his testimony, he brings discredit on that malpractice and he sensitises his compatriots about the way they are blindfolded by foreigners who squeeze every thing out of them and will make the economy of the country sooner or later collapse. He just wants his friends to cut from foreigners who take the richest pickings. In this process, he reveals how multinationals force local enterprises out of the market by under-selling -whether in cooking soil, skin-lightening... Seen as a militant nationalist, and can be a potential disturbance, Mwereri was later murdered by the Devil's angels for questioning the neo-colonial basis of exploitation. In In Dubious Battle, the vigilantes' persecution of the migrant workers and their sympathisers take a further step with their malicious infiltrations in the camp and their ambush. These treacherous actions are meant to disturb and undermine the workers' determination to improve their condition as avowed by one of the vigilante caught during the raid. The same situation happens in The Grape of Wrath, a group of vigilantes is sent to get into the Weed Patch government camp to provoke fighting during a dance meeting and thus allows deputies to get in and clean out the camp. The speech of Thomas, a landowner reveals the further motives of the actions.

^3(*)«Those folks in the camp are getting used to being treated like humans. When they go back to their squatters' camp, they'll be hard to handle».

As we can notice, the manipulated forces see no limit to their aggressiveness against the masses as they are backed by powerful capitalists and regular armed forces that are their accomplishes as it appears in the discussion between Mac , Jim and one of the deputy guards who arrest them. Because of the context of social and economic degradation, Steinbeck finds it necessary to voice harsh criticisms on a capitalistic system which continually deprives the workers and favours the owners.

In My Son's story, Nadine Gordimer continues her engagement with the complexities and conflicts of a racially-divided South Africa. As in earlier novels, she concentrates on cross-racial relationship in order to focus upon the strains and inhumanities which such a system entails. These writers consider their role to be protectors of their community.

All these misdeeds are done before the very eyes of the police and courts and no measure is taken to stop wrong-doings. It seems that the police and courts are biased and always take sides with the top-ranking class whose main lust is to maintain its supremacy and domination over the masses. Then, the law is partial and it tends more and more to yoke and muzzle the under-privileged and exploited class which hopes one day to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Ngugi sheds light on Wangari's misfortunes to draw attention on how vulnerable and fragile are the poor in the Kenyan society. Wangari is dispossessed of her land and she is condemned to roam Nairobi from restaurant to restaurant to look for a job and every where she goes, she finds the bosses' hatred. One illustration is that when Wangari comes to a restaurant to ask for a job, the boss calls the police and accuses her of being ill-intentioned. As a result of that, she is imprisoned one month without trial for vagrancy.

In In Dubious Battle, it is an open challenge to the law when fire is deliberately set on people houses and properties. It is nevertheless what the vigilantes do on Al's barn and crop in reprisal to his decision to lend part of his land to the strikers to stay on after their repulsion by landowners.

In Devil on the Cross, the reader is asked to believe in a satiric world in which loud-mouthed villains assert their own villainy, a villainy which is exultantly sabotaging the well-being of the whole nation. On the platform, each competitor brags about as much as they can their own criminality, combined with the enormity of the universal embezzlement they proudly insist on having engineered. Then, this now allows their impoverished and down-trodden victims to jeer once at their tormentors and even pity them for the moral self-destruction which they so eagerly embrace. These novels of protest aim at denouncing the workers' lot and protect more sustainably their dignity and rights. The authors make it out into the open in both novels physical ill-treatments are not the only ordeals of the working class. Besides they are subjected to morally frustrating treatments, which if not violent as the first ones are at least more insidious and more debasing since they pertain to their basic rights and dignity. It appears that the way migrants are driven from place to place prevents them from getting together and developing solidarity with others. In doing so, owners intend also to prevent from getting the capacity to become regular voters in the constituency and take then a role in the Affairs of the community. As a result, most of the workers are totally deprived of their rights including the freedom of speech and movement guaranteed by the law as we see in a discussion between Mac and one vigilante in In Dubious Battle.

«Lay off buddy. We know who you are, and what you are. We want you out. Well, go home and pay'em. This isn't the law: this is a citizen committee. If you are think you god-damned reds can come here and raise hell, you are crazy». (IDB, 187)

We can also see that in the procession of the workers led by Muturi and the student leader who are heading for the cave to spoil the feast and root out evil. Wangari who leads the police to arrest the congregation of the thieves only find that the law is on very good terms with these powerful robbers and that it is she who is arrested and imprisoned instead. In all these circumstances, Ngugi shows that there will never be harmony in the Kenyan society as long as workers are constantly oppressed. Arbitrary arrests pervade the novels. Laws, courts, police force, all of them act like puppets. And because the minority is the power behind the throne, then it directs them willingly to much up its own desires. The police are a tool of oppression whose main purpose is to serve one part of the society and find fault with everything linked to the masses.

Ngugi and Steinbeck describe the police in both novels to be rapacious and tireless hunters, almost ready to brink back home quarries and the characters represented the majority of the people are preys, the shaking little animals in the jungle. Both Mac in In Dubious Battle and Wangari in Devil on the Cross have the same situation because they are caught by the police for roaming the streets to look for a job. The conditions of detention are extremely hard in the cells all the more they are booked without trial. As soon as the police are informed about the procession of the workers to root out evil forever and ever, the workers find the soldiers armed up to their teeth to arrest all of them. They are accused of breach of peace when in fact the congregation is a competition of modern theft and robbery. This is the reason why Ngugi as a deep believer of social justice urges the peasants to get united as one so that they can weigh heavily on the socio-economic realm.

As we see it, police think it is their duty to prevent demonstration particularly when it is for workers. Depriving migrant workers of their right to move freely throughout the country is one way to cut their possibilities of access of employment and bring upon them more poverty. Moreover, in the same way landowners resort to many other methods which enable them to keep workers under their constant yoke. Ngugi and Steinbeck as deep believers of communism castigate vehemently capitalism which is the main source of African and American working class' troubles. Capitalism has produced a world of blood-suckers and monsters.

A capitalistic system ruled by a system of laisser-faire and an absence of intervention of the government is a signpost of discrimination. That is the reason why, every means, whether right or wrong, harmful or not are permitted. In such a society, we have the impression that people live in a dog-eat-dog world where the law of the jungle prevails. The owners of the machines who eventually dispossessed the farmers of their lands are really indifferent to the workers' plight. In this kind of society, two conflicting classes are trapped in a system larger than themselves. Everybody just is about himself. Owners seek to make more profit and replace men by machines. Whereas farmers force to survive a situation in which they find themselves dispossessed of everything. That is shown in the novels by the plight of the threatened class by the dominant class that has the stranglehold on everybody and on everything.

This system is not something depicted in Oklahoma only, even California that was considered the Promised Land by the people from the rest and the south is hit by capitalism and discrimination. Steinbeck depicts Californian farmers who are dispossessed of their lands. Californians with small properties lose their belongings. They are similar to Jim's family and the people from Oklahoma in general. They are powerless to fight against a class that is stronger than them. The owners go beyond by exploiting the helpless workers through hard tasks for low wages. One consequence of the replacement of men by machines is the increase of crops enabling landlords to become financially more powerful. The now dispossessed farmers are used as labourers in the immense fields. They are migrant workers under the supervisions of the barons of lands.

Ruthless practices become widespread in California. Growers dump carloads of oranges on the ground and pour kerosene over them. They put potatoes in the rivers and place armed guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from drawing them. Without shame, human rights are neglected and this shows how workers are discriminated against. The landlords and their partners, because of their greed, they further unfair practices against the working class. Steinbeck, through his novel points out the vulnerability of the popular masses that have no means to protect themselves, and then they are exposed to any danger.

The injustice depicted in the novels is the outcome of oppression from the masters, they are essentially the deputies' sheriffs, but the sleeping partners are the authorities spying to a close point on any activities of the strangers. In the camps, there are infiltrations just to prevent workers from associating themselves fighting and demanding more rights. During a raid, when a vigilante is caught with a gun, he said:

«What were you doing to do with the gun?

Sh..... sh..... shoot through the tents

and try to scare you». (IDB, 200)

These intimidations are meant to discourage the workers' readiness to stand in order to fight for their rights. After the hardships in the farms; workers are far from being at ease in the place they think be a rescue to them. As a matter of fact, Californian workers face exploitation and xenophobia. The most important part of labour force composed of defenceless migrant workers who have to face tyranny. Authorities apply laws against the workers so as to prevent them from making any socio-economic progress. Though they are representatives of the law in the country; policemen are corrupt to their bones. They are sent by highest authorities telling them to make workers feel uncomfortable. Sheriffs and deputies, instead of ensuring the security of the people, work for the class owing the lands and companies like banks. In short, they take part in the discrimination capitalists reserve for their guest workers.

In The Grape of Wrath, this is shown by a passage depicting a contractor accompanied by a deputy sheriff to prevent workers from discussing comfortably the conditions of their contract. This leads to cheap labour. This is achieved by menacing the spokesman to put him in jail. The sheriff's deputies' influence is not only restricted to cheap labour they buy, but they further the discrimination against the workers by oppressing them constantly.

Xenophobia can manifest itself physically as illustrated by the burnings and violence that eventually ends up to murder. But it can also manifest psychologically. The ill- treatments of migrants compelled them to look at themselves with value and dignity. Ngugi and Steinbeck think that it is their duty to open people's eyes on the prevailing social injustice. Oklahoma people are labelled any negative term by Californians. They feel insulted and abused to their hearts, because of this specific form of xenophobia they daily suffer. Oklahoma is part and partial of the United States of America, nevertheless they feel being discriminated against as if they were foreigners or people of another race. Most of women in Devil on the Cross are described as mere flowers to decorate the beds of the foreign tourists so that when they go back home to their own countries, they praise the generosity of women in bed, or secretaries. With regard to a typist's drudgery, Wariinga is in a better condition to comment on it. According to her, secretaries first break their fingernails for typing the documents and letters of their employers , they have also to be clever enough to bring business correspondences up to date even some mistakes happen in the manuscripts, for the boss is always right .

«Hang your brain from your fingers as your thighs»

Their bosses also regard them as real things and that they can use them at will and Ngugi highlights the fierceness and the inhumanity of the bosses who have no scruples in indulging in their excesses.

«There is no boss who wants a girl with independent thoughts, no boss is happy with a secretary who questions things, or opens her eyes to see what is being done to her». (DOC, 206)

The secretaries have also to endure daily humiliations and frustrations because they stand for scapegoats to their employers who bring their anger in the office when they quarrel with their wives. Ngugi and Steinbeck detail the suffering of the members of his social categories.

«So you, the police force are the servant of one class only? And to think that I stupidly went ahead and entrusted my love of my country to treacherous rats that love to devour patriotism». (IDB, 198)

In Matigari by Ngugi, the political economic and judicial institutions are conceived so as to trap the people and turn them into meek followers of king Excellence. Decisions are made by leaders and applied at the lowest level of the society so as people's lives become more and more compromised and unbearable. The minister for the Truth and Justice violates the sanctity of individual freedom and along with Ole Excellence and their breed of patronising followers; Ngugi explains their authoritarian strands by the form of political transition from colonial occupation to an independent State.

Widespread corruption and highly visible and demoralising dictatorship make leadership very hard to sustain and nurture. The justice the authors propose is the justice that favours the wealthy, the leaders and the poor. The accent of arbitrary arrests and imprisonments as a right of the government stems from the assumptions that dissents are unlawful and wrong and it is right to the State to treat dissents in any fashion in order to eliminate them and ensure the security of the rest of the people. Arbitrary arrests proliferate, honest and deserving people are jailed in order to silence potential disturbances. Responsible heads of families are arrested and their families live without bread-winners and sustainers. Steinbeck and Ngugi lay stress on the fact that this situation of domination and exploitation can only but exacerbate conspicuously the class divisions.

II Class divisions

1. Confrontation between the working and the dominant classes

Throughout Ngugi's novel, it is noticeable that the Kenyan society is made of layers and each layer is typified by characters. In Devil on the Cross, the realistic inclusion of real life in the fictional world of novel has a symbolic significance. The setting in the novel creates a pervasive symbol of Mwaura's matatu and the status and condition of passengers travelling in it with different personalities in a symbolic assessment of the Kenyan society with all kinds of social things in the country as it is described in the novel:

«The engine moaned and screamed like several hundred

dented axes being ground simultaneously. The car's body

shook like a reed in the wind .the whole vehicle waddles

along the road like a duck up a mountain.» (DOC, 54)

The matatu stands for the Kenya with its state of decay and destruction in which lives a profoundly divided and stratified society with leaders as corrupt as the driver himself.

The integration of two styles in Devil on the Cross has demanded that the heroic figures in the more realistic parts of the story shall be much closer to stereotypes that the protagonists of Ngugi`s earlier novels. This tendency has been encouraged by authors' wish to present clear-cut contrasts between social classes. In Devil on the Cross, each class is typified by certain characters.

A closer reading of both novels under study enables one to notice the gap existing between the antagonistic and conflicting classes extends as far as to the geographical occupation.

In In Dubious Battle, the fruit-pickers are the underdogs who are condemned forever and ever to loiter around in order to get better wages as a means of sustenance. Conscious of that situation, the landowners maintain their utter domination upon them so that they keep that tie of servitude and bondage between them and the workers. In In Dubious Battle it is as if there were two antagonistic worlds that are poles apart. One world where there is utter poverty and destitution, a world where the worker sleeps out in the open because of lack of decent houses and another world that is that of the beautiful city reserved for the top-ranking class, a place where it is very easy for a worker to be accused of vagrancy as illustrated by the character of Wangari in Devil on the Cross. The sights belong to the high class and it is the only one which is entitled to rejoice in them. Of course the justice is siding with the top-ranking class that brings more misfortune on the workers. The same situation can be seen through Nditika's words when he says:

«My children learn horses. They learn to ride at the Nairobi high-class riding school, previously owned by Grogan and Delamere». (DOC, 177)

As Ngugi has pointed out in his book there are two classes, the clan of the producers and the clan of the parasites. The latter feed itself on the sweat and blood of the former.

Youssou Ndour, a worldwide Senegalese mbalax singer has put emphasis in one of his song entitled «xaalis» how the powerful feed themselves on the powerless, the moneyed class on the unmoneyed class, and the employers on the employees. Senegal like Kenya is a country where class division is so conspicuous and visible. Class division in Senegal is a by-product of misgovernance of the political leaders of our country. Since the independence of the country, Senegal has always been characterized by misgovernance but this fact is more increased when the democrats accede to power. The Wade regime has opened way to debauchery in the country, then misappropriation of public funds, shade dealings, affairism and vampirism have become common practice. These misdeeds done by rulers of the country can but widen the discrepancy between the classes. The low class workers would always be the sacrificial lamb as they often pay the penalty of the leaders' wrong-doings. This will result in exacerbating the Senegalese class division.

Both Ngugi and Steinbeck do not see eye to eye with those who think finding their salvation on the workers' sweat. These two writers just want that each worker to gain in turn what he has deserved and Steinbeck believes that there will never be harmony and peace in the world mainly in the US if there is not a fairer redistribution of the wealth.

Ngugi, one of the most radical African writers denounce bitterly the post-colonial society ruled by those whose main lust is to live on the sweat of the workers. Then he points out in the novel:

«The world of the robber and the world of the robbed.

the world of the lords of theft and the victims of theft,

of the oppressors and the oppressed, of those who

eat what have been produced by others, and the producers

themselves». (DOC, 186)

We have understood that in the lair gathered by the local and international thieves, debating ways and means of depriving the whole nation of its rights , no man of low class is allowed to attend the ceremony , only the moneyed class is welcomed, those who have no mercy on the poor . The clothes they wear and their physical portrait illustrate that these leaders have only one purpose: It is to squeeze the last shilling out of the masses by all means.

Ngugi does not simply wish to repeat time and again the pattern established with Gitutu for each of the areas of Kenyan life he wishes to satirize. Before Gitutu, we have seen the chicken-thief, Ndaaya, chased off the stage for confusing his own petty thieving with great feast of exploitation achieved by the rich and powerful. This shows the dire straits in which the post-colonial Kenyan society and as well as the fruit-pickers of Torgas valley are confronted with. The fruit-pickers of Torgas valley face terrible ordeals and they are those of hunger, thirst and in a more basic sense decent living condition.

Food is a real problem. They feed themselves poorly with tins of beans. And since food and water are vital to human, they need to feed accordingly and the owners refuse to supply them with enough and adequate food. Thinking that, the best way to have them bend to their will is to give them just enough to keep their souls and bodies together. The living conditions are extremely hard as is shown in In Dubious Battle:

«Along the rear wall and old mattress was laid on

the ground and on this lay a young girl, her face

pale and streaked with brown dirt, her hair matted.» (IDB, 60)

By showing the ill-treatment and lack of consideration that the workers daily suffer, Steinbeck mends for the public opinion the sad realities although food is quite available for every one of the American people. In The Grape of Wrath, the okies are subjected and treated in California as dirty-son-of-a-bitch and trouble-makers. This stigmatization is all the more unbearable since the okies have no intention of harming anybody; they just want to earn a livelihood in an honest way by selling their sweat.

In the competition of modern theft and robbery in the lair in Devil on the Cross, the thieves are divided among them into two clans, the clan of the fatties and the clan of the skinnies. Each class thinks to be cannier than the other. Then, Kihaahu wa Gatheeca, the lanky adulterer, is allowed to exposed tree key areas in which social welfare is transformed into big business: education, local government, and housing. In education, he has discovered the fraudulent schools with illusory standards can not attract wealthy parents if their false prospectuses are based on indigenous syllabus. Only the glittering facade of a fully westernised programme can trick the status-seekers. This happens in a moment when the locals are dying of hunger in Kenya. In these particular circumstances, the few who detain the wealth refuse to share the poor, which makes the economic environment of the country harder for the locals. Worst of all, they are devising ways and means to take the least belongings from the poor. In In Devil on the Cross, the workers being conscious of the owners' intention and desire, they intensify the struggle although food has become a serious problem. This impediment does not prevent them from bolstering their determination and toughness. Hospitals, police, courts, and all of these are at odds against them because it is the owners who have power on all of them. Thus, the hospitals refuse to give medical assistance to all those from the working class although they are all citizens and they have the legal right to be protected and cured. The condition under which Liza delivers her child is unbearable in In Dubious Battle:

«A human being mouldn't live like that they do.....

They ain't a hell of a lot

Better than gorillas» (IDB, 243)

In Devil on the Cross, the discrepancy between the two antagonistic classes as far as welfare and social status are concerned is really conspicuous. When the procession of workers, students, women and children is heading for the cave to root out that evil which is the competition of theft and robbery in the country, most of the workers who are in the procession are in a sorry plight; children are barefooted, women partly naked. All of this explains that these people are left in the background and they have no part to play in the running of the country. Ngugi lays emphasis on their physical portrait to draw people's attention to the gap existing between people living in the same nation. He describes the chairman of the Ilmorog branch of the Organization for Modern Theft and Robbery as following:

«He had a well-fed body, his cheeks were round,

like two melons; his eyes were big and red, like

two plums; and his neck was huge, like the stem

of a baobab tree. His stomach was only slightly

larger than his neck. He had two gold teeth in

his lower jaw.» (DOC, 64)

While the well-provided class is rejoicing in the situation, the workers go through terrible ordeals. In In Dubious Battle and in Devil on the Cross, the workers encounter that situation, having all the difficulties to clothe themselves decently and to live in a neat way. Jim's family is finally disintegrated because of the constraints placed on it. His father, Roy, who works in a slaughterhouse to feed his family, keeps drinking warm blood to keep his strength. He is then reduced in a state of mere animal and he has no right to complaint about his lot. As a result his casting a blight on that subhuman job, he is just killed savagely and his murderer left unpunished. It is that kind of suffering that they daily encounter in the places they live. More often than not, it is not an easy task for them to have a safe place to sleep. The areas in which they live are unprovided with electricity, pure water and sanitation care. The authorities do everything in their power in order to condemn them in the everlasting darkness because of their awareness of the exploitation. This situation urges the workers to pluck up their courage and confront the dominant class.

«Mac set his lantern down beside the mattress...

Gently he tried to lift the dirty quilt which covers

Her». (IDB, 58)

Seeing that the way they are dressed, one will realise that the dominants in Devil on the Cross do not sweat to have what they deserve but grab other people's property. Ngugi uses in this respect ridicule and sarcasm that are part and parcel of irony to portray the Kenyan elite, some of them are totally disfigured. They are only disfigured by overeating as illustrated by the thieves and robbers at the feast:

«Gitutu had a belly that protruded so far that it would have touched the ground had it not been supported by he braces that held up his trousers. It seems as if his belly had absorbed all his limbs and all other organs of his body». (DOC, 99)

The clashes between the employers and the employees are bound to occur because each group wants to preserve its interests by all costs. The International Organisation for Theft and Robbery (IORT) and the Growers' Association (GA) in In Dubious Battle are similar types of organisations that gather the owners' class. The ultimate goal of these organisations is to maintain the yoke of domination and supremacy over the masses. These dominant classes want to live a gorgeous life and want their fellows to live like pigs. As reported by Patrick Rafridi, the living standards there could only favour Steinbeck's sympathy for the left-wing organisations. In fact, the region of Salinas valley stands in Steinbeck's eyes as one rare American area where the Marxist social visions can be applied as extreme poverty prevails next to blatant wealth.

Class compartmentalization is one of the most outstanding features that characterize the American society during the Depression Years. The social strata are made of top-ranking people who are the dominators, they have no mercy on the workers, and they do everything to shield their wealth. The middle-class which is neither rich nor poor can hardly survive. In fact, a character that embodies these people is Gaturia in Devil on the Cross. Last but not least, the hoypolloy that occupies the bottom of the social ladder are the victimized. They suffer from social segregation and Roy in In Dubious Battle is the prototype of the sufferers with his deadly injuries.

There is no real link that exists between the owners and the dispossessed if it were not the relationship that links the exploiter and the exploited, the dominator and the dominated. In Devil on the Cross, there are clear-cut contrasts between these clans. The dominant class lives in Golden Heights which is a district in Nairobi that looks like a paradise. The sights of this district are very attractive, everything is neat and clean, there is sanitation care everywhere in the district, and the streets are well-lit. Then, the way Ngugi describes it makes one feel to be in the Garden of Eden. This area is reserved for the lobby that rules the country and no tiller or worker is allowed to settle in. Contrary to the other parts of the town, there is a conspicuous lack of infrastructures, no sanitation care, and lack of schools for the poor children, in a nutshell; there is a gloomy outlook for the workers whose ultimate hope lays in their courage.

In In Dubious Battle, the workers are not considered human beings with real dignity. In a country where the workers are mercilessly underpaid before the very eyes of the law, there is bound to be class confrontation. Class confrontation in the novels is the result of that, one class thinks to be superior to the other classes and then they can do whatever they want because the latters are under their domination. Throughout the novels under study, there are no decent places or houses where the workers can rest properly. They live in camps and in destitute living conditions when in fact it is them who sustain the economy of the country by their sweat. That lawlessness existing between the classes seems to widen the discrepancy and intensifies their clashes.

The capitalistic system is one of the remarkable features in the relation of the bank-farmers and the owner-farmers as well. In fact, the farmers face exploitation from their native village town. In Dubious Battle is an exemplary radical analysis of the exploitation of agricultural workers. The novel attacks the very social assumption about private properties and class differences on which the social order rests. It presents one of the most radical critiques of the social order. In Native Son by Richard Wright, the social compartmentization takes a form of segregation and this is shown through the terms of Black Belt and White Belt. The latter represents the place where the rich white people dwell whereas the former is the representation of the place where the poor black live, which is commonly known as ghetto.

The social disparities are directly linked in the novels under study to the economic conditions. The poor are unable to find a suitable employment. They are neither likely to save sufficient money to pay for a single-family dwellings nor rent in the most desirable areas. As a matter of fact, they are condemned to either substandard housing or to public housing which is in many books sign of economic and social degradation. That is shown in the novels under study by the plight of one class threatened by a class of organisers that has become more powerful than the other.

Drawing examples from the 1930's misery Depression , Steinbeck wants to show without bias that both rich owners and deprived workers are both trapped in an economic tangle and commonly care about preserving the balance upon which they depend for survival, then the gap between the two antagonistic classes has become wider and wider. One class that has been a threat to the national balance has become more dangerous than ever. In In Dubious Battle as well as in The Grape of Wrath and Devil on the Cross, Growers set up interest group to impose their power and their economic domination over the workers. The Farmers' Association works as economic lobbies. The association which is meant to regulate the relationship between the workers and the employers serves to keep up the price of their production and to lower the wages of the employees in order to make more profits through fraudulent methods. Then, Kenyan agriculture has been controlled by the Growers who are to gather in strong cooperatives in order to dominate the industry. The Growers set wages and determine the type of working conditions throughout the industry. Then dissenting farmers could be tyrannising by owners who only think for themselves, no matter how hard the economic environment may be. This phenomenon leads to the victimization of the working class.

2. The victimization of the working class

Throughout the novels it is obviously clear that the authors' ultimate aim resides in the eradication of all social evils which thwart the individual aspirations and needs, one of which is leading a decent life. But it still remains that the workers are faced with hunger, exploitation, poverty to name but a few which contribute negatively to their well-being. Then, the continuous economic exploitation combined with the hostile environment gradually impoverishes the workers and the migrant community and puts them in a most drastic need. In effect, the labour purchasing power melts away day after day in the facing of manipulated prices of goods and scanty wages they earn. Thus, they become aware of the constraints which such a system entails. Then, the main concern becomes the survival of each member since the whole working community is threatened by the spectre of hunger.

Deprived of any possibility to rejoice freely the fruit of their sweat, they become poorer and poorer the harder they work. The plight of the wretched culminates in Devil on the Cross when the watchdogs of the foreign forces which rule over the country decide to strengthen the relationship between them and the International Organisation for Theft and Robbery (IOTR) as the master of ceremony put during the ceremony:

«I think you all know that we have already applied to become full members of IOTR. The visit of this delegation, plus gifts and the crown they have brought us, marks the beginning of even more fruitful period of cooperation». (DOC, 84)

Each dress of the seven representatives of the neo-colonial powers is made out of the paper money of their respective homelands, to the frank divulgence by the constants of the methods and motives with which money-magnates milk the national resources, above all the blood and sweat of the workers and peasants. This situation puts the workers in such situations that daily food becomes an obsession for the working class. In the same way in In Dubious Battle, the plight of the migrant workers reach its peak when all their savings gone away, the daily meal becomes an obsession and it is more and more out of their reach.

Migrant labours in Torgas Valley experience the difficulties to make both ends meet. After running out of money, their strike fiercely opposed by large Growers, migrants desperately fight hunger when they come to the last canned goods and beans on which they were poorly feeding themselves:

«There ain't a damn drop

They won't have to eat» (IDB, 247)

All of them are pointing out how much it will be hard for workers to sustain their strike with empty stomach and endure daily sufferings in their struggle against ostracism and exploitation. The workers living in most desperate conditions answer to a larger extent to the ruling class' wishes. The latter does everything it can to maintain the workers in poverty by making themselves stronger and stronger. Specific areas of extortion are singled out by Ngugi in the novel to show how bad the Kenyans are exploited. Big-bellied Gitutu wa Gataangaru, trailing his despoiled sugar-girl's, battens on the land.

Expropriation of the land is the key to the whole colonial and neo-colonial outrage in Kenya. Gitutu proudly relates during his testimony in the den how he has taken over vast estates from white settlers, sub-divided them into derisory plots and sold them at exorbitant prices to the citizens as he lets know :

«The land wasn't mine and the money with which I'd paid, for it wasn't mine and I hadn't added anything to the land. Where did I get the 200000shillings? From the pockets of the people. Yes, because the land really belonged to the people and the money with which I bought came from the people» (DOC, 52)

It is these kinds of wrong-doings that keep on weakening the labour force and lead them to accept any kind of job and in the long run their humanity is denied by the ruling class. In In Dubious Battle, the consequent workers surplus makes of them a cheap labour at the mercy of the greedy landlords. In such circumstances, as the Marxist argument runs, these needy workers are compelled to sell themselves every day as goods and trade items and as such they are submitted to the ups and downs of the competitions and vicissitudes of the market.

Like other goods, the cost of the work is equal to the cost of its production, then the more repulsion work, the lower wages. It is clear that for the capitalists, the worker is only worth what he just needs for survival. Gitutu in Devil on the Cross is looking forward to the day when , instead of tiny plots of land being sold to citizens, they will queue up to buy mere pots or trays of soil in which to grow food for subsistence and the very air be sold to workers by the bottleful as he points out:

«The idea I'd like to follow up is how we, the top-grade tycoons, can trap the air in the sky, put it in tins and sell it to peasants and workers, just as water and charcoal are now sold to them. When the peasants and workers became restive, and they became too powerful for our armed forces, we could simply deny them air till they knelt before us! When university students made a bit of noise, we could deny them air!» (DOC, 65)

In In Dubious Battle, the more despotism openly claims excessive profit as its only goal, the more it becomes mean and odious. As we have noticed, the scarcity of jobs accounts a lot for the growers' proud attitude but the concurrence among the working class plays another important part in their own economic exploitation. For, whenever some enlightened workers are conscious enough to refuse poor wages, hundreds of their fellows are ready to take those wages even lower ones. Thus, the scabs coming from distant areas arrive unawares are in the state of readiness to replace the striking apple-pickers. For all these workers of the poorest conditions what matters is to hang at something just to secure a livelihood. It is true that the scabs are often manipulated by the owners and they are given even better condition only to weaken the labour organisational efforts and energy for the defence of its interests but most of the time it is the consideration of personal interests that causes their vulnerability.

It clearly appears that on account of their complete poverty , migrants are ready to work for starvation wages but the merciless exploitation of the working people by capitalists extends beyond the agricultural fields, for once the workers experiences exploitation from his employer, he becomes prey to other members of the owner's camp such as shop-keepers and businessmen. These unscrupulous people very often take advantage of the seclusion and the distance of the workers camp from the town to set special price schemes for their foodstuffs. Jim pointed out angrily the same unfair practices.

In Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison points out a society in which there exist two antagonistic classes, the white race and the black race. The white race, thinking to be the superior race, maintains their supremacy over the black race that has to endure sufferings and tortures in every level.

So, not only migrants are cheated with low wages they are paid but worse prices of goods are highly raised in shops and stores nearing the camps and belonging generally to the same landowners. As a result, these workers no longer receive money because wages are bartered for foodstuffs and in such cases there exists no proportion between the amount of work and the received goods. In the long run, the system of credit set by shop-keepers in the camps leads to the enslavement of the farmers, making them hostages of the owners to whom they become indebted for the credit on food provisions.

In Devil on the Cross, in the same way Wangari just loses her plot of land simply because she is not in position to pay back her loan to a bank when the deadline has come. This shows how hard the constraints placed upon them are. When kimeenderi outlines his plan, he just wants to herd all the workers into barbed wire compounds where their blood and sweat will be pumped, squeezed and dripped from them and sent out packaged or by pipeline to the home market or for export, while the donors are kept quiescent by means of conditioned religion, education and pseudo-culture.

The Voice in Wariinga's revelation insisted that the Christian mass has already pointed the way to Kimeenderi's ideal by urging the regular imbibing of Christ's flesh and blood. Of all this doesn't prevent to keep the forces of the law in the background in case that the employee should make a show of reluctance. The exploitation of the workers not only increases the number of proletarians but it also concentrates them in considerable masses whose living conditions become the same for all. It can be acknowledged that Ngugi is a disciple of Walt Whitman from whose poem "On the Beach at Night» comes the title of the novel. Ngugi believes in Whitman's concept of brotherhood of man and remains optimistic that man can be improved.

With the levelling down of wages, with all the crowds of people kept homeless, the exploitation of the labour exceeds anything known up to now. It results in the keeping of the proletariat close or even sometimes below the starvation. The migrant workers eagerly search for jobs sustained by their strong faith in a better future keeps them continually on the move. But in spite of the hope of self-accomplishment and self-achievement long-time expected, Torgas Valley offers a bitter reality to its unfortunate labour force. The good living conditions they are hoping for turns out to be a nightmare as they encounter daily difficulties and sufferings to satisfy their needs and aspirations. In Devil on the Cross, the difficulties of the workers stem from the fact it is the crooked people who are always appointed in the Parliamentary. Then by rigging the local elections and bribing his way into office against equally ruthless opposition that Gitutu reaches the rich goal of chairmanship of the local housing committee. Then, he can pocket the fabulous percentages offered by foreign spectators in exchange for building contracts and then corruptly allocate the jerry-built maisonettes that results in his lining his pockets even more richly. The community endures debased local administration while publicly subsidized housing is hawked on the black market. Kihaahu forecasts a time when it will no longer be fixed houses, but tiny portable tents or «bird-nests» that they can pitch nightly like nomads to shelter their heads while their bodies remain at the mercy of the elements. In In Dubious Battle, hounded like refugees, these dispossessed farmers are herded in camps where they are forced to cluster. These camps reflect an oppressive reality, for these are frightful places to live and they are without pure water.

Migrants hold their camp in a large clearing where dirty tents are pitched and any of the men sleep on the ground in sausage rolls of blankets in the open. Such precarious conditions are worsened by the absence of medical assistance for the underdogs as illustrated by the one migrant women's delivery by untrained workers who acts as mid-wives. It is as if those who keep the labour in these secluded camps which remind us of the ghettos of some big cities have forgotten that an ill-person is a menace to others and it is their duty to make him well.

In Steinbeck's novel, the aspect of capitalism is viewed through the harsh living conditions of the apple-pickers and Jim's family in particular. Many workers' families are forced to disintegrate which such a system of capitalism entails. In Ngugi's Devil on the Cross, capitalism is illustrated by a system that prevents peasants from improving economically and socially. They have fewer opportunities.

The modernization of the society was not totally positive. In the countryside, people took advantage of what the industrial revolution had caused. The mechanization of agriculture gave power to capitalists in both novels. The merciless capitalists were the owners of the most sophisticated machines of the big companies investing in farming, education and trade, and of banks which eventually evicted the poor from their lands.

This situation in, In Dubious Battle, is caused by the fact that they find themselves indebted due to the purchase of lands, tools, animals and other items bought on credit. In Devil on the Cross, the impediments brought about by a capitalist system are really conspicuous. If the actual destitute living circumstances gain ground every passing day, it is because the capitalists who are the rulers of the country seek always ways and means to throw the workers in the daily whirlpool of poverty because once they are obsessed to find something to eat just to keep their souls and bodies together, they will have no opportunity to protest. This situation is illustrated by the chicken thief Ndaaya who has admitted that he stole simply because of hunger.

One negative aspect of capitalism is to widen the discrepancy existing between the two antagonistic classes. The wealthy are becoming wealthier and wealthier and the poor are becoming poorer and poorer, and that is what the President of the Republic of France, Jacques Chirac called for the first time «les fractures sociales» in a country dominated by the haves and the have-nots.

In The Grape of Wrath as well as in In Dubious Battle, economic forces through the combination of drought and foreclosures drove farmers off their lands. As a matter of fact, many farmers in this area were sharecroppers who once owned the land and lost it, and therefore have to rent it or share it with the landlord, the bank or other leading companies. In years when they have no profit, these farmers have to borrow heavily to make the payments. When now that can not be achieved, the land is just sold or rented to somebody else. Consequently the land does not belong any longer to people who lived and worked on it. Wangari, in Devil on the Cross, is stripped of his land by a bank for the simple reason that she is not in a position to pay back a loan taken in a bank. This shows how harsh the banks are towards the underprivileged class of workers and in this respect it may not be a fallacy to assert that banks which belong mainly to the landowners rely on the poor's possessions to survive.

To show how the American society has always been marked by capitalism, it would be interesting to make a flashback to the history of California. First people who exploited the land were Indians by the early 1800's, but the American, looking for profits and taking it at any rate, snatched the land from its former inhabitants. In his novel it is stated that:

^4(*)«Once California belonged to Mexico and its land to Mexicans , and a horde of tattered feverish Americans poured in and such was their hunger for land that they took the land... they put up houses and barns , they return the earth and planted crops. And these things were possession and possession was ownership».

Profit motive is central in the book. The owners strongly believe that without profit no company can survive. The representatives of the capitalists like the Growers and the policemen are rude to the migrant workers. They overtly show their concern and warn to whoever is an obstacle to this concern of money-making process. Such inhuman behaviours account for the capitalist logic making more and more secure wealth. And this constitutes a fundamental principle of capitalism that one owner acknowledged in the novel:

^5(*)«But you see, a bank or a company can't do that, because those creatures don't breathe air. They breathe profits; they can eat the interest of money. If they don't get, they die the way you die without air».

In In Dubious Battle, capitalist ways of running estates follow the same strategy. As a matter of fact, the Torgas Finance Company which is the belonging of three men, control the Growers Association. Mac, a major character, notices that landlords draw from such a situation a tremendous power:

«You think we'll get beat?

I don't know. They got this valley organised.

It`s not so hard to do where a few men

control everything: land, court, and bank». (IDB, 124)

This ongoing business dispossessing the farmers of their lands proves to be a real economic and social injustice. This situation urges them to combine their forces and resist to oppression.

III Resistance to oppression

1. Emergence of a new leadership

The living conditions of the labour class in In Dubious Battle and Devil on the Cross have often been considered as a sorry plight by many critics and they admit that the most valuable quality in these living conditions is their courage in front of the hatred and fear they daily encounter. To see the light at the end of the tunnel, the emergence of a new leadership has become as vital as the air they daily breathe. The most efficient and significant way to get out of their problems lies in sacrifices and a good leadership which only can lead to survival.

Leadership is not just matter of giving appropriate orders but it is much about winning people's support through persuasion. Furthermore, it gives the opportunity to wonder whether one acts to the satisfaction of others and their entire community. Therefore, a leader is both a role model and a father figure in his society and if need be, the leader has to sacrifice himself for the survival of his community. Hence, throughout the novels the authors evaluate the notion of leadership in the struggle against the economic exploitation and the police that seek to squash the leaders of the movements. In In Dubious Battle and in Devil on the Cross, the way to success is expected to be very demanding and dangerous in its structure and strategy.

Thus, the description of characters that are dedicated to the cause of the entire communities is done through dialogue between the leaders and the community. The communion of the community is profitable to the movements since «unity is strength». Besides, the costs of the struggle compel the leaders to live inconspicuously in order to secure the movements. The leaders are really in their plan to confront the iniquitous system so as to free people from the stranglehold of the system.

The authors expose the leading figures of the movements. These characters are from different backgrounds. Mac, Dr Burton and Jim in In Dubious Battle come from different social backgrounds. On the one hand, Mac was a former soldier, he then knows military tactics, he is a fearless leader, and then he becomes a great help to the workers force. On the other hand, Dr Burton as well can be seen a as somebody who does a humanitarian works because he helps them freely. He is the one who takes care of the sanitation care of the underdogs in their camp.

In Devil on the Cross, Gaturia who comes from a very wealthy family decides to fight for justice even though he is the only son of his father, the Rich Old Man; and Wariinga whose parents are poor is one of the pillars of the workers force.

Steinbeck has very often put emphasis on an efficient leadership because when facing ordeals and obstacles, each individual must let go something individually important for the sake of the common good. Its objective is to maintain and guarantee the common life that animates and brings them together and if necessary, leadership re-establishes their unity. It is through sacrifice they all sustain and maintain their existence.

Ngugi believes that there is no sacrificial act into which the idea of improving does not enter. The leader who sacrifices himself deprives himself and gives and in other words, sacrifice is meant to give up something of value to help a person or a cause and that is what we see in the character of Gaturia in Devil on the Cross and that of Mac and London in In Dubious Battle. These leaders adopt that attitude which requires the personal renunciation of the self-interest in order to nourish and nurture their social force and common cause.

In Devil on the Cross, Gaturia who is the son of the Rich Old Man looks down on his father's fortune because he knows very well that his father's wealth is an accumulation of the underprivileged class `sweat. He decides then to take sides with the masses' camp and fight against the system of eating and being eaten when in fact he is in a position to be among the top-ranking people of the country. We see that the leaders London, Dakin, Jim and Mac in In Dubious Battle are very committed people not only because they are deprived of food and shelter but because they evaluate the prevailing system unfair, and then they want to turn things upside down to get what they deserve. It is clear that the migrants are to sacrifice themselves if they want to solve their problems.

Only the sacrifice of the self for the common good can lead them to survival because all the migrants positively contribute to the solution of the collective problems. By adopting new attitude of self-sacrifice for the common good, it is clear that leaders will manage to struggle out of that situation. It is in this respect that we can understand and get the meaning of Karl Marx' call: «Proletarians of all countries unite».

In The Grape of Wrath, Steinbeck uses the turtle to symbolize that stubbornness to resist all the hardships. This attitude should animate the migrants. As a matter of fact, in chapter 3, he uses the imagery of the turtle that shows resistance and stubbornness, the will to go on despite the numerous troubles it comes across. While other animals suffer from the heat, it stands as the very symbol of resistance viewed here as the will to live. For him, the symbolism of the turtle is to show the way to the migrants. In the same novel, no longer a preacher, Casy, no longer represents Jesus Christ, but he is now at the service of the community. From a preacher, he now becomes a member of the labour organisers and when he spontaneously accepts to take Tom's place in a jail, he preserves the whole family of troubles, and when he is finally killed in the strike against the growers, he accomplishes the supreme sacrifice.

It is clear that if the underprivileged class of workers wants to achieve their self- fulfilment and their self-accomplishment, workers have to join their efforts and means in order to put a curb on that situation. This can only be achieved with a good management and efficient leadership. In Devil on the Cross, Wangari, a female character reveals that they are stubborn people and they decide to fight against the system of eating and being eaten. The Mau Mau which consists of freedom fighters is aimed at overthrowing the system. Their philosophy is very relevant when Wangari reveals that each member of the Mau Mau has to take an oath and swear before being accepted in the group.

«I ll never eat alone ...

Work is life» (DOC, 38)

Then, the Mau Mau has passed on its tradition of communal self-help. They think that only it is through their combined efforts and strategies that they will be able to make the difference. An individual fight is not what is worth doing; the most efficient struggle could be only realized through common minds, so as Wangari puts in the novel:

»If we don't help each other, we'll become like the beasts». (DOC, 38)

That is why leaders in both novels strongly believe that their salvation lies in the fact that they have to commit themselves to their cause and try as well as can be expected to liberate the oppressed masses from the shackles of obscurantism . In both novels under study, the underprivileged class of workers is widely conscious of that the owners' camp does everything in their power in order to get them yield their commitment. Then, by using the deputy sheriffs, Californians try to frighten and intimidate the apple-pickers for the simple reason that the more they are frightened, the more they will be able to control that human flow.

Disorganization of labour forces in both novels seems to be the best way to make things remain as they are. Then, if the social order does not change, the owners' profit will be safe and unquestioned. It is evidenced that all these facts are done to the detriment of the other portion of the population represented by poor migrants. It is in this respect that they become aware of the necessity to follow their leaders. By getting united, they know that they represent force that can weigh in the socio-economic scope.

Rose of Sharon in the Grape of Wrath, although she is pregnant, she willingly accepts to work as hard as the other members of the family in order to get enough food for all. Working as she does, she also undermines her health which explains the death of her baby later. This shows how committed the migrants are to reach quietness in their lives. We also see that Jim, at his earlier age was a tenant who is loitering about the streets but it is his family's lot that he decides to give his life a new turn so as to be useful not only for himself but for his whole community of workers which is in dire straits because of the system. Then, he is purposeful and decides to stand up for their rights and dignity. That is what he said to Mac:

«Well, I would you a lot of little reasons. Mainly it is this: my whole family has been ruined by the system. My old man, my father was slugged so much in labour trouble that he went punk-drunk. He got an idea that he'd like to dynamite a slaughterhouse where he used to work. Well, he caught a charge of buckshot in the chest from a riot gun». (IDB, 13)

So, the system placed upon them makes them feel they are under the obligation to get united to face the daunting turmoil. More generally, it is when man faces difficulties, that one can judge him. When Ngugi gives courage to these workers, he clearly sides with them. The workers' will to live is to be taken into account because it enables and gives them the strength to use their brains or anything available to find the way out of their trouble. A closer look at Devil on the Cross enables to see that Muturi is lightly sketched in as a leader. He is a figurehead of the tireless few that never despairs.

«Despair is the only sin that can not be forgiven...

The sin for which we would never be forgiven

by the nation and generations to come». (DOC, 27)

We realise that Muturi is one character that represents the workers force and he is one who is among the most committed leaders. He tries always to galvanize people not to surrender. He makes them believe that they can achieve their aims if they steel themselves against failure. He is a figure-head of the force who is tirelessly working towards the revolutionary overthrow of the system of eating and being eaten.

The theme of leadership is well displayed in both novels. In In Dubious Battle, it is conveyed through the determination of the underdogs that are thrown in the daily poverty so as not to be in a position to keep on the fighting. Steinbeck shows that they endeavour to map out strategies and tactics to struggle out of the situation of discrimination as far as social, economic and political advantages are concerned. According to Steinbeck, the apple pickers have to show that they are not voiceless creatures, they have to stand up for their rights and dignity. Ngugi believes that the workers have to use violence as a means of retaliation and fight an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth to reach fulfilment.

Leadership is what gives the underprivileged class of workers courage, a sense of direction and dynamism. Thus, a closer look at the novels enables to notice that Wariinga is finally able to show the way to turn the social order upside down because of her commitment. Although she is a woman, she believes it is only herself who can achieve her own fulfilment. Then, she lays her hopes on her personal efforts and as the novel unfolds it is noticeable that she becomes more realistic and more aware of the nature of the world that surrounds her and her community. When she was a school girl, she was very naïve but now she knows very well that evil people dominate the world, they perpetrate crimes on their own people. The best way for the working community to reverse the situation is to get themselves organised in order to resist efficiently.

In In Dubious Battle, when Jim also is wounded; he has no intention to stop the fighting because stopping the fighting would be admitting the defeat. Despite his wound, he shows that a leader should not rest as long as the masses are behind them; he is then the spearhead of the fittest of the fittest.

To be safe from the chains of oppression and domination that link the workers to the owners, Ngugi thinks that they have to be wide awake and animated by the sense of nationalism and patriotism because capitalism is one of the greatest source of troubles in African countries. Ngugi seeks to arouse the masses consciousness to trigger off a revolution which ends up putting an end to their oppression. According top John Reilly, Richard Wright considers violence sometimes to be ^6(*)a personal necessity when life in society consists of humiliation one's only rescue is through rebellion.

Wariinga, through her metamorphosis, shows how individuals, men or women can shake themselves free from a debasing and alienating past and prepare to participate in what they envisage as a kind of future. She has grown out of a bewildering invitation of bourgeoisie values into a revolutionary woman worker. She works in a garage in which peace, justice and material help prevail. Indeed, he points out in the novel:

«None in that community of worker live on the benefits to the others with less work» (DOC, 222)

This garage in which exploitation force is non-existent can be considered a microcosm of the society Ngugi wishes to see built. But the projected social system is not nearing accomplishment because of the strong influence of capitalism on the economic life of countries where revolutionary changes should be taken. This is why, fully aware of this, Ngugi urges Africans particularly the Kenyans to break away from capitalism which according to him, can but only produce anti-human culture that is just the expression of sectional warring interests. To oppose it efficiently, he suggests a completely socialized economy, collectively owned and controlled by the people that are workers and peasants who are the producers of wealth.

The remedy advocated by Ngugi in an utter rejection of colonial legacy as well as the elimination of those who endeavour to perpetrate it, for him as long as tycoons like Gitutu, boss Kihara and their likes dominate the economic life of Africa, the system of theft and robbery will never end and the more delayed their destruction is, the more harmful to Africa since:

^7(*)«On the magnificent continent (Africa) the diamond-diggers and washers, the gold-miners the copper minders, the farmers on great -European-organised plantations toil and moil from sunrise to sundown so that their infants can die early of malnutrition»

In this narrative, the focalisation of the narrators in both novels under study plays a major role as they are both the camera holders and the story tellers; they show the reader what they want him to see. The descriptions convey the good and bad sides of the characters. Ngugi gives a queer portrait to the exploiters which reveals that they are at first sight subhuman people contrary to Wariinga and Wangari.

Commitment turns to self-sacrifice and dedication means to take risky actions. Jim in In Dubious Battle sacrifices his life for the movement and for social changes. He spends lonely nights dreaming. He tries to secure himself for further arrest and dodge all temptations such as corruption, bribery or anything might distract him from their objectives. In this respect, he decides to have no fixed place to rest in and death becomes a major concern for the survival of the movement.

Jim and Wariinga are not fearful of dying for the sake of justice and a new social order, they face all the dangers including challenging high authorities by questioning the socio-economic status quo. Through these two identical leaders, we perceive an efficient leadership capable of collapsing the system of establishment.

Ngugi's total commitment is stressed in his monologue, he anxiously wants to denigrate and demythogise the regime and turn the maniacal dream of superiority into a nightmare. In this respect, he foresees a gloomy future for the watchdogs. In this fight between the forces of death and life, the narrator displays the two existences in life love and hate. They happen in a context of police raid, brutality in Devil on the Cross, and permanent threat in In Dubious Battle which is accounted for by the instrumentilized police force that find fault with everything the strikers and leaders enterprise.

Accordingly, the divide and rule system has always been the deadly weapon the Europeans have used to dominate people in Africa or elsewhere. The dreams of African people are now turned into a nightmare and no force, however well armed it may be can withstand the united might of a nation of workers thirsty for fulfilment and liberation.

«The voice of the people is the voice of God». (DOC, 86)

The underprivileged class of workers, in Devil on the Cross and In Dubious Battle, has reached a point of no return seeing that they are physically and psychologically dominated, and then they decide to head for positive outcome of the struggle.

2. The outcome of the result as illustrated in both novels

The oppressed communities' struggle against the dominant class is inevitable. Violence is inherent in all societies where antagonistic classes exist. The exploiter directs brutal forces against his own people in order to protect his self-serving interests and resist the liberation movement that threatens his privileges.

In the face of this situation there are several reactions of the oppressed, they range from an attitude of expectancy or resignation to one of a constructive resistance to oppression. With regard to resistance, ways are paved for a massively utter involvement of people through strikes in the novels under study without forgetting underground movements, illegal but praiseworthy as far as the struggle for liberation is concerned. They claim for the necessary means to lead a decent style of life, inspiring human dignity and also restoring equality and justice.

For the advent of a new era of social, political and economic uplift, for those considered as the underdogs to get peace, oppressors get prepared through radical changes. Truthfully enough, an urge for human decency and consideration is declared among the workers. The respect of the human rights which they harshly violate everyday induces to fight tooth and nail for the promotion of their welfare and well-being. Thus, struggling for the right not to survive but to live becomes a matter of pride and dignity.

In In Dubious Battle, the apple-pickers believe that they will be released from the chains of oppression if they fight through combined efforts. Jim's conviction is that in the deadline imposed by the system, the only way out is undoubtedly to devise ways and means to put a curb on that system.

«They were quiet and they were working, but in the back of every mind there was conviction that sooner or later they would win their way out of the system they hated» (IDB, 31)

The significant enterprise gathers with harmony leaders and masses who remarkably display an ever-growing commitment and immense courage to give effect to these plans despite a merciless and uncompromising attitude of the authorities.

The underground movements pose the masses' spokesman initiate steps not only to galvanize people but to also ally their wide consciousness to full commitment in order to face social injustice not with folded arms, but with real pragmatism. The apple-pickers inveigh against their wrong-doings such as discrimination, social injustice and the application of prejudicially groundless principles based on social status. Such outrageous practices engender severe repercussions on them as beasts of burden and condemn seemingly to a life of servitude and eternal bondage. To meet their expectations, the emergence of a massive involvement of the workers is vital to shake off the yoke of the policy of brutality. Ngugi and Steinbeck through an efficient leadership, come to foreshadow gleams of hope looming in the working class' future.

Since it is high time for them to shift from submission to resistance, they take measures to pave the way for open mass involvement. Pressing down their fear and clinging to their courage and determination, merely ordinary people in In Dubious Battle daily draw the masses onto their sides. Due to their denial of freedom of speech, these leaflets have become a dynamic weapon of defiance and as a result, they will be able to collapse the system of establishment.

In Devil on the Cross, the black community of the country knows its labour is not vain and fruitless efforts. However, a new spirit and ideas for changes have gripped the masses. In their homes, houses, they discuss indignantly the shameful misdeeds of those who rule the country. Gradually they raise their voices to condemn the grinding poverty, the low wages, and the acute shortage of land, the inhuman exploitation and the whole policy of domination as clearly illustrated in In Dubious Battle:

^8(*) «May be, but you know what they done in

Washington. They kicked'em out because

they said it was a danger to pubic heath».

Today there is a mighty awakening among the men and women of Kenya. A perpetual awareness comes to minds as their emancipatory quest; their struggles for freedom and autonomy have become a necessity as human positive evolution is seriously at stake. They are now awake by the facts which reveal the indignity of their rulers who have conferred on them a life misery and despair, exploitation and slavery. Now they realise they are voiceless creatures without a say, even once, in the running of their lives. Commitment and fighting are the only alternative for the workers to be free. Through the main characters in both novels we have the impression that the workers community will be victorious in their struggle for social progress.

In Devil on the Cross, the most complex figure is Gaturia. The educated young man, the poor little rich boy has renounced his heritage, has crossed the floor and joined the forces of enlightenment in the struggle between different class interests. He has rejected his fathers' values and the easy wealth that would go with them; he has forged his own values which are struggling for justice for the benefit of all. In Ngugi's novel there are many seeds that embody that political and socio-economic fulfilment come the way of the working class.

Wariinga's use of gun at this moment is highly significant. The Rich Old Man from Ngorika boasts about the powers of the rich to circumvent laws and get whatever they want. We recall that all other times of confrontation in the past, Wariinga has lost out.

As a teenager, sugar-girl of the Rich Old Man, she was his expendable sex toy in the degenerate power game of the hunter and the hunted. She was the chosen prey of boss' Kihara as much as she was of her ruthless landlord. But now the roles are now reversed. With the aid of her gun, she will impose an inexorable moral code. It is not an accident that the gun has been given into her custody by a worker, Muturi, one of the leaders. Today, Wariinga salvages her honour by righteously condemning her elitist persecutor to death. Tomorrow the persecutor of a whole society is to be set to rights by armed insurrection. Through personal efforts, Wariinga comes to show the way to her fellows by killing the wicked man.

The same situation can be seen in In Dubious Battle when Jim galvanizes his comrades to keep on fighting and never fold their arms. Despite the difficulties they face, and the reticence of the masses' commitment to the cause, he is in a state of readiness to vibrate and urge the workers' energy by showing them his wounds. In discussion with Mac, he lets know:

«I can pull off this bandage and get a flow of blood that might stir'em up». (IDB, 347)

In Devil on the Cross, Muturi gives her the gun she will later use to fight the exploiters of the masses. Wariinga feels that she is no longer the same person. All her worries and fear had been expelled by the secret entrusted to her. Wangari displays a courageous and fighting spirit that she so strongly illustrates when she talks about her involvement in the Mau-Mau struggle. As she puts:

«I am telling the truth when I say that I fought for this country's independence with these hands». (DOC, 37)

She used to carry guns through the heat of the forests for the Mau-Mau fighters. The symbol of the struggle and the ceremonial celebration of the panic punishment of traitors and villains are recurrent in Ngugi's fiction, she can be called a freedom fighter. In both novels under study, the outcome of the struggle for the masses will be victorious since a fairer distribution of wealth is needed in the world.

The structure of the novel is built on a symbolic structure of a journey leading to a feast which ends up in death. Symbolically, the peasants' feast organized on Gaturia's return to his family is also the place where the blood of the workers sheds at the devil's feast will be avenged. It is as if those who had made sacrifices during the Mau- Mau struggle for liberation are the mostly degraded and exploited in the independence of Kenya.

The character of Gaturia, who is one of the most important in the novel, ought to have been further developed by Ngugi. He emerges as the most convincing moral spokesman. He has been transformed by the great liberation struggle which he had joined in the hope for better days. It is worth underlining that the overwhelming domination gives an upsurge among the masses.

Every social class mixes devotedly into a homogenous group of ordinary people of women and men, young and old .They join their efforts in one force to fight against the shameful misdeeds the authorities perpetrate on them like mass removals. When people are gathered under such determination, there is nothing that prevents them from winning the battle.

The philosophy the authors advocate is that of progressing, risking and taking the chance whatever the costs may be. Steinbeck asserts firmly that in a context of hard times, relentless efforts should be made and every body should be engrossed with political and socio-economic relief of the suffering of people. That is what Mac understands when they act as mid-wives to help Liza deliver a baby. The fact that each of them derives happiness from being among those who contribute to the childbirth makes one feels that this is a solidly grounded community who steels itself against all evils that the landowners place on them.

«Look Jim. Don't you see? Every man who gave part of his cloth felt that the work was his own. They all feel responsible for the baby. It is theirs, because something from them went to it. To give back the cloth would cut them out; there is no better way to make men part of a movement than to have them give to it». (IDB, 67)

At this moment the desire to rejoice freedom has reached a point of no return in their minds. That same commitment is seen in In the Fog of the Seasons' End:

^9(*)«Beukes, Elias and Isaack shed everything to fight for the overthrow of the system and in the most grievous ordeals they still abide by their oath to lead their people to freedom».

In In the Fog of the Seasons' End, through the power of love Frances sacrifices her happiness in marriage when Beukes, her husband, a political activist, has to part with her and their daughter to perform great duties in the name of the masses liberation.

In Devil on the Cross, the melodramatic finale is a symbol as the great satiric competition between capitalistic thieves. This is a metaphor for the vital role that Ngugi ultimately sees for the gun in the conflict between classes. The Rich Old Man is the enemy and is struck down without regrets or without reservations. This foreshadows anticipatory day of revolutionary wrath for one of the gang of the exploiters and his henchmen. But only one, Wariinga herself, she has no choice but to act alone. One day, the oppressed sections of society will act in concert, hence the underlining hopefulness of this carefully contrived conclusion. Wariinga marches out of the novel to meet her fate immune for the moment, by virtue of her innocence and purity of purpose; she has the future on her side.

The symbolic imagery suggests Wariinga's inheritance of Muturi many power symbolised by the gun he trusts her:

«I observe you last night in the matatu,

I've watched you last night.

Throughout the day in the cave and I have

decided that you can be trusted with a worker's secret» (DOC, 211)

Muturi entrusts her with the gun that she will later fight exploiters of the masses, the moneyed class epitomized by Gaturia's father. The assassination of the Rich Old Man announces a bright future for the whole working community.

In In Dubious Battle, Steinbeck develops the idea of self-sacrifice to ease the migrants' problems. In the novel, most of the characters are animated with the spirit of sacrifice. Jim is the type of character who dispatches that message of commitment and self-sacrifice, so the migrants come to a high understanding of the new situation. That's what Jim has in mind when he urges and galvanizes his friends into action, showing that despite his wounds, he keeps on fighting. As a case in point when taking to Mac he said:

«This pain in the shoulder is kind of pleasant to me; and I bet before he died Joy was gad for a moment just in that moment I bet he was gad.» (IDB, 347)

Ngugi believes that violence is thereby the motive power of the underground resistance. However, nearly all his works are characterized by scenes of violence and destruction. This is the only pretext to convey a deeper hope-symbolism which underlines the actions of the plot.

As the Jamaican reggae singer Bob Marley put in «rat race», one of his famous songs, we can not dominate all the people all the time and then the time will come when oppressed people will be released from the chains of oppression. Beyond the scenes of extreme violence, and destruction previously described, Ngugi and Steinbeck foretell a hopeful future which always marks the denouement of their plots. Jim's death in In Dubious Battle and the Rich Old Man assassination in Devil on the Cross are signs that epitomize the reign of social justice progress.

In relation to that prospective vision, one can assert that it marks a logical end of a long process of suffering experienced by the oppressed. The impression we have is that, after a long time of a policy of denigration and nonentity, it is the time for the oppressors to undergo the setbacks of their own misgovernment. A new consciousness is growing among the masses with a new spirit of revival and contribution in the matter of the country.

In view of all of this, coalition is compulsory in order to face oppression and brutality. What symbolises hope in In Dubious Battle is the birth of a child in a context of utter turmoil and disturbance. It is obvious that Liza's child is a potential seed of resistance who will keep the fighting on when he reaches maturity. In Devil on the Cross, hope is conveyed through the image that Wariinga shoots down Gaturia's father to cleanse the Kenyan society of parasites and blood-suckers.

Steinbeck's writing serves a social function by arousing sympathy for the poor and for the working class. He also manages to make the reader sympathize with them in spite of the lack of initiative. In fact, they hardly figure out something to put an end to their troubles. Apart from the necessity of joining hands for the collective struggle, the other strong image in their struggle is the commitment of women and children to the liberation struggle. In Devil on the Cross, workers, women, children, students, intellectuals participate massively in the struggle to discard oppression. The implication of women and children heralds a successful and promising future.

Steinbeck works out a device to make the reader sympathize with Jim. He has been killed but only in the purpose of defending his life and also saving others, and when he accepts to fight for the community, the reader can not help feeling sympathy for him. All these examples are revealing enough because they show that, despite some sour criticisms, he really stands a mouthpiece for the poor and for the weeding out of all social abuses in order to improve the lot of the working man and the farmer. To sum up, his work means to rescue the victims of social injustice.

In Wariinga's words, one perceives her utter determination not to be lured into becoming the slave of international capitalists like the new and selfish Kenyan bourgeoisie which oppresses its people under the auspices of these evil imperialists just for the sake of money and social distinctions. To complete her metamorphosis into a young revolutionary worker, Wariinga like Jim in In Dubious Battle, decides to fight against the culture of fear. Steinbeck shows in the novel that Jim is one of the most outstanding characters who are able to galvanize his community' courage and dynamism.

For Ngugi, fighting the culture of fear is to fearlessly oppose any oppressive powers, particularly the military and police forces which bolster reactionary systems. As he puts it again the system of Theft and Robbery will never end in this country and in any other country dominated by imperialism, as long as people are scared of guns and clubs.

To achieve her end, which is to become a fearless worker, Wariinga attends karaté and judo schools. So, when fate, once more brings her face to face with the Rich Old Man from Ngorika who had once driven her to the edges of suicide, she firmly opposes to him. This time the hunter is hunted by the workers' judge.

Mac in In Dubious Battle, as a former soldier, is shown as a great help to the community of the apple-pickers because he tries to teach Jim how to wage the strike. Military tactics are used to better achieve their aims. In Devil on the Cross, Wariinga kills the Rich Old Man whom she considers social evil. This act which reveals that Wariinga's determination to vent her anger and avenge on her former trouble-maker can be perceived as a call upon oppressed individuals to pluck up their courage and rise against their oppressors. Today, she salvages her honour by rightly condemning the persecutor to death. Jim in In Dubious Battle performs the supreme act when he is killed for defending the cause of the workers community, his death is not vain death, it is can be seen as a call for the masses to never surrender.

To Ngugi, the movement for liberation of the masses of women and children in general is an inseparable part of workers and peasants' struggle against injustice. This is why all his heroines are workers and peasants. This, therefore, leads one say that the problems of their exploitation can only find its solution in the peasants' struggle against private ownership of prosperity and the establishment of a socialist society. Steinbeck believes that the only way out of the migrants' troubles and hardships lays in the fact that they must stick themselves as one force and sacrifice themselves so as to be a force that weighs heavily in the socio-economic scope.

The revolutionary views are illustrated in Devil on the Cross by the garage in which Wariinga, the worker woman works. These revolutionary views of things have determined Ngugi's characterization of women as leaders in his fiction throughout his books.

IV Conclusion

This piece of research work allows us to imagine the disastrous situation prevailing in the US during the Depression Years and in Kenya during the years of «Uhuru». These two countries were so shaken by political , economic and social problems that writers such as Steinbeck, Ngugi ,Morrison, Gordimer to name but a few , even they do not belong to the same generation can not stand such exploitation unfolding before their very eyes without denouncing it. As depicted in both novels, the 20^th century was marked by a wide socio-economic gap between the haves and the have-nots, the well-provided and the dispossessed. This situation of vulnerability is brought about by the system that induces the social improvement of wealthy people to the detriment of the most important part of the society, the working class or farmers more precisely in Steinbeck's novel.

In Dubious Battle and Devil on the Cross deal prominently with the theme of social injustice, and that is the very reason why these works can be seen as novels of protest against social injustice. Characters in both novels suffer from injustice and the writers put the blame on the capitalistic system which is the signpost of domination and oppression.

Ngugi, known as a committed writer like Steinbeck, gives a true portrayal of Kenya lamentable state in Devil on the Cross. He believes that the colonizers, contrary to their so-called civilising missions which they so much proclaims in Africa have only to come, exploit and mislead people. After the independence, the new leaders set up a system that continues what the colonial rulers had been doing meaning ill-treatments and exploitation of the poor and workers. His strength as a novelist proceeds from the way in which he encrusts his political vision with material derived from his own Kenyan background.

As shown in the body of the work, the novels depict African and American realities as they appear, without any camouflage because their authors know the advancement and openness would stem only from such authentic and unveiled depiction of their peoples' defects, failures, weakness and misfortunes. Disillusionment is what galvanises the authors and has enabled them to deliver such works that call for real and general revolution for American and African politics and social life.

African leaders have replaced the white dominators in their excesses and live in an early paradise whereas the masses are crammed up in their slums, the hopes of independence have gone .Above all, people are politically persecuted and their various freedoms denied to them.

In addition to that, corruption, bribery gnaws the political, social, and moral health of Africa. Morals have become cheap and distorted and the sense of family has lost its meaning, consequently the people have grown immature, uncaring. Under such conditions in Africa, people will await a hypothetical development. Africa`s curse with its leaders should be eradicated by the people who love and care for its respectable stand among the nations of the world. Corruption and conflicts of interests should be stopped and Africa's interests as a whole be preserved for the whole community.

The theme of exploitation of the masses by the owners is one that occupies one of the most prominent positions in In Dubious Battle as illustrated the gap existing between two antagonistic classes. In In Dubious Battle, Steinbeck vents his anger on a capitalistic society that was capable of plunging the world into an economic Depression, but he does not exonerate the farmers who have driven from the Dust Bowl of the mid-western and south-western USA. He deplores their neglect of land that resulted in the Dust Bowl and that helped to exacerbate the Great Depression.

In both novels, the underprivileged class of workers is stripped of any means of production; they are the ones who are continuously condemned to suffer. They are deprived of their properties and no one dares to rebel fearing repression and violence.

The owners lure the workers to better use them and base their politics on how to better promise and never achieve and if some people rise to protest against that injustice they are considered as potential threat to the owners. So, disillusionment was born and represents the eradication of the blinders that have blurred the peoples' vision so long. But those disillusioned and persecuted writers have their own ways of expressing their anger towards the leaders and their rage towards the inane masses. Their vocation is to write against the exploitation and neo-colonialism that prevails in newly independent countries. Devil on the Cross was Ngugi wa Thiong'o's first novel written entirely in his native Gikuyu tongue. It contains many of the themes and concerns that are central to Ngugi's views on African literature and Kenyan politics. The novel is both a gripping read and a remarkable introduction to Kenya culture and politics. Ngugi's book represents commitment to the cause of the poor social classes. The land which is the bones of contention in Devil on the Cross is seized everywhere, poverty and destitution gain momentum every passing day, women are raped more often than not. The peasants and workers in In Dubious Battle are exploited in farms and factories. The population becomes frustrated and their disillusionment keeps going.

Disillusioned writers can lead whole people to progress and maturity by delivering works that point out the unwanted and unchallenging transformations that have occurred and split the heart of those disillusioned people so as to have a will to uphold change and ensure the continuity of the healthy and efficient legacy of the worthy African people. Well-directed children and informed women can move societies and turn hopes of advancement into reality.

In Dubious Battle stands not only the story of the fruit-pickers but also as the dramatization of the plight of the dispossessed everywhere. When writing their books, many idealists among whom Steinbeck suppose that moralising is not their purpose. They have a conception of Man which is rather scientific and impartial and the most significant trait is that they are rebels .Despite their efforts not to judge, prejudge or misjudge, they can not help reacting against social ills by revolting against the moral code of age. And this gradually leads them to devise a new set of moral values mostly based on nature.

Their literary productions are filled with ideas and sermons against hypocrisy, intolerance and especially against injustice. They advocate physical and moral strength, courage as opposed to wickedness. This is the reason why he draws a picture of Man and the assessment of the American society during the Great Depression.

Ngugi witnesses his country's deterioration and regression and, known for is visionary symbolism, the high moral integrity of his political vision and his afro-centrism, denounces the betrayal of Kenya's national ideals. Disappointed but enlightened, he adds bitterness and conviction to his denunciations of Africa's defects. In the same way , as a Kenya teacher, novelist, playwright, whose functions, as an important link between the pioneers of African writing and the younger generation of post colonial writers has suffered much for his writings. He has been put in prison and even exiled because his novels resonate so deeply and get the heart of the masses.

This general mood of desperateness leads people to form into groups to rebel and denounce their bad living conditions. In Devil on the Cross, workers are mobilized, led by committed leaders; they intend to break the silence and be heard all around the world through their united efforts and actions and efficient leadership.

Both Ngugi and Steinbeck are labelled as communist writers. Because Ngugi's disagreement with the watchdogs' cruel fate in Kenya, Ngugi with his Marxist concepts advocates a collective struggle that can only be the solution to the new leaders' domination. But the heroes in their books sometimes react in some individual and successful fights. Their reactions allow people to get back their rights and succeed in making some change in the country.

If the communist etiquette has been stuck on Steinbeck, it is because his passion for justice has led him to denounce the economic imperfections of his time particularly in his native Salinas Valley. So, the allegations seem untrue especially when he tackles social problems not in terms of class welfare, but rather pointing out that these problems can well be solved in the present by allowing each individual to satisfy his desires without restrictions.

The sober attacks on Steinbeck by many writers may seem ungrounded because his philosophy aims at improving the living conditions of all people. So, if Steinbeck's reputation has somewhat suffered from bitter criticism, it is because as a committed writer, he has disagreed with and sourly criticised the political and economic tenets of his time, which displays the reasons why he has been ranked among the rebels by analysing social problems in this way. He has the purpose of opening people's eyes on the fact that social injustice should not last for long since it can bring about social turmoil as it is experienced elsewhere.

Ngugi adopts a satirical style to denounce the Kenyan post colonial society, using symbols to convey meaning and irony to unmask the new leaders and portray their behaviour in contrast with worthy people. By doing so, he wants to reveal the difference between realities or truth and the appearances as far as justice and freedom are concerned.

To change the sad reality prevailing in Kenya, it is necessary for African masses to become politically conscious and self- sacrifice for the common cause is important to achieve self-accomplishment.

Steinbeck is not a mere pamphleteer and the revolution he advocates is not violent contrary to Ngugi who sees the other way round. He rather suggests that all men should change their attitudes and feelings towards one another in the quest for a better understanding. If the rich and the poor are to survive they should adapt themselves the new conditions and this suggests great efforts in order to cope with the inevitable progress of humanity.

Ngugi thinks that the only way to salvation for his people lies in their efforts. He urges in his novels the underprivileged class of workers to have recourse to violence to solve their problems. As his novel unfolds, we realise that the more the workers are aware of their strength by getting together, the more they are in a position to turn things upside down and be successful in their struggle.

These two writers do not see eye to eye as far as the struggling for self-fulfilment and self-achievement are considered. Ngugi believes in violence for the achievement of the masses' fulfilment whereas Steinbeck's philosophy is that improvement can not be reached as long as the individual remains isolated. Instead of violence, he urges man to dare self-sacrifice for the common good and he also advocates love and friendship for mankind to be reconciled with itself. Thus, the welfare of the community should be extended to all members poor and rich as well. He lets people know that he does not mean to harm systematically the well-provided class. His ultimate aim is to modify the attitude among the rich and the poor as well and this is the most important aspect of Steinbeck's works. In a world fragmented into social classes, Ngugi sees the writer must be the voice that calls the crucifixion of the most dreadful of all the devils that have haunted man's psyche.

It is important to remember that Steinbeck is not one with the people about whom he writes. He embraces them positively, not with a sense that he wants them to be but with a genuine respect of them as they are. In his best works, it is this disinterested objective, yet warm presentation that entices the readers.

If one thinks in terms of dichotomies, American novelists Henry James would be at one extreme in depicting human beings, Steinbeck at the other side. This explains in part Steinbeck frequent rejection by the critics. The professionals who wrote about his work had essentially been brought up in the Jamesian tradition. They had lived their lives either in the Eastern establishment or outside it, trying to break in. Still some critics argue that writers such as Steinbeck have not given an accurate image of the American society. It was precisely Bernard de Voto, a famous American literary critic who argues the picture that they have given of America was wrong and distorted. For him; this is a mere deformation of American realities and he has pointed out that American was to be viewed as an Eden, a dynamic and wealthy country. Because of his passion for justice, he has given of America another totally different to the former which aims at showing up the evil-doings there. Steinbeck's hatred of Communism and his love of America began to confuse the picture very early on. His patriotic support of America in World War II and the early Cold War years brought from the Left bitter charges of treason, which continued for the rest of his life. These grew especially nasty in the Vietnam era, during which Steinbeck used his fame to give public honor to American soldiers, to defend the essential decency of America's cause, and to warn against the strategic dangers of Communist expansion. Steinbeck biographer Jackson Benson argues that the Left's hatred for Steinbeck often manifested itself not merely as political denunciation, but as literary.

Steinbeck and Ngugi just want human dignity to be restored and a fairer redistribution of wealth to all. The assassination is, for Ngugi, a step towards the elimination of all those who live on the sweat of the poor people. This view illustrates his political radicalism. Wariinga kills the wealthy man because he boasts of his power to circumvent laws and get whatever he wants because he is a symbol of the oppressive forces at work in society.

The happy ends of their books show that Ngugi and Steinbeck and their characters are confident that sooner or later, a day will come when humanity will prevail over the malignity of the oppressive privileged few. Thus, it appears that Jim's death in In Dubious Battle and that of the Rich Old Man from Ngorika in Devil on the Cross are symbolical because they announce that the masses are victorious in their struggle. Then, we understand that the authors' fight is the liberation for all the oppressed working class.

The fictional representation of class struggle in In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck and Devil on the Cross by Ngugi wa Thiong'o is so powerful and enticing that we ask whether such other luring and interesting issues are explored in the other novels by Steinbeck and Ngugi.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Novels under study:

1. Steinbeck; John, In Dubious Battle, Peguin Books USA Inc.1936

2. wa Thiong'o, Ngugi, Devil on the Cross, London , Heinemann,1982

II. Other novels by the authors:

1. By John Steinbeck

-The Grape of Wrath, The Viking Press, New York, 1939

-Of Mice and Men, Peguin Books, USA, 1937

-East of Eden, William Heinemann LDT London, 1976

-America and Americans, The Viking Press, New York 1966

2. By Ngugi wa Thiong'o

-Matigari, London, Heinemann, 1989

-Petals of blood, London, Heinemann, 1977

-A Grain of Wheat, London, Heinemann, 1967

-The River between, London, Heinemann, 1965

III. Other novels referred to:

1. On American literature

· Wright Richard, Native Son, London New York: Harper and brother Publishers 1940, 397p.

· Morisson Toni, Song of Solomon, London ,Heinemann, 1978

· Wright Richard, Black Boy, Editions Gallimard, 1947

2. On African literature

· Gordimer Nadine, My Son's history, Peguin, London, 1942, 277p.

· La Guma Alex, In the Fog of the Seasons' End, London, Heinemann, 1992

· Achebe Chinua, A Man of the People, London Ibadan Nairobi: Heinemann 1969, 149p.

· Fanon Frantz, The Wretched of the Earth, Harmmondsworth: penguin, 1990

· Awoonor Koffi, This Earth, My Brother, London, Ibadan, AWS 1972,

IV. Works on the writers:

1. On Steinbeck

§ Covoci Pascal, JR, ed, The Portable Steinbeck, the Viking Press Inc. New York, 1971.

§ Beach Joseph Warren. John Steinbeck- art and Propaganda, Russell and Russell, New York, 1941.

§ Lisca Peter, The Wide World of John Steinbeck, Rutgers University Press, New Jersey, 1958

§ Gannet Lewis, john Steinbeck. Personal and bibliographical notes, the Viking Press, New York, 1939

2. On Ngugi

§ Ngugi «Africa» quoted by Goetz Peggy in Kenya, Writer Working to Preserve Minority Languages, Irvine World News, 2003

§ Cook Andokenimkpe, Ngugi wa Thiong'o: An Exploration of his Writing, London, Heinemann, 1983

§ Smith Angela, East African Writing in English, Macmillan Publishers, LTD London, 1989

§ Ngugi «On Writing» quoted in African Postcolonial Literature in English by F-K Omoregie, University of Botswana, 2002.

V. Other works consulted:

v Ndaw Cheikh Alioune, Mbaam Dictateur, Presence Africaine, Dakar, 1997, 335p.

v Cabral Amilcar, Unity and Struggle, Heinemann, London, 1986

v Saparta Marc, Histoire du roman americain, Editions Seghers, Paris, 1970

v Mandela Nelson , No easy Walk to Freedom, Heinemann, AWS, 1973

v Baldwin James, Notes of a Native Son, Beacon Press, London, 1955

v Association Sénégalaise de Littérature Comparée, Literature and shared Culture, Presses universitaires de Dakar, 2003.

VI. Internet sources:

Ø www. Rodney, Cabral and Ngugi as Guides to African Postcolonial Literature.htm

Ø www.Subversion versus Rejection Can Postcolonial Writers Subvert the Codified Using the Language of the Empire.htm

Ø www.The Great Depression - pictures & causes of great depression.htm

Ø www.The Main causes of the Great Depression.htm

Ø www.The Great Depression (1929-1939) historical context, economic impact and related links.htm

Ø www.The Depression in the U_S_--An Overview.htm

Ø www.1930' Dust Bowl.htm



* ¹ Alex La Guma, The African communist, n°56 October, 1977. In KuLuLeKo, London, p74

* ² Richard Wright, Native Son, Harper and Row publishers, New York, 1968, p67

* ³ John Steinbeck, The Grape of Wrath, The Viking Press, New York 1939 , p159

* ⁴ John Steinbeck, The Grape Wrath, op. cit., p297

* ⁵ John Steinbeck, ibidem., p41

* ⁶ John Reilly, Afterword of Native Son, Harper and Row publishers, perennial-library, May 1989

* ⁷ Koffi Awoor, This Earth, My Brother, London, Ibadan, 1972 p148

* ⁸ John Steinbeck, the Grape of Wrath, op.cit, p 154

* ⁹ Alex Laguma, In the Fog of the Seasons' End, London, Heinemann, 1972,p 129