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

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.

* 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