John Steinbeck's Potrayal of War: The Moon is Down as an Under-Appreciated Classic Anonymous College

Within Steinbeck’s oeuvre, the 1942 novella The Moon is Down is far less renowned than works like The Grapes of Wrath, Tortilla Flat or even Cannery Row. However, The Moon is Down is an excellent novella and can be used as a meaningful introduction to his work for students or others. This essay attempts to review The Moon is Down by situating it within the critical discourse on the novella in particular and on Steinbeck’s work more generally in order to argue that despite its reputation as a minor aspect of Steinbeck’s body of work, The Moon is Down is actually a strong and compelling novella that is worthy of discussion and teaching.

Although few are aware of this, when The Moon is Down was initially published, it “ignit[ed] in this country the most heated literary debate of the Second World War” (Coers, 1991, p. 11). Why? This is because Steinbeck’s original intent was to celebrate democracy (Coers, 1991, p. 11), and to use the book to “…boost morale both in his own country and in occupied Europe by proclaiming that free people are inherently stronger than the ‘herd people’ controlled by totalitarian leaders, and that, despite the initial advantage of the militarily mighty dictators, the democracies would eventually win the...