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Hwangh, Chee Bok. “Ethan Hawley’s Free Will and the Existential Vacuum in John Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 39.3 (2013): 89-108. John Steinbeck’s last novel The Winter of Our Discontent is the story of Ethan Allen Hawley, a member of a once great family turned broke. Ethan and his family do not set any value on the high levels of honesty and integrity that ordinary people struggle to maintain in a corrupt society. These external pressures, as well as his own internal turmoil, send Ethan on a dangerous path to reclaim the status and wealth that he once enjoyed. Therefore this paper aims to study how John Steinbeck recognized a main character Ethan’s free will and his existential vacuum through this novel. Ethan’s acceptance of the responsibility he once attempted to avoid makes a free moral agent in the full sense. His fight to escape the pounding surf symbolizes his inner struggle to seize control of his destiny from the apparent grip of the tarot card, the Hanged Man and demonstrates the ultimate fact of free will in a rapidly changing world. This also reflects Steinbeck’s paradoxical view of the world. However, Ethan’s salvation comes from the realization that his moral choices made. Consequently, this study is to examine how Ethan is struggling to find the place of an individual in an increasingly self-interested, immoral world and how Steinbeck’s never-ending faith and optimism in man’s ability to persevere and bring about change are reflected in the struggle of Ethan Hawley. (Jeonju University)

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키워드

저자

• 황치복 [ Hwangh, Chee Bok | 전주대학교 ]

참고문헌

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간행물

표지보기 관심저널 등록

• 간행물명

  영어영문학연구 [Studies on English Language & Literature]

• 간기

  계간

• pISSN

  1226-8682

• 수록기간

  1972~2020

• 십진분류

  KDC 840 DDC 820