![]() ![]() Some students felt that experience is the best teacher in life. Some students drew connections with teachings from their parents and churches about the importance of doing good and being good, even when others around us are not. However, students differ in the lessons they learned from the book. Students generally agree that the things Ethan did were wrong and that Steinbeck did a good job in showing that happiness in life does not come from doing bad things to get ahead or merely from the acquisition of wealth. The class discussions of this book are always interesting. That’s a scary way to justify one’s behavior. “What are morals? … Is there a check in men, deep in them, that stops or punishes? There doesn’t seem to be,” says Ethan. Steinbeck takes us into the mind of Ethan as he rationalizes what he does. ![]() I like the book because it is one of the best novels showing the dilemma people face when tempted to do bad things and the heartache people inevitably feel because of their actions. By the end of the book Ethan has engaged in a number of morally corrupt activities in order to obtain wealth and status. ![]() At the beginning of the book Ethan is content and has a reputation for integrity. The story, which takes place in the early 1960s in a fictional East Coast town called New Baytown, is about the moral decline of a man named Ethan. For the past several years I have required students in my applied ethics course to read John Steinbeck’s book, The Winter of Our Discontent. ![]()
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