A World to Win (Conroy novel)

Last updated
A World to Win
A World to Win (Conroy novel).jpg
First edition
AuthorJack Conroy
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SubjectLabor movement, unions
GenreFiction
PublishedNew York: Covici-Friede, 1935
Media typeBook
Pages348
ISBN 9780252069277 (2000 ed)
OCLC 43851533

A World to Win is a novel written by Jack Conroy and published in 1935. [1] [2] It was republished in 2000. [3] This novel, which is set before and during the Great Depression, follows two brothers through their lives both together and separately. One brother, Leo, represents the life of a working man, while the other, Robert, shows the life of a writer, a struggle that Conroy himself dealt with. Despite Robert being determined to be the brother who becomes famous for his writing, he does not. In fact Leo, who never seemed to have a plan, becomes "famous" first when he becomes a wanted man. Although the brothers have led very different lives, they end up together in the end when Robert decides to do something unplanned and free his brother from the police.

Contents

Plot summary

Part One: Green Valley

In the beginning of the story, we are introduced to Martha Darrell of Green Valley, who is a single woman who is “past her prime” for dating. She is awoken one night by her doorbell and finds Terry Hurley and his sick child Leo. Martha lets the two stay until the child is better but the relationship blossoms and soon Robert is born. Later in his childhood, Martha starts to become more religious as her and Terry grow apart. Leo starts seeing a girl named Anna and Robert accidentally spills the details to a bully named Dogface. Dogface tells his father, Preacher Epperson, who gets Martha involved, and she comes down on Leo pretty hard. He leaves and Anna shortly follows.

Part Two: The Green Dragon

In anticipation of college Robert goes to visit Boone University that his grandfather was a professor at and his mother was a student. On a train to campus, he meets Alan Vass and Sol Abraham, two returning college students. When Robert goes to the University himself, he adopts many of the same attitudes Alan does. While at school, Robert meets Nell, his first and only love who is also a writer. She follows him after he leaves school and they start living together, he working on his novel and she encouraging him and working at an office responsible for busting up protests. It is at this point that Robert is called back to Green Valley because his mother is ill. After her death, Terry opens up to Robert more and asks that they stay in better touch. Leo comes back into Robert's life and Leo gets Robert a job at his mill. Robert really does not like the work but he struggles through. Later, the workers of that mill go on strike and come after Leo because they know he is the one that told management about their union plans. After not being pummeled like expected, Leo promises not to go into the mill again.

Part Three: Nothing to Lose

Now out of a job, Leo finds out Anna is pregnant. They decide to go back to Green Valley where they are sure things will be better. Meanwhile, Robert's manuscript is turned down and he leaves Nell because he is tired of living off her. Anna and the baby are killed in a car accident at which time Leo decides to make the world feel sorry for what they have been through. Instead, he becomes a wanted man and Robert comes to his rescue, freeing him from the law and renewing their relationship.

Characters

Primary Characters

Secondary Characters

Themes and Criticism

Worker-Writer

The autobiographical element of the “worker-writer” is the underlying component of A World to Win. Conroy himself lived as a manual laborer by day and a writer by night and his life can be seen played out as the major thematical element of the novel in the characters of half-brothers Leo and Robert Hurley. Each brother representing one of these components, Leo the “worker” and Robert the “writer,” draws the novel from the opening descriptions of Martha through the brother's eventual conversions to radicalism at the novel's end. The challenge presented to Leo the worker throughout the novel were reflected in his role as provider. The majority of his adult life centered on keeping employment and all possible costs, regardless of low-wages or poor working conditions in order to support his wife and children. Robert as the writer spent his adult life working on poetry and attempting to write a novel while being supported by another individual. Each of the brothers struggles with these identities would eventually play a role in the conversion the characters undertook at the end of the novel.

Masculinity vs. Femininity

Amongst their personal struggles as “worker” and “writer” we also see Leo and Robert and their struggles with roles of masculinity and femininity in the Depression Era culture and the role this struggle plays in their development from childhood through adulthood. Leo, raised largely by his father followed a more traditional masculine role throughout the novel; from a childhood spent visiting hobo camps to become a manual laborer and father and provider of 5 children. Robert on the other hand was raised largely by his mother and followed what would be considered a more traditionally feminine life. Being kept away from manual labor and taught to become a writer at a young age by his mother, Robert would find himself later in life a man without work being supported by a woman whom he never married, nor fathered any children with.

Naturalism

As well, we also see Conroy employ the role of a literary style known as Naturalism (literature) in Leo and Robert's lives as seen through the societal structure of the Depression and how this eventually leads to their conversion to radicalism at novel's end. This role of Naturalism can be seen through the often hopeless nature of the Great Depression and the only realistic outcome for either Leo or Robert was to become radicalized based on their day-to-day experiences with both peer members of society and the un-seen elite such as Nell's boss Mr. Harrison.

Criticism

Although the novel portrayed the Hurley families’ struggles throughout the earlier years of the Depression, most criticisms of the book were not kind towards Conroy's use of this narrative style to explore the difficulties of the working class. “In her review of A World to Win for New Masses, Meridel Le Sueur suggested that Conroy had fallen victim to the, “seductiveness of bourgeois literature and its forms.” [4]

Related Research Articles

<i>The Diamond Age</i> 1995 novel by Neal Stephenson

The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a science fiction novel by American writer Neal Stephenson. It is to some extent a Bildungsroman or coming-of-age story, focused on a young girl named Nell, set in a future world in which nanotechnology affects all aspects of life. The novel deals with themes of education, social class, ethnicity, and the nature of artificial intelligence. The Diamond Age was first published in 1995 by Bantam Books, as a Bantam Spectra hardcover edition. In 1996, it won both the Hugo and Locus Awards, and was shortlisted for the Nebula and other awards.

<i>Anna Karenina</i> 1878 novel by Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in book form in 1878. Considered to be one of the greatest works of literature ever written, Tolstoy himself called it his first true novel. It was initially released in serial installments from 1875 to 1877, all but the last part appearing in the periodical The Russian Messenger.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spalding Gray</span> American actor, writer, and performance artist (1941–2004)

Spalding Gray was an American actor, novelist, playwright, screenwriter and performance artist. He is best known for the autobiographical monologues that he wrote and performed for the theater in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as for his film adaptations of these works, beginning in 1987. He wrote and starred in several, working with different directors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martha Gellhorn</span> American war correspondent (1908–1998)

Martha Ellis Gellhorn was an American novelist, travel writer, and journalist who is considered one of the great war correspondents of the 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pat Conroy</span> American novelist

Donald Patrick Conroy was an American author who wrote several acclaimed novels and memoirs; his books The Water is Wide, The Lords of Discipline, The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini were made into films, the last two being nominated for Oscars. He is recognized as a leading figure of late-20th-century Southern literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arna Bontemps</span> American poet, novelist (1902–1973)

Arna Wendell Bontemps was an American poet, novelist and librarian, and a noted member of the Harlem Renaissance.

<i>Ragtime</i> (novel) 1975 novel by E. L. Doctorow

Ragtime is a novel by E. L. Doctorow, published in 1975. It is a work of historical fiction mainly set in the New York City area from 1902 until 1912.

<i>Beach Music</i> (novel) 1995 novel by Pat Conroy

Beach Music is Pat Conroy's novel about Jack McCall, a South Carolina native who flees the South with his daughter Leah after his wife commits suicide. This novel explores the Vietnam War-era, the Holocaust, and coming of age in the 20th century. It was published in 1995.

<i>Edge of Doom</i> 1950 film

Edge of Doom is a 1950 black-and-white film noir directed by Mark Robson and starring Dana Andrews, Farley Granger, and Joan Evans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meridel Le Sueur</span> American writer and social activist

Meridel Le Sueur was an American writer associated with the proletarian literature movement of the 1930s and 1940s. Born as Meridel Wharton, she assumed the name of her mother's second husband, Arthur Le Sueur, the former Socialist mayor of Minot, North Dakota.

<i>The Flivver King</i> 1937 historical fiction book by Upton Sinclair

The Flivver King: A Story of Ford-America is a novel by American author Upton Sinclair, published in 1937, that tells the intertwined stories of Henry Ford and a fictional Ford worker named Abner Shutt.

<i>The Tin Flute</i> 1945 novel by Gabrielle Roy

The Tin Flute is the first novel by Canadian author Gabrielle Roy and a classic of Canadian fiction. Imbued with Roy's brand of compassion and understanding, this story focuses on a family in the Saint-Henri slums of Montreal, its struggles to overcome poverty and ignorance, and its search for love.

<i>The History of Love</i> 2005 novel by Nicole Krauss

The History of Love: A Novel is the 2005 novel by the American writer Nicole Krauss.The book was a 2006 finalist for the Orange Prize for Fiction and won the 2008 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing for fiction.

Proletarian literature refers here to the literature created by left-wing writers mainly for the class-conscious proletariat. Though the Encyclopædia Britannica states that because it "is essentially an intended device of revolution", it is therefore often published by the Communist Party or left wing sympathizers, the proletarian novel has also been categorized without any emphasis on revolution, as a novel "about the working classes and working-class life; perhaps with the intention of making propaganda". This different emphasis may reflect a difference between Russian, American and other traditions of working-class writing, with that of Britain. The British tradition was not especially inspired by the Communist Party, but had its roots in the Chartist movement, and socialism, amongst others. Furthermore, writing about the British working-class writers, H Gustav Klaus, in The Socialist Novel: Towards the Recovery of a Tradition (1982) suggested that "the once current [term] 'proletarian' is, internationally, on the retreat, while the competing concepts of 'working-class' and 'socialist' continue to command about equal adherence".

<i>Yonnondio</i> 1974 novel by Tillie Olsen

Yonnondio: From the Thirties is a novel by American author Tillie Olsen which was published in 1974 but written in the 1930s. The novel details the lives of the Holbrook family, depicting their struggle to survive during the 1920s. Yonnondio explores the life of the working-class family, as well as themes of motherhood, socioeconomic order, and the pre-depression era. The novel was published as an unfinished work.

<i>The Disinherited</i> 1933 proletarian novel by Jack Conroy

The Disinherited is a 1933 proletarian novel written by Jack Conroy. Conroy wrote it initially as nonfiction, but editors insisted he fictionalize the story for better audience reception. The novel explores the 1920s and 30s worker experience through the eyes of Larry Donovan.

<i>Blood on the Forge</i>

Blood on the Forge is a migration novel by the African-American writer William Attaway set in the steel valley of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during 1919, a time when vast numbers of Black Americans moved northward. Attaway's own family was part of this population shift from South to North when he was a child.

<i>South of Broad</i>

South of Broad is a 2009 novel by Pat Conroy. The novel follows the life of Leopold Bloom King in Charleston, South Carolina. It ranges from his troubled childhood to his adult life with his close group of friends.

John Wesley Conroy was a leftist American writer, also known as a Worker-Writer, best known for his contributions to “proletarian literature,” fiction and nonfiction about the life of American workers during the early decades of the 20th century.

Alexander Plaisted Saxton was an American historian, novelist, and university professor. He was the author of the pioneering Indispensable Enemy (1975), one of the founding texts in Asian American studies.

References

  1. A World to Win. OCLC   43851533 . Retrieved 2 April 2014 via OCLC Worldcat.
  2. Conroy, Jack. A World To Win. New York: Covici Friede, 1935. Print
  3. Conroy, Jack. A World To Win. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000. Print
  4. cited in Wixson, Douglas. Introduction to A World to Win (2000).