Never Giving Up in Steinbeck's The Moon is Down

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Never Giving Up in Steinbeck's The Moon is Down

Machine Gun fire blasts over your head while your hiding in your home, the only protection available. A slight whistle begins in the distance but it soon becomes closer and closer, its sound becomes louder and more intense with every inch of ground that it covers. Then as soon as it started the whistle becomes an explosion-killing half of your friends and destroying any-thing in its path. The end is near as your town is conquered and you think there is nobody left to fight. But is there? This is a short description of what the townspeople of a small European town may have heard the day their town was seized by the German army in John Steinbeck's novel The Moon is Down (1942).

Steinbeck's novel begins with a description of how easily the town was occupied by a far superior army that was well planned and was prepared for every possible outcome. The novel continues telling the story about a town that refuses to give up its freedom because it is out numbered and over powered. I believe that the story does not have a main character, but if in fact it does, the two would have to be the German high command Colonel Lanser and the town's Mayor Orden. These two are hard to define as main characters because of their simplicity. Lanser is a German man that has been in the army since the First World War and is only doing his duty as a commanding officer. The mayor is a calm man who only wants the best for the people of his town. The main theme that the novel is based on is simply overcoming adversity and never giving up.

The theme of a novel can change the complete meaning of the story for each individual reader. If one person reads a book and he/she thinks that the book's main them...

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...ry. If I tell them to fight they will be glad, and I who am not a brave man will have made them a little braver." The Mayor says this only because he knows that he will be killed no matter what he does but he knows that he must do anything he can to overcome adversity and help his people.

The novel concludes with Mayor Orden being executed after telling the people of the town not to give up and to keep fighting till the end as he did. The story's ending plays perfectly into its theme because the mayor knew that he mustn't give up because weakness is contagious. If the mayor were to have given up then it's likely the town would have fell shortly. Overall the story of a small town trying to overcome its problems and never giving up is a true story of David and Goliath.

Works Cited

Stienbeck, John. The Moon is Down (1946).The Penguin Group. New York, New York

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