d and evil, right and wrong. In the Christian creation myth, God creates light, signifying the introduction of goodness and morality into the world, but he does not wholly eliminate darkness, or immorality. He allows it to exist, knowing that it will convert light to shadow and virtue to dissolution. In John Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent, the triumph of darkness over light represents the moral degradation of the story’s central character, Ethan Allen Hawley.

The entrance of darkness into Ethan’s store, which reflects his inner self, sig-nifies this onset of corruption in his life. At the beginning of the novel, “a little light…[comes] into the storeroom” (10), and “a gray cat dart[s] to get in, but [Ethan drives] it away” (10). The light, Ethan’s virtue, is at this point unmarred by ethical trans-gressions. His moral strength allows him to repel the dark-furred cat, which represents immorality. As the story progresses, however, “people…flicker the light inside the store” (229). Through their words and actions, these people-Joey Morphy, Mr. Baker, Marullo, Margie Young-Hunt, and others-begin to change Ethan’s perspective on the importance of virtue, making him more susceptible to corruption. They convince him that he needs not be moral and honest all the time, and his virtue flickers like a candle, soon to go out. By the end, “the storeroom [is] dark” (230), and Ethan thinks “to put out…milk for that gray cat…and invite it in” (230). Now, with no trace of virtue, no ray of light, within him, he accepts his corruption. He welcomes in the gray cat of immorality, recognizing that it has become a permanent aspect of his life.

Ethan’s willing surrender to this corruption comes from his realization that immo-rality is a universal blight. Ethan, feeling “a darkness [fall] on the world and on him” (19), pulls down the shades, allowing it “to fall on the store” (19) as well. This advent of darkness represents the worldwide spread of corruption, and the normally honest Ethan, recognizing his inability to escape, feels he must become a part of it. His scrupulous per-sonal ethics set him apart from the world’s immoral majority, but when he strays from these principles and allows the darkness to assimilate him, he conforms to society’s not-so-scrupulous standards. Seated in his seaside sanctuary, the Place, Ethan watches the tide “creep in, black from the dark sky” (44). As time passes, this black sea of immorality and corruption rises, extending its area of influence over the masses. It gradually flows towards Ethan, who, in time, it will consume. Near the end, when Ethan leaves his home, the “night closes thick and damp about him” (263), and “streetlights…sprout…halos of moisture” (263). In leaving his home, he turns away from his family-the past Hawleys that begin the moral tradition and the present that must continue it-and gives himself over entirely to the darkness of depravity. From his new perspective, however, he can rec-ognize the honest and scrupulous few that still exist. The streetli