By Larry Fyffe
Singer, songwriter, musician Bob Dylan makes many literary allusions.
For example:
& she say ok, but where will you be & i say I don't know, mother, but I'm not tom joad (Bob Dylan: Tarantula)
In John Steinbeck’s novel “The Grapes Of Wrath”, Tom Joad swears to his mother that he’ll stand up for the right of workers to form protective unions, though he’ll be placing himself in danger for doing so.
According to the Holy Bible, God is going to send a messenger that the Almighty is displeased with the wicked ways of the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
An angel, carrying a sickle, warns the inhabitants of the city that they will be drowned in a sea of red blood if they do not atone for their behaviour:
And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God (Revelation 14:19)
However, Steinbeck’s no Marxist. He’s a humanist. His novel “Cannery Row” sheds light on what Karl Marx gathered from the Bible; instead, it’s a humorous tale about mostly unemployed people living in a district where women work for low wages; they pack small sardines inside tiny tins.
Alluded to in the following rather sorrowful song:
With your sheet-metal memory of Cannery Row And your magazine-husband who one day just had to go (Bob Dylan: Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands)
To the sickle-carrying angel, Dylan compares the axe-wielding Marx:
Mister Freud with his dreams and Mister Marx with his axe (Bob Dylan: My Own Version Of You)
The singer depicts his own persona in the song beneath as a boastful
egg-sucking small dog, not as a big angry flood-sending god:
I'll break open your grapes, I'll suck out the juice I need you like my head needs a noose (Bob Dylan: Goodbye Jimmy Reed)
Steinbeck bases his novel “East of Eden” on the biblical story of Cain and Abel.
Cain craves his father’s love, and out of jealousy kills his brother Abel:
And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden (Genesis 4:16)
In the novel, the brothers are named Caleb and Aron; Aron dies serving his country in war; Cal gets forgiven by his dying father Adam for staying so self-centred.
Jokester Dylan enters the world of entertainment dressed in a brown jacket like the one worn by actor James Dean. James, still young, died in a car accident; he starred as Cal in the movie version of ‘East Of Eden’:
When the jester sang for the king and queen In a coat he borrowed from James Dean (Don McLean: Bye Bye Miss American Pie)
Songster Dylan, as he is wont to do, has no problem poking fun at such archetypal depictions of brothers.
In the song below, two fictional brothers, alive and well, dwell in the materialistic
(ie, nonspiritual) land east of the sealed-up gates of paradise:
Got their noses to the grindstones Living in the land of Nod ............ One is a low down, sorry old man The other will stab you where you stand (Bob DylanTweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum)
In the song below, Dylan’s persona struggles to remain authentic as he can in a world that’s economically, politically and socially corrupt:
It must be the winter of my discontent I wish you'd taken me with you wherever you went (Bob Dylan: My Own Version Of You)
In Steinbeck’s novel “The Winter Of Our Discontent”, the main character, who grew up within a noble family in New York state, tries to regain the loss of his aristocratic status (lost due to its displacement by the lean-and-mean morality of capitalism)
by his resorting to what he considers to be dishonourable means; even contemplates committing suicide as a result of the guilt he feels over becoming corrupted.