We feel in the novel "The Winter of Discontent" a new and distinct character for the great novelist John Steinbeck, in which we sense creative control over the artistic form along with sobriety of style and depth of idea. The novel revolves around the crisis of an intellectual who is crushed by the social conditions surrounding him. The author, for the first time, makes the hero of his novel a Harvard graduate, and makes his psychological crisis the primary driver of his connection to the events. The protagonist of the novel, when we first meet him, is exposed to three events that shake the being of a hostile being, let alone one who is actually prepared for rebellion. In one day, the hero is tempted by the town prostitute, then he is offered to commit a robbery, he takes the first practical lesson in his life about practicing trade, and he is offered the first bribe. The novelist embodies the factors of external pressure on his hero and increases their severity to prepare him for the events of the novel that will follow.