The Moon Is Down blog 9

The Moon Is Down was the most influential piece of literary propaganda during World War II.  Thousands of illegal copies were produced in many different languages to spread around underground resistance efforts.  “Throughout Norway, Denmark, Holland, and France, it was translated, printed on clandestine presses, and distributed, sometimes under the very nose of the Gestapo.  The underground operations involved lawyers, book dealers, retired military personnel, housewives, businesspeople, students, and teachers who took great risks to disseminate The Moon Is Down because it spoke so directly to them and to their situation and so persuasively supported their cause”  (Steinbeck xiii).   Through the efforts of all these people, The Moon Is Down grew in popularity and continued to sell off the selves well after the end of the war.  Steinbeck’s hope to write an effective piece of propaganda became more than true.  Very few other novels have brought about such a wave of dedication to a cause as this one.  “In spite of the Nazi’s’ efforts to suppress The Moon Is Down, hundreds of thousands of copies of the Norwegian, Danish, Dutch and French clandestine editions circulated during the occupation.  It was easily the most popular work of propaganda in occupied Western Europe.  The efforts put forth by the resistance and by ordinary citizens to distribute the novel within their respective countries and the risks they took in doing so, bear witness to the importance they attached to it”  (Steinbeck xiii).  It is amazing that Steinbeck was able to communicate so directly his story even though he lived thousands of miles away from the events he was writing about.  The Moon Is Down provided those suffering with the hope that freedom will have victory.  Even though owning a copy of this book was an automatic death sentence by the Germans, thousands of copies still switched hands and thousands more were coming off the press.  In the face of defeat, something in the human spirit drives us to fight on which is why The Moon Is Down became such an influential work of literature. 

Steinbeck, John. The Moon Is Down. Ney York: Penguin Group, 1995. Print.