John Steinbeck in the Current World

           In order to sufficiently and accurately analyze how John Steinbeck would react to a current event, I will compare two similar events, one of modern day and one of Steinbeck's time period. Steinbeck has extensively shown sympathy in his writing for the working class and their struggles. The current recession that America has been in since 2008 until now can be compared with the Great Depression that Steinbeck lived through, which influenced many of his writings. Steinbeck notably responded to the Great Depression through his novel The Grapes of Wrath. Based upon this, it is likely predict that he would respond to the recent recession in a similar manner. In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck focuses on a poor family of sharecroppers who struggle to adjust to the shifting economy, the drought, and other hardships created by the Great Depression. Steinbeck would probably use a modern family with similar circumstances as a literary device to describe the recession. For example, it is possible that Steinbeck would consider the life of someone who does manual labor, or a blue collar worker, who was already struggling and working extreme amounts of hours just to support his family. Maybe the worker's skills would be becoming unnecessary due to the recent changes in technology. Such circumstances would be similar, yet not quite as extreme, to those in The Grapes of Wrath, as the struggling family was faced with transformation of the financial and agricultural industries. His book would most certainly be very sympathetic to the worker.

John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men"

John Steinbeck’s writings are said to be very powerful. This is entirely true in his novel, Of Mice and Men, the tragic story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers during the Great Depression in California.

In Of Mice & Men, the American Dream is to simply have a place is establish roots, to find a place to belong. Placing in his book in California in the mid-1930’s of the Depression, Steinbeck tells the story of the harsh realities of life for poor unskilled workers displaced by the Great Depression – the greatest economic decline and high unemployment in Western industrialized nations. Of Mice and Men voices a deeper meaning about the nature of human dreams and aspirations and the forces that work against them. In the story, we see the American Dream, though unreachable, as a form of motivation, providing a sense of meaning and hope, energizing people even if it is pointless. Humans give meaning to their lives and futures by creating dreams. In the beginning, the two protagonists, George and Lennie, are introduced and their vision of the American Dream is established. The yearning associated with the ambitions in a life of great loneliness and deprivation of company and friendship is revealed. Both men are ranch workers and have not known a better life, and thus they create for themselves a vision for their future. “…we’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs…” As a matter of fact, repeating the telling of the story becomes almost a ritual between the two men, George providing the narrative and Lennie occasionally finishing George’s sentences. For most of the characters in Of Mice & Men, achieving the American Dream represents independence, security, and a place of self-respect and acceptance. For each of them, human dignity is an integral part of the dream.

                Having and sharing the dream, however, are not enough to achieve the dream. Each man must make a sacrifice or battle against some other force that seeks, intentionally or not, to steal the dream away. Initially, we see that, though the obstacles are challenging, they are not impossible to prevail over. These are such as, staying out of trouble, not spending money on liquor, and working at a ranch long enough to save the money for a down payment. But as the story progresses, some even greater problems become apparent: social prejudices, and, the greatest threat of all to George, Lennie himself. Ironically, it is Lennie who also makes the dream worthwhile. Even at the beginning of the novel, foreshadowing is developed. After George recounts the dream, we sense a feeling of loneliness, which is compared to the wideness of their surroundings. Though the fire burns brightly, “the sphere of light grew smaller,” representing the need for Lennie and George to return to reality and the hope for their farm diminishing. Its delicacy indicates the inevitable downfall of their dream. For Lennie and George, and even us as the reader, allow ourselves to accept the possibility of the vision; however, the use of foreshadowing darkens the outlook of their vision, and the dream only serves as a motivation through the possibilities of freedom, self-reliance, safety and protection from the cruelties of the tough world. In the end, we see the relationship of an individual and the society being partially responsible for the sacrifice that George has to make of Lennie. However, in the end, the decision is George’s. To save Lennie from suffering, George ends his possibility of attaining the dream by sacrificing Lennie.

Literary Movement Associated With Steinbeck

                  John Steinbeck has contributed some very great works to literature. Even though certain components of Steinbeck's writing fit characteristics of many literary movements, he fits best with the Modernism movement. This movement involves a rejection of tradition and a hostile attitude toward the immediate past (Thetalon). John Steinbeck has been characterized as having been influenced by the likes of Charles Darwin, the naturalist, author of The Origin of Species, and champion of the theory of evolution (USHistory). Instead of Romanticism and its highly symbolic, idealistic, or even supernatural treatment of its subjects, Naturalism is the outgrowth of Realism, a prominent literary movement of the late 19th-century (USHistory). One of the major characteristics of Modernism is the movement away from Romanticism and Naturalism (Thetalon).  Steinbeck seems to combine realism with a little bit of romanticism that finds advantage in the poor, which leads to my next point.

                 Steinbeck was “down and dirty with the common man (USHistory).” This is shown quite a bit in two of his very popular works, Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. Of Mice and Men is about two men who are lonely, trying to find their way and survive during The Great Depression. The Grapes of Wrath is about a family after their small family farm collapses due to the drought and The Great Depression. Steinbeck's interest in the plight of farmers in the face of rapidly encroaching agribusiness and his sympathy for union organizers became important themes in the novel, along with the struggles of the average person against big business (eNotes). To Steinbeck, modern life is often the enemy, in which characters discover that they are lost in a world they never succeeded in.  Steinbeck's writing stands against the traditional principles of realism, upholding his place in history as a modernist.

Works Cited

The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck- Introduction. Ed. Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. 2003. Janet Witalec Project Editor. Vol. 135. Gale Cengage. 24 April 2012. <http://www.enotes.com/grapes-of-wrath-criticism/grapes-wrath-john-steinbeck>.

Thetalon. n.d. 20 April 2012. <http://thetalon.org/MISC/unit_5_study.html>.

USHistory. n.d. 20 April 2012. <http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h3905.html>.

Steinbeck's Biography and Literature Contributions

             John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California, which is where many of his stories take place in. He attended college at Stanford University but never graduated. After failing his attempt to become a free-lance writer in New York, he moved back home to California to work on ranches to help him for what he considered to be "real life.” His experiences among the working classes in California lent authenticity to his depiction of the lives of the workers, who remain the central characters of his most important novels (GradeSaver). In 1929, he published his first novel, Cup of Gold, but he wasn’t successful until the publishing of his series of humorous stories about Monterey paisanos in 1935 called Tortilla Flat. Steinbeck received even greater acclaim for the novella Of Mice and Men (1937), a tragic story about the strange, complex bond between two migrant laborers (GradeSaver). In 1939 he published what is considered his best work, The Grapes of Wrath, the story of Oklahoma tenant farmers who, unable to earn a living from the land, moved to California where they became migratory workers (NobelPrize). During World War II, Steinbeck wrote some effective pieces of government propaganda, among them The Moon Is Down (1942), a novel about Norwegians under the Nazis (GradeSaver). He wrote some more works with the end of the war as well. Among his later works should be mentioned East of Eden (1952), The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), and Travels with Charley (1962), a travelogue in which Steinbeck wrote about his impressions during a three-month tour in a truck that led him through forty American states (NobelPrize). Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1962 and died four years later in New York City.

                Steinbeck's greatest contribution is image of the lower and middle class in his work.  At a time when America's struggles needed to be voiced, Steinbeck was able to give view to what it meant to struggle in an America that was struggling economically, socially, and politically.  In this light, Steinbeck was honest about where America was and how America should be seen. Steinbeck's reputation is dependent primarily on the naturalistic, proletarian-themed novels that he wrote during the Depression (GradeSaver). It is in these works that Steinbeck is most effective at building rich, symbolic structures and conveying the archetypal qualities of his characters (GradeSaver). Steinbeck is still a great literary force to this day, having his works in most high school and college courses.

               

Works Cited

GradeSaver. *Biography of John Steinbeck | List of Works, Study Guides & Essays*. GradeSaver, 9 April 2012 Web. 9 April 2012. <http://www.gradesaver.com/author/john-steinbeck/>

"John Steinbeck – Biography". Nobelprize.org. 9 Apr 2012 <http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1962/steinbeck-bio.html>