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 in American Literature
Monday, April 30, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
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.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
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>.
Monday, April 9, 2012
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>
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