Essay on Cannery Row

The dust bowl was a tragic time in America for so many families and John Steinbeck does a great job at getting up-close and personal with one family to show these tragedies. In the novel, “The Grapes of Wrath”, John Steinbeck employed a variety of rhetorical devices, such as asyndeton, personification and simile, in order to persuade his readers to enact positive change from the turmoil of the Great Depression. Throughout the novel, Steinbeck tells the fictional narrative of Tom Joad and his family, while exploring social issues and the hardships of families who had to endure the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. Steinbeck’s purpose was to challenge readers to look at

For a nailed surface, Weygers used a door he rescued from a Cannery Row speak-easy. He chose slabs whose curves would fit together. Where they did not, he used a keyhole saw that he built to trim them. Weygers made the hinges for the door with recycled leaf springs rescued from wrecked automobiles. When he hung the door in its frame, Weygers discovered it was so thick it would not open at all. He then used hand-made carving gouges to pare away some of the thickness, and the door swung freely.

In Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, the gopher story parallels the story at the beginning about the silk worm. Steinbeck used the story to portray his approach to writing the book and “let the stories crawl in by themselves”. It sets up the book as the gopher story closes it out. The gopher seems to convey the overall destiny of Cannery Row. They start out in great environments. Even in the prime of the life to achieve the desires. The patience wears thin to and is convince to make a way. Then there is an acceptance of doing what they have to truly be satisfied. Even if it means risking being uncomfortable and trapped, what their hearts desire is worth it. The story ends open ended, leaving the reader unsure of the fate that is ahead.

Steinbeck exploits a disturbing and melancholy tone in The Grapes of Wrath in order to describe the desolation and destitution of California, once the Joad family arrives. A majority of the novel supports Steinbeck’s disturbing tone, especially with the novel set during the Great Depression; moreover, the setting of the novel proves parallel with Steinbeck’s disturbing tone. Many families traveled to California in attempts to begin a better life; however, many of the migrants discovered that California’s lifestyle did not meet any of the expectation many of the families had. The poverty, low wages, and unemployment that the Okies faced in California proved disappointing, and Steinbeck continually illustrates the struggles the Okies face to

John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath, takes place during the Great Depression, a time when troubled and distressed American men and women lived; a time of poverty and an economic crisis. When change is thought upon, it is to be thought of new life and new experiences. The Great Depression is the kind of change that replaces a part of American living with “ Somepin’s happening. I went up an’ I looked, an’ the houses is all empty, an’ the lan’ is empty, an’ this whole country is empty” ( Steinbeck 94). In his work, Steinbeck presents the hardships that Americans had to go through by being mindful of particular aspects which makes the reader understand the characters’ distress. For example, the landscape of the farm lands. Even though the land has its brutality, it grows to be the scenery for humans to be able to recognize and consider their troubles about work and life in general. With these concerns, there are differences between the people who are accustomed to the landscape and admire it, and those who do not agree with it. In the novel, Steinbeck uses attributes of class conflict and injustice as a way of presenting and socially commenting that the Great Depression brought attention to more problems beyond the idea of poverty.

No matter what status someone was during that time, everyone was deeply affected by the Great Depression. The time period for Cannery Row was during the Great Depression and the narrator made sure the characters and setting were described for that time. For example, the Malloys were a simple couple without a home. They did not need a fancy mansion to live in. They needed a place for refuge, nothing more nothing less.

John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath, was first written and later published in the 1939. From the time of its publication to date, the exemplary yet a simple book has seen Steinbeck win a number of highly coveted awards including Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and later on Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. Set at the time of the Great Depression, the book most remarkably gives a descriptive account of the Oklahoma based sharecropper Joad’ poor family in the light of economic hardship, homelessness, and the impacts of worst changing agricultural and financial sectors to the poor in America then. Throughout the chapters, the book brings into sharp focus the dehumanizing individual lives of the lower class during the time of Great Depression

Human behavior is a function of the environment that he/she is brought up in because it is the environment that shapes the person’s morals. This statement is openly validated in the novel Cannery Row where an inclusive community is built as a result of good morals that have been developed and shaped by the environment. Cannery Row is novel that was published in 1945 by John Steinbeck in Monterey. It was named after a waterfront street in California which had sardine caning factories. According to Grasse et al (75), fellowship and warm-heartedness is all that is required to form a united and successful community. Wealth is important part of one’s life but it should not take away the person’s happiness. Steinbeck in his work uses the characters of the novel to communicate this message in a clear and understandable manner. The name of the novel matches with the actual meaning that the writer wanted to communicate the readers. He used the name to enable the readers to be able to relate the novel’s actual meaning with authentic opinions.

In 1929, tears swept the nation and gloom bestowed itself upon a once happy place. The Great Depression had started. People lost everything ,so many became migrant workers. Of Mice and Men, a classic novel written by John Steinbeck, emphasizes many sad themes, but gives us a good insight on what life was like in the 1940’s for many people. Although there are other themes, rootlessness, loneliness, and poverty are extremely prominent throughout the novel in many characters.

The minor characters in John Steinbeck’s novel Cannery Row are a contradiction within themselves. Steinbeck shows two conflicting sides to each character; for example, Mack is smart and lazy and some of his colleagues are both good and bad. Doc is a father figure with some bad habits. Dora Flood is a kind-hearted saint who happens to run a brothel. Lee Chong is a shrewd businessman who likes to take advantage of others. Henri is an artist with a French background even though he isn’t from France. Through his characters, Steinbeck shows that humans are complicated and can have many faces.

In Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck, the value of community and the importance of everyone are dissected through a tale of everyday life in this small town. This is a story about the inhabitants of Cannery Row, and how they all get along, even when you aren't invited to the party. Steinbeck sets the scene in Cannery Row, a community by the water, based on the real town, Ocean View Avenue. With Lee Chong’s grocery, the Palace Flophouse and Grill, Dora’s homely brothel, and Doc’s lab, Western Biological, this is a very diverse neighborhood. The entire town is affected by the Great Depression.

In John Steinbeck 's The Grapes of Wrath, Tom Joad and his family are forced from their home during the 1930’s Oklahoma Dust Bowl and set out for California along with thousands of others in search of jobs, land, and hope for a brighter future. The Grapes of Wrath is Steinbeck’s way to expound about the injustice and hardship of real migrants during the Depression-era. He utilizes accurate factual information, somber imagery, and creates pathos, allowing readers connections to the Joad’s plight

In John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, Steinbeck focuses on traditional society but a society with different values. His society is the traditional society including class, the homeless, uneducated, but instead Steinbeck captures the humanity in the homeless, the bums, and prostitutes along with the uneducated. Steinbeck carries out the riches parts in the characters personalities and isn’t defining them for riches in their bank accounts. He uses friendship and sacrifice as their “humanity scale” in the novel.

The Great Depression broke down security and belief in American society during the early 20th century and brought out hidden prejudices. The once optimistic mood during the Roaring 20’s turned to pain. The dire economic situation caused Americans to return to past social stigmas where certain groups of people were seen as inferior; as a result, the American Dream, where everyone could seek their ideal of success, was reduced to merely a dream. John Steinbeck observed these changes in social behavior and witnessed the plight of many Americans during the Great Depression. Like in his later work, The Grapes of Wrath, he was inspired by his environment to expose the lives of people during the Great Depression using Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck observed these changes in social behavior and witnessed the plight of many Americans during the Great Depression. Steinbeck demonstrates in Of Mice and Men through the characters that the American Dream was naturally discriminatory towards certain groups of people because of common perceptions held during that period.

Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck, is a book that follows the relationships the inhabitants of the Monterey community have to one another. The adventures of the degenerates of the community revolve around the highly respectable Doc, making up the main plot of the book. However, the story of the dynamic between the two is laced with segments of distraught that paint the cannery into something other than a home to American industry. Steinbeck creates this little community to represent any other, however gives the reader different perspectives of the activities within in order to deconstruct the expected utopia that everyone assumes to plague local communities. He shifts the outlook on the cannery from a lifeless snapshot of a community located within Monterey California, to a living image bustling with reality. Steinbeck creates a rift in perspective to reflect the hidden values and realities of the ugly and beautiful through the interactions and pursuits of the degenerates of the community, “Mack and the boys,” and the figurehead of Cannery Row, Doc. Throughout the entire book, Mack and the Boys are proven to be quite noble men, despite their social rank. Each of the men in this group are shown to possess one unique quality that seems to be the moral of a folktale or mythological story. Even the purposes these men serve within the book are rooted within good intent. Meanwhile, the highly-respected Doc drowns himself in women and music to hide from his loneliness. This