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John Steinbeck's Cannery Row - Living Heaven on Earth Essay

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Cannery Row: Living Heaven on Earth

Cannery Row (1945), a novel written by John Steinbeck, Nobel Prize winner for Literature, is a book without much of a plot. Instead, it's a novel where setting, atmosphere and most importantly character, take precedence. Steinbeck creates a colorful array of characters struggling to understand their own unique places in the world.

The story is set in the early 20th century, immediately following the Depression and World War II. The characters live in Monterey, California amid the jumble of the sardine fisheries, the "Palace Flophouses", Lee Chong's grocery, Dora's whorehouse, and Doc's Biological Lab. Throughout the book, Steinbeck has the uncanny ability to combine his characters' …show more content…

Steinbeck frequently interrupts the flow of what could be considered the main story line, by throwing short segments into the writing thus introducing a new character (usually not directly connected to the primary story) or referencing some sort of cruel occurrence of real life. For example, in chapter twelve Steinbeck writes about the death of Josh Billings, an author who had come to Monterey. After Billings' death, the doctor dumps his remains into a gulch, where a little boy and his dog later find them. The little boy, not knowing any better, takes the author's remains to use them for fishing. Upon hearing this, the town quickly collects all his insides and puts them in a leaden box, which was placed in Josh Billings' coffin.

The purpose of inserting this anecdote was to show the camaraderie and respect of the people in Cannery Row. At one point in the story, Steinbeck writes, "Josh Billings was a great man, a great writer. He had honored Monterey by dying there and he had been degraded" (64-65). Steinbeck demonstrates that by creating an atmosphere of noble intentions and good feelings for one another, everyone is able to live in a world of peace even when there are bad times.

Steinbeck spends the greater part of the book writing about a party that Mac and the boys plan to throw for Doc. The boys believe that since Doc has always been such a nice guy that

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