The Importance Of Water In Water By John Steinbeck

This is Water, was a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College in 2005. Ever since this speech has been given it has become well known. Because of the length, it can be hard to read through the speech while trying to understand the whole idea of it. Wallace fills the speech with stories, examples, and vivid ideas while trying to convince these college graduates how to view life in a positive perspective. While this speech is packed full of ideas he manages to give it in a way outside of the norm for commencement speeches. Yet still gets all the information to the graduates and anyone else who listens to it.

There are many authors, poetry writers, and novelists around this world, but what make them into a famous author or writer? One of the famous American writer was John Steinbeck. He earned a Nobel prize of literature from his American classic novels that he had written in the past. The Nobel prize was not the only award that he had earned for his literature, he earned different awards for his writings also (John Stein..). John Steinbeck is a man who had overcome different obstacles and being successful in life.

In The Color of Water by James McBride he faces plenty of obstacles in his life. One that I think was very important during his childhood is in chapter 14 where makes a few bad choices after his stepfather, Hunter Jordan, dies. Since James didn't get to know his biological father, Hunter was the closest he ever came to having one. He makes it clear that his family loved Hunter and when he died they were all devastated but none as much as their mother. It's safe to say she wasn't the same and that can be seen when McBride says "She sent us off to school and tried to maintain her crazy house as usual, ranting about this and that, but the fire was gone" (McBride, 137). I think his mother's behavior no doubt had some effect on the way he acted.

James McBride’s memoir The Color of Water, compares two troubled, young lives in which they are victims of racial prejudices and alienation. In this novel, Ruth McBride, the mother of the author, encounters the most alienation of all characters mentioned because of her religion and family decisions and social circumstances. Ruth endured several struggles that impacted her perspective on her religion, Judaism, and the society where she feels unwelcome. Ruth’s relationship with Dennis, a black man, was an impediment to her keeping close contact with her family. Coming from a Jewish heritage, “They said kaddish and sat shiva. That’s how Orthodox Jews mourn their dead” (McBride 2). Realizing that starting a new life would be better than tending

Water is a clear, colourless, odourless, and tasteless liquid; an essential substance for most plant and animal life, and vital for human existence. In his novel, The Wars, Canadian author Timothy Findley uses water, one of the four elements of nature, and discusses its role in the nightmarish world of trench warfare and in a world gone mad. Water imagery serves an important role and it’s meaning evolves throughout the novel. Water symbolizes life, Robert’s transitions, and Robert’s shattered innocence, as well as the change that comes along with it.

When forced to give up so much, the Joad family begins to question their faith. Several religions share the belief that water has the power to cleanse and purify oneself. When the Joad family arrives in California, all of the men bathe in a river, symbolizing their rebirth. They are purging themselves of the past and focusing on their future and their aspirations. When they submerge themselves in the water, all of their tribulations such as Granpa’s death and the loss of their farm, will be left behind in order to focus on what’s to come. The water also symbolizes a new start for the Joad family. Steinbeck writes, “He cupped his hands full of water and rubbed his face...dusty water ran out of his hair and streaked his neck” (284). The

I. John Steinbeck used his personal experiences as a laborer to write many of his novels like Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath.

In this novella, I developed a thesis statement, which is: The pearl kept Kino moving forward because it represented hope during a period in his life. I chose this thesis statement because one of the aspects that makes this story move forward is Kino’s hope and greed; even if this greed is based on his hope. Steinbeck quotes: “Every man suddenly became related to Kino’s pearl, the schemes, the plans, the futures, the wishes, the needs, the lusts, the hungers of everyone, and only one person stood in the way and that was Kino, so he became curiously everyman’s enemy” (Steinbeck, 27).

It is important to find out who you are. In order to find out who you are, you must start you’re roots and if you have no roots or are unable to reach them, finding where you came from to help find yourself becomes really difficult. Also it’s hard to find yourself when you have others telling you who you are and who you are supposed to be. These two put together makes it extremely hard to find yourself. In James McBride’s memoir The Color of Water, James McBride has conflicting feelings of being biracial illustrates how important it is to know where you came from and who you are in order to move forward in your life.

In David Cassuto’s essay “Turning Wine into Water: Water as Privileged Signifier in ‘The Grapes of Wrath”, the author highlights both the importance of water in the Great Plains in the 1930’s and the importance of water in the Joad’s journey. Cassuto focuses especially on the land’s need for water and, despite the necessity of water, on how it was a “commodity” and a “symbol of wealth.” He calls to mind the separation of class ever-present in Steinbeck’s novel and how it was based on who had control of the water. He also points out that the abundance of water during the flooding works as a “maximum counterpoint” to the Dust Bowl droughts. Cassuto proposes that “Steinbeck weaves water into the novel’s structure as well as virtually every thematically significant event”. Cassuto concludes that the conflict between water and land is as prevalent in the novel as the men and their women and the duality with the men and their land.

During the story, a lot of families were losing their land to the banks. Many of the families had been living there for generations, and the land was wrongly taken from them. Steinbeck wanted to show how the conglomerates were taking away core parts of the families. He also wanted to show how they were mistreated by everyone. Steinbeck shows this point by writing how the banks severed the families’ ties that were connected to the land, showing how the banks destroyed people’s lands, and forced the families into destitution.

Every great writer had their own influences, John Steinbeck was no exception. Steinbeck’s influences cam from family, friends, and his environment to write detailed descriptions to involve or influence the reader. Whenever someone reads one of John Steinbeck’s works they are in immersed in the scene he is describing, he makes you feel as if you are right there experiencing everything there first hand.

In conjunction with the symbolic representation of Elisa’s life, the dramatic description of the environment can also be seen as a unique representation of the relationship conflict between husband and wife. Steinbeck’s foggy description demonstrates conflict through the following statement, "a time of quiet and waiting." This description is interesting because the fields are personified as waiting for rain, however, “rain and fog do not go together” therein lies the conflict just as Elisa waits for a positive change in how her husband treats her (Palmerino, Gregory J). Gregory P. further points out that, “The natural elements of the foothills ranch seem as unwilling to confront each other as the characters that inhabit its environs. Hence, fog and rain can be seen as the female and male equivalents to Elisa and Henry.” This only further solidifies the deep rooted troubles within Elisa and her relationship with her husband. The setting of the story is personified to act as a symbolic representation of the couple’s relationship (Steinbeck, John 337-338).

One cannot truly change the world around without first mastering the art of looking beyond oneself and into the outside world. This idea of looking beyond oneself has been the focus of ancient and modern philosophers throughout the world. In “The Is Water”(2005), a commencement address, David Foster Wallace, a modern day philosopher, implies that people generally view the world from a selfish perspective and elaborates on how the world should work to reverse its self-centered ways. Wallace reveals his topic through a series of anecdotes, each highlighting a different way we are focused on ourselves and then providing a way to view each situation from a different perspective. Wallace’s purpose is to point out the faults in thinking only for

After I read “The Pearl”, I learned that once our enemy has become nature itself, our animal instincts take over. After Kino’s house burned down and his canoe destroyed, Steinbeck quotes, “He was an animal now, for hiding, for attacking, and he lived only to preserve himself and his family.” (Steinbeck, 64). I used to think that we humans would be able to maintain our sanity through any situation. However, Kino taught me that we all become animals when nature becomes our enemy such as the time when he left the town: “The wind blew fierce and strong, and it pelted them with bits of sticks, sand, and little rocks.” (Steinbeck, 69). From this, we’re shown that once they’ve left their home, their “paradise”, nature becomes their enemy, and it haunts them in every corner. During this period, Kino becomes more animal-like such as his response to when he and Juana saw the pool of water: “They came utterly weary to the pool, and Juana slumped to her knees…Kino drank long and thirstily at the pool.” (Steinbeck, 80).