John Steinbeck

1902 - 1968

"[The writer's first duty was to]

set down his time as nearly as he

can understand it [and serve as]

the watch-dog of society ... to

satirize its silliness, to attack its

injustices, to stigmatize its

faults."

• 1902 Born in Salinas, California- used as setting for many novels

• 1919-25 attended Stanford but did not take a degree

• 1929- First novel published Cup of Gold

• 1935- Tortilla Flat = turning point of career

• 1939- Grapes of Wrath = Pulitzer Prize

• Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962 “...for his realistic as well as imaginative writings, distinguished by a sympathetic humor and a keen social perception.”

• Died December 20, 1968

• Uses observation and research to comment on human nature and society-activist for union, human rights, anti-war.

"What we have always

wanted is an

unchangeable, and we

have found that only a

compass point, a thought,

an individual ideal, does

not change." - JS

Considered the foremost novelist of the American Depression of the 1930s, John Steinbeck was the 1962 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

He studied firsthand the struggles of the migrant workers; he celebrates their labor in ritualistic terms and shows the downtrodden overcoming their many adversities through courage and dignity, and through their compassion for fellow sufferers.

His prose is considered lyrical in its ability to capture the native speech, folktales and humor of a particular region.

John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, the center of the Californian lettuce industry, in 1902.

He was of German-Irish ancestry. His father, John Ernst Steinbeck, was county treasurer and his mother, Olivia Hamilton, a teacher.

Steinbeck attended Salinas High School and then went on to study marine biology at Stanford University, although he never earned a degree.

He travelled to New York where he worked as a reporter, but was fired.

He then took odd jobs including hod carrier, apprentice painter, caretaker, surveyor and fruitpicker.

His first novel Cup of Gold(1929), was an historical romance based on the life of the Jamaican buccaneer, Captain Henry Morgan.

In 1930, he married for the first time, Carol Henning (they were divorced in 1943). He was to be married twice more, to Gwyn Conger in 1943 and Elaine Anderson in 1950.

It was with his 1935 novel Tortilla Flatthat Steinbeck won popular attention. In this and subsequent novels, he continued to write about America's dispossessed rural folk.

Steinbeck had a journalist's grasp of significant detail and his novels reflect this. Of Mice and Men was published in 1937.

The 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrathwas a Pulitzer prize winner and was made into a classic film in 1940.

It awakened America's social consciousness and, for this reason, was compared to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.

During World War Two, Steinbeck became a war correspondent. Later he was to get special reporting assignments abroad.

Steinbeck was controversial because of his support for the underprivileged and he did not receive much acclaim for his later novels. He suffered a long period of adverse criticism in America, but remained popular in Europe.

In the 1960s, he made a tour of 40 states of the USA with his poodle, publishing Travels with Charley in search of America (1962) as a result of his journey. In the same year he was awarded the Nobel prize.

““ The The ancient commission ancient commission of of the writer the writer has not has not changed.changed.He He is charged with is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of purpose of improvement.improvement.”” Nobel Prize Nobel Prize

Acceptance Speech (1962)Acceptance Speech (1962)

He died in 1968.

Of Mice and Men

Images of Steinbeck’s California

1930s: The Great Depression

Dustbowl Map showing the major damage in 1932

This car is stuck in the once fertile land that is now bereft of topsoil

Hobo with bindle-stiff (home-made back pack) that carries all his

possessions

Another view of hobo with a bindle-stiff

Young girl traveling with her family to California, looking for work

and a new place to live

Families who had enough money, drove to California in a car loaded

down with all the belongings they owned

In the 1930s, families were bigger. They pack their belongings inside

and outside the only vehicle

People who did not have money to ride in a car often rode illegally

(without tickets) on the country’s railways.

However, most people walked the 1700 mile trip.

This migrant family tries to wash clothes at a migrant workers’

camp

The workday started at dawn and ended at dusk. This family shares a

meager supper after a day of work

Migrant workers harvesting in a cotton field in California

Migrant workers picking peas for about .20 a day

Another scene from a migrant workers’ camp

Driving into a migrant workers’ camp

On this table, you see a family’s dishes and all the food they have

The mother in this picture tries to organize the tent before

leaving to work in the morning

For $10 a month, you could rent this migrant worker’s house. Most could

not afford the rent.

This woman typifies the young Kansas woman in California. She is 24 years old and has five children. Her husband died of exhaustion.

This photo won the Pulitzer Prize in 1934.

The man in this photo reminds me of one of the main characters in OF

MICE AND MEN—the character named LENNIE

A dream for many: to be able to buy a lot and build a home of their

own.

This family has just sold their tent for money to enable them to eat. This

family has 7 children, and the mom (in front) is just 32 years old.

“The best laid plans

of mice and men

Often go astray….”

--from the poem

“To a Mouse” by Robert Burns

Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers—

That perches in the soul—

And sings the tune without the words—

And never stops—at all—

--Emily Dickinson (1861)

Dreams

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on.”

--Prospero, in The Tempest by Shakespeare

People need other people to be complete

Salinas Valley, California

Get Ready to Read:

Novel’s Style

• play-novelette form

• developed the characters

through speech and

actions

• dialogue reveals the

characters to the reader

• common laborer language

contrasts with the tender

motives of George,

Lennie, Candy, and Slim

Setting

• 1930s, during Depression, near

Salinas River in California

• in keeping with the play format,

the scene settings are simplistic,

easy to portray on stage

• action takes place over a 3 day

period

– begins and ends by the river

– middle scenes set in the

bunkhouse interior, in

Crooks’ crowded room, and

inside the hay-filled barn

Point of View/Narrative Voice

• 3rd person objective

• reader is not directly let in on the thoughts or feelings of the characters

– except for the gigantic rabbit’s

appearance in the last chapter

• causes the reader to draw his own conclusions about the characters

Characters

• George: trim man with dark,

sharp features; quick and

perceptive. Lennie makes

George feel smart and needed.

• Lennie: huge, innocent man

with a limited intellect.

– Incapable of living on his own.

Depends entirely on George

for guidance.

– Often described in animal

terms and closely associated

with animals throughout novel

Characters

• Candy: good-hearted old gossip with only one hand; wants to share in George and Lennie’s dream

• Curley: bad-tempered, arrogant little man; always ready for a confrontation. Overly occupied with what people think of him; has no close relationships

• Curley’s Wife: never given a name; young woman with beautiful curls who wears too much make-up. She marries to escape her home life but is lonely and bored on the ranch. Flirts with ranch hands which fuels Curley’s anger.

Characters

• Slim: respected by the ranch

hands who accept his word as law;

kind and practical, he befriends

Lennie and George

• Carlson: large, self-centered

man; quick to take action;

unaffected by the dream

• Crooks: proud and bitter man

whose face is lined with constant

pain; isolated from the other men

because of his race; holds brief

hope that he can be a part of the

dream

Allegory

• Story told on 2 different levels:

– a story of 2 ranch hands in the 1930s

– a story of the world and how it ostracizes people based on unfounded prejudices

• three outcasts: Lennie, Curley’s wife, Crooks

• isolated for being different from the “normal” ranch hands