John Steinbeck's novels expressed an ecological world view that has only recently begun to accumulate proponents. This holistic view grew during an era when such thinking was unpopular, and one must wonder how this growth could have occurred in a climate which was hostile for it. Some investigation shows that the seeds for this view already existed in his childhood and were nurtured through his exposure to ideas in marine biology.
While growing up in Salinas, Steinbeck had the opportunity to spend a lot of time outdoors. His uncle used to take him on fishing trips, and combined with the times he visited his maternal grand-fathers' farm near King City, it undoubtedly gave him an appreciation for nature. Later in his life, he became a caretaker on a "large estate at Lake Tahoe," and he continued to spend time in nature throughout his life and often took his sons to go fishing or camping when they visited him during the summers (Steinbeck, E. & Wallsten, P.., 1975).
In addition to the time he spent outdoors, he was exposed to the farming community in the Salinas Valley. Even though his grandfather's farm could not sustain crops (Steinbeck, T., 1992), the whole community was dependent on the inter-connection of living creatures within the valley. The lives of these farmers and their future production always depended on the current production of the land.
When the crops were plentiful, the harvest would bring money and food and supplies for the next year's crop. Rain had an enormous impact on the farmers. Too much or too little could be devastating to their crops or the food supply of farm animals, and they affected the farmers who were dependent them. This cycle was discussed in novels such as The Long Valley and Grapes of Wrath.
Most of the city of Salinas was built up by farmers or various support industries that come after original settlers arrived. Anything that affected the farmers would have probably been reflected in Salinas in some form. Thus, his entire upbringing was filled with an exposure to the interconnectivity of life.
While Steinbeck was attending Stanford University, he took a marine biology course from graduate student, Charles Vincent Taylor. Taylor was a student of William Emerson Ritter whose ideas could easily enforce an ecological world-view. Ritter believed that the whole was related to its parts, and they each exercise some control over the each other as well as to the whole. Through Taylor, Steinbeck was exposed to Ritter's idea. As stated in the hand-out given to the class entitled, The Teachers, Steinbeck told a friend that the 'biggest thing he got out of that summer was the idea of the superorganism.'
Several years after having taken this class, Steinbeck met Edward Flanders Ricketts. They were best friends and spent long, drunken hours exchanging (and sometimes entwining) philosophies and world-views. Ricketts had studied under Warder Clyde Allee, whose main work was in the examination of animal aggregations. He discusses a web-of-life wherein all life is interrelated and that there are inter-community activities that tend to unify the whole (Allee, W. C. 1932). He believed that by studying groupings of organisms, one can see that there are relationships between organisms in which they cooperate with each other in order to maintain the whole eco-niche in which they live. Through Ricketts, Steinbeck was exposed to the work of Allee.
As mentioned in lecture on February 26, 1998, Ricketts wrote a book, Between the Pacific Tides, which was revolutionary in its scope. The book examined the organisms within the littoral as they interacted with each other rather than discussing each organism within its own isolated taxonomic family. Aside from drinking and philosophizing, Ricketts and Steinbeck enjoyed collecting marine creatures from tide-pools. In fact, as stated in the same lecture, Steinbeck aspired to become a marine biologist. He and Ricketts planned to co-author a book on the marine life of the San Francisco Bay which was to be Steinbeck's entry into the marine biology scientific community.
Exposure to the marine creatures probably had as big an effect on Steinbeck as the ideas of the above-mentioned scientists. An example of this was given in one of the class lectures. Slides were shown of marine life, and one of the slides was a striking example of the symbiotic relationships between these creatures. The slide showed a shrimp cleaning parasites from a fish. We were told that while the shrimp was feeding on these parasites, other fish line up behind the first fish to await their turn to be cleaned. The shrimp was fed by the fish and the fish were kept healthy by the shrimp. The relationship between the parasites, the fish, and the shrimp was a ideal example of the inter-connectivity between species in their environment.
Steinbeck's view of the world, expressed through his novels, was set within an ecological framework. His childhood environments played a role in the creation of this view, and his subsequent exposure to marine biology contributed to and elaborated upon it. This led to his ability to view organisms in an environment as symbiotic relationships within a whole-a superorganism.
Bibliography
1. Steinbeck, E., and Wallsten, R. (Ed.). (1975). Steinbeck
A Life in Letters. New York: The Viking Press.
2. Steinbeck, J. (1992). East of Eden. New York: Penguin Books.
3. Steinbeck, J. (1995). The Long Valley. New York. Penguin Books.
4. Steinbeck, J. (1992). The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin Books.
5. Hand-out from class: The Teachers.
6. Allee,W.C.(1932). Animal Life and Social Growth. Baltimore, MD):The Williams and Wilkins Co.
