When Steinbeck turns to describe the inhabitants of Cannery Row he describes them with the same zoologist eye and sees them in a tide pool with the same seductions, appetites and survival instincts. Like Sea of Cortez, Cannery Row is linked as well to American romantic literature of the nineteenth century. The inhabitants of the Row are romantics in their casual defiance of traditional society. Mack, his boys, and others live in a relatively independent existence, illustrating Emerson’s dictum of doing your own thing. Others appear less hedonic than dreamy and mysterious, thereby contributing to the romantic aura. Doc may or may not be considered a Thoreauvian character, but as a scientist he finds in the tide pools evidence for nature’s laws …show more content…
The tide pool image, figuratively a part of the community, bears resemblance to Thoreau’s pond and possible to Melville’s ocean. These and other romantic elements tend to be ironic, for not many things in the novel are truly heroic or exceptional. Steinbeck’s reply to Malcolm Cowley that Cannery Row was indeed a “poisoned cream puff” attests to the other side of the coin ( Lisca, The Wide World, p. 198). That other side is satire directed at most aspects of life in Cannery Row. There is obvious ridicule in references to middle-class and upper-class men who slip unseen into Dora’s place, to owners and administrators of canneries who drive sheltered in big cars to and from their offices in the Row, and to police and city officials who require big donations from Dora is she is to stay in business. Middle-class respectability such as ambition, perseverance, industry, and dependability receive their comeuppance because Mack, Eddie, Albert, and the Mallorys put little faith in standards of the arrived or the almost-arrived. Yet the Row figures do not escape reproach because they are not above displays of selfishness, dishonesty, and immaturity. Mack’s rejection of William, the bouncer and pimp, leads to the
As John Steinbeck publishes “Cannery Row” in 1945, the same year when World War II ends, some scholars claim that his book somehow relates to the war. The novel is one of the most admirable modern-American narratives of the 20th and 21st century. It is set during the Great Depression in Monterey, California. The entire story is attached to a sensitively complex ecosystem that creates different approaches for the reader. The system is so fragile that one’s mistake can be the town’s last. Steinbeck depicts unique characters like Mack and the boys (who will stand as one character and/or group), Doc, and Lee Chong. Although there are many themes that can be extracted from these characters, the theme that arises the most is the isolation of the individual as it can be split into two different categories, the psychological and the physical.
Cannery Row is densely populated with a group of characters, in the narrative sense of the word and in terms of personalities. There is Dora, an imposing figure of a woman who runs a successful brothel, Henri, the non-French Frenchman, Lee Chong the shrewd but kind-hearted grocer, Doc the scientist, Mack, who leads a small group of men and is loved by the people of Cannery Row, and a host of other fascinating people who make Cannery Row so compelling. It may not seem obvious when reading John Steinbeck’s novel “Cannery Row,” but the main point or lesson in the novel is the importance of respect and Steinbeck uses his characters to tell this story about
"No one is born a racist bigot. In other words, racial bigotry or racial prejudice is not genetically or
In reading the excerpt from Cannery Row by John Steinbeck I noticed that in many ways it was similar to "The Hairy Devil" chapter in The Shipping News. "And it is also generally understood that a party hardly ever goes the way it is planned or intended." This excerpt from Cannery Row helps illustrate the main themes of both works. In both stories the parties were not intended to get out of control but they took a sudden change of events, mostly due to the consumption of alcohol. The characters in Cannery Row seem almost happy and excited when a fight breaks out at the party.
As night falls on Cannery Row actuality and fear overwhelms the souls as they lay awake at night. At this very moment they are alone to think to ponder their existence their importance their meaning. During the day the things the people of Cannery Row use to fill their void. To give them happiness is gone and for those long hours of the night they are truly alone. The cats, the parties, and companions are gone just for a second. But they return in the morning to calm the weary and the broken spirits of the people in Cannery Row. Each of us just like the people in Cannery Row uses something or someone to compensate for the loneliness in our lives. Money, relationships, and personal struggles are evident and bring about loneliness to the people in cannery. They bring about loneliness to everyone not just the people of Cannery Row. Cannery Row is not a fantasy or a dream for we can all learn something from each person in this story. Their lives can be a reflection of our own lives. We may not talk to cats or hang curtains in a room with no windows. But we share something with these people. And if we sympathize with these people it is because we feel we can relate in some kind of way. All of us as human beings on this earth use something to nourish the loneliness in our lives without these certain things we would feel neglected, distressed and misplaced. Cannery Row is filled with misfits people who just do not belong in what you would call a normal society. But they all seem to gather and blend in this one place where they can belong. In Cannery Row people go to the beat of their own drum. They go where they want. Do what they want and they say what needs to be said. The freedom to be different to be eccentric is something the...
No matter in the past or present, the world never lacks actors and their nauseating affectations can be seen everywhere in life. They are pretending to have all those perfect beliefs and feelings and acting like the greatest people ever while they are really not. Satire is used by Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to depict how all kinds of people say one thing and do another in America in early 1800s, demonstrating that Mark Twain wants readers to be aware of the hypocrisy and ignorance of American society.
... it functions. Cannery Row also shows how much everyone truly needs community in our society, even the Undesirables of the world. Many characters throughout the novel show this, such as Doc with the loneliness he presents. The community in Cannery Row encompasses a very wide variety of people, from whores to bums to strange storeowners. Although these people are all independent and completely different, they are all interconnected and are willing to support each-other. In Cannery Row, Steinbeck presents a structure of different moral values, those which make a person good, and also those who are valued by society, but may be valued for the wrong reasons. Steinbeck defines what he thinks a good person is, using the characters in the book as examples. He shows that what society sees as an ideal person may not be as good as the traits that people generally scorn.
Satire is a writing technique used oftentimes as a way to criticize or mock something comically. Many writers utilize satire to reveal their perspectives on social issues without outright stating them. Mark Twain 's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn exhibits many examples of satire, all of which hint towards Twain 's opinions of the American society he lived in. Three particular societal norms Mark Twain uses satire to mock multiple times in his novel, include but are not limited to; racism and slavery, religion, and family feuds. There are multiple other instances for which satire is used, but these three are exceedingly prominent throughout the novel.
ohn Steinbeck's “Cannery Row” offers many interpretations, especially when viewed through the lens of the Holy Bible. From the Christ like figure of Doc to his apostles, Mack and the boys, Cannery Row is ripe with religious tropes. However, Doc is also considered to be quick to anger at times, and carries with him many themes found throughout the Old Testament texts and some legends that are even more aged. However, if we consider Doc to be the messianic figure he is then it wasn't the party that Doc had a problem with, nor that it was held without his knowing on his property. The issue arises with the process by which Mack and the boys use to fund the party. The green frogs harvested ultimately causes Mack and the boys to succumb to greed in an effort to praise Doc. The collection of frogs used as a currency is what sends Doc into a rage.
Interpersonal relationships are a potent entity that wildly flutter, like a liberated pigeon, through the miserable docks of Elia Kazan’s 1954 film ‘On the Waterfront,’ shaping the moral metamorphosis of protagonist Terry Malloy – from an analysts perspective, the ‘power’ source of the film. Terry’s voyage from an inarticulate and diminished “bum” to a gallant “contender,” is the pedestal that the film gyrates around, however, it is palpable that Terry – a man branded with his primitive mores - is not equipped of emancipating himself from the self-preservative cycle of “D and D” singlehandedly. Therefore, the catalytic, moral facilitation of inspirational outsiders - Edie Doyle and Father Barry – are essential to the rewiring of Terry’s conscience and his propulsion into “testifying what is right against what is wrong.” However, rapports do not simply remain ‘strong’ and stable for the entire duration of the film – they fluctuate. Terry shuffles closer to the side of morality each scene, portrayed by the simultaneous deterioration of Terry’s intertwinement with Johnny Friendly and “the mob” and intensification of his romantic involvement with Edie and confidence in Father Barry. Relationships fuel and glorify Terry’s powerful, audience-enthralling journey to morality.
John Steinbeck is an intriguing and intelligent author native to the grapevine-woven and sun-soaked Salinas, California. Many of his works, including Of Mice and Men, and Cannery Row, have striking similarities such as similar characters, and setting , seeing as they ‘took place’ near each other in real life. As any good book, both of these novels have many ideas that are in fact complete opposites, like the overall story progression and the plot, or absence of one in the case of Cannery Row. To understand these two books clearly, this essay will compare and contrast the setting, characters, plot, and the themes present in both books.
... influenced by Steinbeck’s upbringings and local residence of the Salinas valley to the Monterey bay.
“You crazy fool. Don’t you think I could see your feet was wet where you went acrost the river to get it?” He heard Lennie’s whimpering cry and wheeled about. “Blubbering’ like a baby! Jesus Christ! A big guy like you.” Lennie’s lip quivered and tears started in his eyes. “Aw, Lennie!” George put his hand on Lennie’s shoulder. “I ain’t takin’ it away jus’ for meanness. That mouse ain’t fresh, Lennie; and besides, you’ve broke it pettin’ it. You get another mouse that’s fresh and I’ll let you keep it a little while.” (Steinbeck
Cannery Row is a novel John Steinbeck wrote after World War I. At first, the novel almost seems like a humorous book, written in a style commonly used by Steinbeck. The book has its main plot, but also has side chapters that periodically interrupt the main idea, which adds to the story. One would think that these side chapters are there to universalize the book, but in fact that is not true. The side chapters tell their own story, and they have a message that Steinbeck was clearly trying to show through his book. The novel has a main point about respect. In Cannery Row , Steinbeck is trying to say that respectability is the destructive force that preys on the world. Steinbeck uses his characters to tell this story about respect and its effect on society. The central figure of the whole book, Doc, better explains this point by saying, "It has always seemed strange to me . . . The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitive, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second" (131).
he book Huckleberry Finn is a satirical/fictitious book written by Mark Twain as a means of exposing a southern society and it’s culture of racism slavery and so on. The story revolves around a young boy and a runaway slave that are both running from something that haunts. Throughout the story there are many motifs of slavery racism and many others in that category all shown through the eyes of a young boy and an older slave. Through thick and thin the two stay close together as a means of comfort and companionship. Jim being a runaway slave and Huck a young white boy of no higher status, but still higher than the slave takes a long journey along the Mississippi River to a road to freedom that they only feel is true freedom from the chains