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Character analysis of the chrysanthemums
Critical analysis of the chrysanthemums
Essay on the chrysanthemums
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The story I admire the most is, "The Chrysanthemums". There are two different versions of "The Chrysanthemums" circulating. There is a difference, but the differences are not extensive enough to alter the basic relationship in the story. The short story I am going to discuss is in "The Long Valley." ( French 183, Parani 210-211) John Steinbeck uses central symbolism and makes his story visual and very detailed. He uses naturalism, and shows the physical nature of the characters. From the setting, to the paradoxical, the plot, tone, and structure, and then to the climax of the story, Steinbeck had me visually picturing the story, and their situation. In my paper, I include a biography, I compared and contrasted Jack Irons works and my own ideas from "The Chrysanthemums". I have also included a short interview with my father.
John Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, at 132 Central Avenue, Salinas, California, what is now the reception room of the Steinbeck house. John Steinbeck was of German and Irish ancestry, and came from a family of moderate means. Steinbeck's family consisted of his mother Olive Hamilton Steinbeck, teacher, (1867-1934), father, John Steinbeck, county treasure, (1863-1935), sisters, Elizabeth Steinbeck Ainsworth (1884-1992), Mary Steinbeck Dekker (1905-1965), Ester Steinbeck Rodgers (1892-1986). John Steinbeck attended Salinas High school in 1915-1919. He also attended classes at Stanford University, originally as an English major. John Steinbeck pursued a program of independent study and his attendance was sporadic. He left Stanford without taking a degree. During these years, Steinbeck dropped out for several months and was employed intermittently as a sales cle...
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Parini, Jay. John Steinbeck A Biography. Canada: Fitzhenry & Whiteside Ltd., 1995. 209-211
"Steinbeck, John." Encyclopedia Britannica. < http://www.britannica.com/nobel/micro/565_16.html. > 23 March 2003.
"Steinbeck, John." Central Unified School District
<http://www.centralusd.k12.ca.us/steinbeck.elm/john%20steinbeck%20the%20writer.htm
23 March. 2003
"Steinbeck John-Biography" Nobel-e-Museum, Volume 1 (1901-1967) (1-1) 23 March. 2003
<Http://www.nobel.se/literature/laureates/1962/steinbeck-bio.html >
"About John Steinbeck," National Steinbeck Center <http://www.steinbeck.org/MainFrame.html> 23 March. 2003
1925: He went to New York City, working odd jobs, including manual labor for the
Steinbeck upon creating the novel in the 1930’s seen and was experiencing some of the things he wrote on. In the beginning he introduced to us a friendship between two opposite men. One man, George Wilson, is a little man compared to his companion. His friend, on the other hand, was a giant who was naïve as a new born baby. His name was Lennie Smalls. Lennie Smalls was a character that Steinbeck used to allow his audience to see that although he had a good heart and was seemingly helpless, that one day his strength would be the cause of his downfall. Questions on whether or not Steinbeck’s readers should believe in the image in which it is given or primarily based it on the novel being written in a bad environment from the first of the novel. Steinbeck knew upon writing that readers tend to cling and fall for the caring, loving, and misunderstood bad guy trying to prove his innocence against all evil brought to him. So Steinbeck created Lennie to try and portray this character to his audience. Steinbeck had to be sure that all elements presented in the novel were able flow good and complete the recipe (Krutch 29-30).
The theme of conflict looms over the entire plot in Of Mice and Men, beginning in the first scene, and persisting until the end. The conflict ranges from the captivating way Steinbeck makes man fight with his inner animalistic behaviour to the ever imminent conflict between George and Lennie with their drastically different personalities, appearances and understanding of their ideal, the American Dream. The Great Depression forms the backbone of Steinbeck’s novella, with events such as the stock market crash to the recovery from the First World War, allowing him to keep the realism of the conflicting events but still leave room for the intriguing, deeper side to each of the characters. Steinbeck manages to mask conflict within the novella by not simply stating the conflict, but using language and literary techniques he subtly implies it.
John Steinbeck was born in 1902, in California's Salinas Valley, a region that would eventually serve as the setting for Of Mice and Men, as well as many of his other works. He studied literature and writing at Stanford University. He then moved to New York City and worked as a laborer and journalist for five years, until he completed his first novel in 1929, Cup of Gold. With the publication of Tortilla Flat in 1935, Steinbeck achieved fame and became a popular author. He wrote many novels about the California laboring class. Two of his more famous novels included Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck got the title for Of Mice and Men from a line of Robert Burns, a Scottish poet, “The best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry." In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck includes the theme of loyalty and sacrifice between friends. Steinbeck illustrates the loyalty and sacrifice between friends through the friendship of Lennie and George.
John Steinbeck's Novel, Dubious Battle. We are lucky to have many talented writers who have successfully taught US history through their outstanding pieces of literature. One writer of this kind is John Steinbeck in the novel Dubious Battle. It takes place in the 1930’s when Franklin Deleanor Roosevelt was President.
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.
John Steinbeck was perhaps the best author of all time. He was the winner of a Nobel Prize, and among other accomplishments, Steinbeck published nineteen novels and made many movies during his lifetime. All of his experience and knowledge are shown through his novels. A reader can tell, just in reading a novel by Steinbeck, that he had been through a lot throughout his life. Also, Steinbeck worked very hard to accomplish everything that he did during his lifetime. Nothing came very easily to him, and he had to earn everything he owned. This helped him in his writing, because he was able to write about real people and real experiences. John Steinbeck got his inspiration from life experiences, people he knew, and places he had gone.
Not only does Steinbeck tell his story and put it in perspective, he also gives social commentary. One might expect this social commentary to be...
In Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck explores human relationships through characters who are barely fleshed out beyond the boundary of a stereotype. Many of the minor characters even have names which reflect their status as a symbol of their position rather than thinking, feeling people. Crooks, the African American stable buck, represents the "crooked" thinking of the majority toward other races during the time period while Curley's wife represents only that- the wife of a man. Her character serves to show the place of women in a man's society. Likewise, the two main characters, George and Lennie, each serve as a symbol of psychological and physical traits which complement each other to show how important human relationships are, regardless of the traits a person may possess. All human beings develop relationships with others because those relationships fill particular needs. Those needs may be physical, economic, psychological, or social.
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.
John Steinbeck was a major literary figure in the 20th century and continues to be widely read in the twenty-first century. Steinbeck was born on February 27,1902 (About John Steinbeck) in the Salinas Valley of California. (Laskov) "His father, John Steinbeck, Sr. was the County Treasurer and his mother, Olive Hamilton Steinbeck, was a former school teacher. As a youth, he worked as a ranch hand and fruit picker. (John Steinbeck [2])". "He attended the local high school and studied marine biology at Stanford University between 1920 and 1926, but did not take a degree" (John Steinbeck [1]). Steinbeck's fascination with science and biology is evident in most of his works such as in this quote from the Grapes of Wrath: "Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up in the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments." (Steinbeck 165) As Steinbeck began his writing career, he took many other jobs to support himself. For a short time, he worked at the American in New York City, and then returned to California where he worked various jobs such as a painter and fruit-picker before taking a job as a caretaker for a Lake Tahoe Estate. (John Steinbeck [1]) His job as a caretaker allowed him time to write and by the time he left the job in 1930 he had already published his first book, Cup of Gold (1929) and married his first wife Carol Henning (John Steinbeck [2]). After his marriage he moved to Pacific Grove, California where, in the early 1930s, Steinbeck met Edward Ricketts, a marine biologist, whose views on the interdependence of all life deeply influenced Steinbeck's novel To a God Unknown (1933). (John Steinbeck [2])
John Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California. Between 1919 and 1925 Steinbeck was acknowledged as a special student at Stanford University. According to Peter Lisac, “Variously employed as a had-carrier, fruit-picker, apprentice printer, laboratory assistant, caretaker, surveyor, reporter, writer, and foreign correspondent let him acquire knowledge in many areas.” (1) Even in his youth, Steinbeck developed a love of the natural world and diverse cultures. Steinbeck produced two children from his second wife, Elaine Scott. The early 1930’s became a struggle for Steinbeck, both in his
A famous writer by the name of John Steinbeck, who was also born in California, is the
John Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California. He had a pretty average childhood with a supportive family and a decent education. While growing up his mother, Olive Hamilton, was a major factor in his education, since she was a schoolteacher and made it her duty to educate him. His mother most likely was the reason he developed a love of reading and literature and ended up going to Stanford. In his child there were only two major events that affected his writing. These were when he worked on a ranch with migrant workers, and when his father’s business failed and the family was temporarily thrust into poverty. These two events most likely sparked his interest in the poor lives of the migrant workers. His experiences on the ranch taught him about the harsh and impoverished lives of the migrant workers and his experience of being in poverty enabled him to understand what life is like when one is poor, as the migrant workers were. This understanding inspired some of his most famous writings such as: Of Mice and Men, In Dubious Battle and The Grapes of Wrath. These experiences also allowed him to add a sense of realism to the stories. After graduating from his public high school in 1919 Steinbeck went to Stanford. He went there for 5 years before dropping out without a degree and moving to New York. The following years were highly tumultuous for Steinbeck and he held many odd jobs while trying to get his writing published. In 1935 he finally got his first big break when his critically acclaimed novel, Tortilla Flats, was published. After this he became quite successful and well known although the skill in his writing seems to fall after WWII. After researching his life I decided to focus on using his most famous n...
There is only one way an author can get their readers to cry, laugh, and love or just enjoy their master pieces. That one way is through the uses of literary devices such as similes, metaphors and personification. These are the small things that brings the author`s thoughts and ideas alive. The author`s ability to use literary devices through the book helps in direct characterization and lets readers get a better understanding of Lennie and George, the two main characters Of Mice and Men. It also helps in keeping readers thinking on their feet and constantly questioning George and Lennie`s next move while in Salinas, California. John Steinbeck, in his novel Of Mice and Men, makes use of similes and foreshadowing to keep readers in touch with the characters and at the edge of their seats throughout the story.