Steinbeck wrote 31 books over the course of his career. Two poor migrant workers, George and Lennie, are working for the American dream in California during the Great Depression. Lennie, who has a mild mental disability, is steadfastly faithful to his friend George, but he has a habit of getting into trouble.
Their goal: to own an acre of land and a shack. The book was later transformed into a Broadway play and three movies.
Widely considered Steinbeck's finest and most ambitious novel, this book tells the story of a dispossessed Oklahoma family and their struggle to carve out a new life in California at the height of the Great Depression, the book captured the mood and angst of the nation during this time period.
At the height of its popularity, The Grapes of Wrath sold 10, copies per week. This story, based on a Mexican folktale, explores human nature and the potential of love.
Kino, a poor diver who gathers pearls from the ocean floor, lives with his wife Juana and their infant son Coyotito by the sea. The book was later adapted into a film directed by Elia Kazan and starring James Dean in his first major movie role.
Dean was later nominated for an Academy Award for his performance, which he received posthumously. It wasn't until Tortilla Flat , a humorous novel about paisano life in the Monterey region was released, that the writer achieved real success. Steinbeck struck a more serious tone with In Dubious Battle and The Long Valley , a collection of short stories.
In , the author received the Nobel Prize for Literature — "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception. Around this same time, he traveled to Mexico to collect marine life with friend Edward F. Ricketts, a marine biologist. Their collaboration resulted in the book Sea of Cortez , which describes marine life in the Gulf of California.
Moore, Harry T. Chicago: Normandie House, , revised edition Parini, Jay. John Steinbeck: A Biography. New York: H.
Holt, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, Toggle navigation. Begins writing seriously Undiscouraged, Steinbeck returned to California to begin work as a writer of serious fiction. Later decline In the s Steinbeck's artistic decline was evident with a series of novels that were overly sentimental, stuffy, and lacking in substance. User Contributions: 1. Thank you for helping me and thank you for the information - Gabbsterzz. I'm learning about Of Mice and Men, and I'm supposed to connect the plot with his life.
What inspired him to write something like this? Working on our current homework assignment for my English class was a breeze thanks to this article! Actually, John Steinbeck had a little brother but he died when the pet dog mauled him to death.
Other than that, this biography is awefully incorrect. It does not mention at all that Steinbeck was admitted into a physictric ward 5 years before his death, and that many claim that his death was suicide.
It should also be considered that John Steinbeck could have been an illegal immigrant from Spain. Also, it's not meant to be exciting guys, it's a biography! Not sure if it's omitted by purpose or out of ignorance, but it seems to always be left out that Steinbeck wrote his first novel, "Cup of Gold" while living as a care-taker for a cabin in South Lake Tahoe.
Though the book was not critically acclaimed, it ads a certain facet to his storyline. This Biography of John Steinbeck was a great guideline for me, thanks very much. The first began as a biography of a strike organizer; Steinbeck ended up writing a novel, however, a searing account of a strike in a California apple orchard.
Workers and farmers are pitted against one another, with the communist organizers ruthlessly exploiting the conflict. The text of Mice , he hoped, would also be the script for a play—an experiment that failed when it was performed in San Francisco shortly after the book was published. The two friends depend on one another in a world where most working men are lonely, moving from job to job.
Steinbeck called his book a little study in humility—it went on to become one of his most beloved books. Its roots are journalistic. In the fall of , he was asked by the San Francisco News , a liberal publication, to investigate conditions in migrant labor camps near Bakersfield, California.
He also describes life in a federal government camp, where workers were given decent housing and running water. Both his wrath and his optimism are woven into The Grapes of Wrath , a book that he researched for nearly two years after his first investigative trip to the Central Valley.
There are about five thousand families starving to death over there…The states and counties will give them nothing because they are outsiders. But the crops of any part of this state could not be harvested without these outsiders. His sympathy for the plight of migrant workers led to a backlash against him: in Oklahoma the book made the state look poverty stricken , in California the book made farmers and growers seem greedy and selfish and in many other parts of the country the gritty language of the Joads was shocking for many.
In August of the Kern County Board of Supervisors banned the book from schools and libraries in , a ban that lasted until Throughout most of the s, Steinbeck had shunned publicity, and the firestorm over The Grapes of Wrath swamped him. He fell ill and his marriage to Carol began to fall apart—Steinbeck wished only to retreat from the publicity and requests for money and aid.
In March he and his close friend, marine biologist Ed Ricketts, sailed to the Gulf of California to collect marine specimens. Carol went along, although she is scarcely mentioned in the subsequent book. In , Carol and John separated, divorcing in Steinbeck was a patriot, as were many Americans after Pearl Harbor, as the U. Denied a commission in the armed forces because of his suspected communist leanings—he was investigated by the FBI after the publication of Grapes —Steinbeck devoted himself to writing propaganda for the war effort.
That same year he published another play-novelette, The Moon is Down , about an occupied village in Northern Europe. He imagined what it would be like to live in a town where freedoms disappeared—and to many Europeans, he seemed to have captured the terror of Nazi occupation. Steinbeck threw himself into the war effort, and his letters to Gwyn during this period reflect his patriotism as well as fascination with ordinary lives:.
Hell, I thought I was building the war up. Certainly we were thinking more universally. While traveling to Mexico to help with the film adaptation of the novel, Steinbeck became inspired by the story of Emiliano Zapata, and subsequently wrote a screenplay based on his life. Ed Ricketts had been hit by a train while attempting to cross the tracks in Monterey. Steinbeck hurried west, but he arrived too late. Ricketts died from injuries sustained from the accident on May 11, The the two men had shared an intense working relationship as well as a deep personal friendship.
The resulting book was to be called The Outer Shores and would have focused on marine life near Alaska. After nearly six years of marriage, Gwyn Steinbeck asked for a divorce. In he returned to the cabin in Pacific Grove and threw himself into his work. Early in , Steinbeck began again to compose the novel he had planned for years.
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