John Ernst Steinbeck (/ˈstaɪnbɛk/STYNE-bek; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer. He won the1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception".[2] He has been called "a giant of American letters."[3][4]
Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, inSalinas, California.[8] He was of German, English, and Irish descent.[9] Johann Adolf Großsteinbeck (1828–1913), Steinbeck's paternal grandfather, was a founder ofMount Hope, a short-lived farming colony in Palestine that disbanded after Arab attackers killed his brother and raped his brother's wife and mother-in-law.[10] He arrived in the United States in 1858, shortening the family name to Steinbeck. The family farm inHeiligenhaus,Mettmann, Germany, is still named "Großsteinbeck".
His father, John Ernst Steinbeck (1862–1935), served asMonterey County treasurer. John's mother, Olive Hamilton (1867–1934), a former school teacher, shared Steinbeck's passion for reading and writing.[11] The Steinbecks were members of theEpiscopal Church,[12] although Steinbeck later becameagnostic.[13] Steinbeck lived in a small rural valley (no more than a frontier settlement) set in fertile soil, about 25 miles from thePacific Coast. Both valley and coast would serve as settings for some of his best fiction.[14] He spent his summers working on nearby ranches including thePost Ranch inBig Sur.[15] He later labored with migrant workers onSpreckels sugar beet farms. There he learned of the harsher aspects of the migrant life and the darker side of human nature, which supplied him with material expressed inOf Mice and Men. He explored his surroundings, walking across local forests, fields, and farms.[16] While working at Spreckels Sugar Company, he sometimes worked in their laboratory, which gave him time to write. He had considerable mechanical aptitude and fondness for repairing things he owned.[17]
Steinbeck graduated from Salinas High School in 1919 and went on to study English literature atStanford University nearPalo Alto, leaving without a degree in 1925. He traveled to New York City where he took odd jobs while trying to write. When he failed to publish his work, he returned to California and worked in 1928 as a tour guide and caretaker[17] atLake Tahoe, where he met Carol Henning, his first wife.[11][17][18] They married in January 1930 in Los Angeles, where, with friends, he attempted to make money by manufacturing plastermannequins.[17]
When their money ran out six months later due to a slow market, Steinbeck and Carol moved back toPacific Grove, California, to a cottage owned by his father, on theMonterey Peninsula a few blocks outside theMonterey city limits. The elder Steinbecks gave John free housing, paper for his manuscripts, and from 1928, loans that allowed him to write without looking for work. During theGreat Depression, Steinbeck bought a small boat, and later claimed that he was able to live on the fish and crabs that he gathered from the sea, and fresh vegetables from his garden and local farms. When those sources failed, Steinbeck and his wife accepted welfare, and on rare occasions, stole bacon from the local produce market.[17] Whatever food they had, they shared with their friends.[17] Carol became the model for Mary Talbot in Steinbeck's novelCannery Row.[17]
In 1930, Steinbeck met the marine biologistEd Ricketts, who became a close friend and mentor to Steinbeck during the following decade, teaching him a great deal about philosophy and biology.[17] Ricketts, usually very quiet, yet likable, with an inner self-sufficiency and an encyclopedic knowledge of diverse subjects, became a focus of Steinbeck's attention. Ricketts had taken a college class fromWarder Clyde Allee, a biologist and ecological theorist, who would go on to write a classic early textbook onecology. Ricketts became a proponent of ecological thinking, in which man was only one part of agreat chain of being, caught in a web of life too large for him to control or understand.[17] Meanwhile, Ricketts operated a biological lab on the coast of Monterey, selling biological samples of small animals, fish, rays, starfish, turtles, and other marine forms to schools and colleges.
Between 1930 and 1936, Steinbeck and Ricketts became close friends. Steinbeck's wife began working at the lab as secretary-bookkeeper.[17] Steinbeck helped on an informal basis.[19] They formed a common bond based on their love of music and art, and John learned biology and Ricketts's ecological philosophy.[20] When Steinbeck became emotionally upset, Ricketts sometimes played music for him.[21]
Career
Writing
Steinbeck's first novel,Cup of Gold, published in 1929, is loosely based on the life and death ofprivateerHenry Morgan. It centers on Morgan's assault and sacking ofPanamá Viejo, sometimes referred to as the "Cup of Gold", and on the women, brighter than the sun, who were said to be found there.[22] In 1930, Steinbeck wrote a werewolf murder mystery,Murder at Full Moon, that has never been published because Steinbeck considered it unworthy of publication.[23]
Between 1930 and 1933, Steinbeck produced three shorter works.The Pastures of Heaven, published in 1932, consists of twelve interconnected stories about a valley near Monterey, which was discovered by a Spanishcorporal while chasing runawayIndian slaves. In 1933 Steinbeck publishedThe Red Pony, a 100-page, four-chapter story weaving in memories of Steinbeck's childhood.[22]To a God Unknown, named after aVedic hymn,[17] follows the life of ahomesteader and his family in California, depicting a character with a primal and pagan worship of the land he works.
Before his novelTortilla Flat (1935), Steinbeck was an obscure writer "with little success".[24] Although he had not achieved the status of a well-known writer, he never doubted that he would achieve greatness.[17]
Steinbeck achieved his first critical success withTortilla Flat, a novel set in post-war Monterey, California, that won the CaliforniaCommonwealth Club's gold medal.[22] It portrays the adventures of a group of classless and usually homeless young men in Monterey afterWorld War I, just before U.S.prohibition. They are portrayed in ironic comparison to mythic knights on a quest and reject nearly all the standard mores of American society in enjoyment of a dissolute life devoted to wine, lust, camaraderie and petty theft. In presenting the 1962 Nobel Prize to Steinbeck, the Swedish Academy cited "spicy and comic tales about a gang ofpaisanos, asocial individuals who, in their wild revels, are almost caricatures ofKing Arthur's Knights of the Round Table. It has been said that in the United States this book came as a welcome antidote to the gloom of the then prevailing depression."[1]Tortilla Flat was adapted as a1942 film of the same name, starringSpencer Tracy,Hedy Lamarr andJohn Garfield, a friend of Steinbeck.[25] With some of the proceeds, he built a summer ranch-home inLos Gatos.[citation needed]
Of Mice and Men was adrama about the dreams of two migrant agricultural laborers in California. Steinbeck, on vacations to Mexico, witnessed sold-out theater troupes with often poor and illiterate workers consisting of the audience. As such, Steinbeck chose to writeOf Mice and Men with a stage play in mind. It was critically acclaimed[22] and Steinbeck's 1962 Nobel Prize citation called it a "little masterpiece".[1]Its stage production was a hit, starringWallace Ford as George andBroderick Crawford as George's companion, the mentally childlike, but physically powerful itinerant farmhand Lennie. Steinbeck refused to travel from his home in California to attend any performance of the play during its New York run, telling directorGeorge S. Kaufman that the play as it existed in his own mind was "perfect" and that anything presented on stage would only be a disappointment. Steinbeck wrote two more stage plays (The Moon Is Down andBurning Bright).
Of Mice and Men was also adapted as a1939 Hollywood film, withLon Chaney Jr. as Lennie (he had filled the role in the Los Angeles stage production) andBurgess Meredith as George.[26] Meredith and Steinbeck became close friends for the next two decades.[17] Another film based on the novella was made in 1992 starringGary Sinise as George andJohn Malkovich as Lennie.
Steinbeck followed this wave of success withThe Grapes of Wrath (1939), based on newspaper articles about migrant agricultural workers that he had written in San Francisco. In August 1936, the San Francisco News asked Steinbeck to personally interview multiple families in the impoverishedHoovervilles of theSan Joaquin Valley. As Steinbeck visited the slums that hugged the highways across the Central Valley, he was harrowed by what he saw. He talked with multiple families and vowed to make a book depicting their struggles. It is commonly considered his greatest work. According toThe New York Times, it was the best-selling book of 1939 and 430,000 copies had been printed by February 1940. In that month, it won theNational Book Award, favorite fiction book of 1939, voted by members of theAmerican Booksellers Association.[27] Later that year, it won thePulitzer Prize for Fiction[28] and was adapted as a film directed byJohn Ford, starringHenry Fonda as Tom Joad; Fonda was nominated for the best actor Academy Award.Grapes was controversial. Steinbeck'sNew Deal political views, negative portrayal of aspects of capitalism, and sympathy for the plight of workers, led to a backlash against the author for displaying communist views, especially in his hometown of Salinas.[29] Steinbeck received so many threats that he purchased a handgun for his own safety. Claiming the book both was obscene and misrepresented conditions in the county, theKern CountyBoard of Supervisorsbanned the book from the county's publicly funded schools and libraries in August 1939. This ban lasted until January 1941.[30]
Of the controversy, Steinbeck wrote, "The vilification of me out here from the large landowners and bankers is pretty bad. The latest is a rumor started by them that theOkies hate me and have threatened to kill me for lying about them. I'm frightened at the rolling might of this damned thing. It is completely out of hand; I mean a kind of hysteria about the book is growing that is not healthy."[31]
The then First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, already a fan of Steinbeck's work fromOf Mice and Men, defended Steinbeck's work in her nationally syndicated newspaper column, "My Day". She wrote: "Now I must tell you that I have just finished a book which is an unforgettable experience in reading. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, both repels and attracts you. The horrors of the picture, so well drawn, make you dread sometimes to begin the next chapter, and yet you cannot lay the book down or even skip a page."[32] After visiting California labor camps in 1940, a reporter asked her if she believed thatThe Grapes of Wrath was exaggerated. Roosevelt responded, "I have never believed that The Grapes of Wrath was exaggerated".[33]
Ed Ricketts
In the 1930s and 1940s,Ed Ricketts strongly influenced Steinbeck's writing. Steinbeck frequently took small trips with Ricketts along the California coast to give himself time off from his writing[34] and to collect biological specimens, which Ricketts sold for a living. Their coauthored book,Sea of Cortez (December 1941), about a collecting expedition to theGulf of California in 1940, which was part travelogue and part natural history, published just as the U.S. entered World War II, never found an audience and did not sell well.[34] However, in 1951, Steinbeck republished the narrative portion of the book asThe Log from the Sea of Cortez, under his name only (though Ricketts had written some of it). This work remains in print today.[35]
Although Carol accompanied Steinbeck on the trip, their marriage was beginning to suffer, and ended a year later, in 1941, even as Steinbeck worked on the manuscript for the book.[17] In 1942, after his divorce from Carol he married Gwyndolyn "Gwyn" Conger.[36]
Ricketts was Steinbeck's model for the character of "Doc" inCannery Row (1945) andSweet Thursday (1954), "Friend Ed" inBurning Bright, and characters inIn Dubious Battle (1936) andThe Grapes of Wrath (1939). Ecological themes recur in Steinbeck's novels of the period.[37]
Steinbeck's close relations with Ricketts ended in 1941 when Steinbeck moved away from Pacific Grove and divorced his wife Carol.[34] Ricketts's biographer Eric Enno Tamm opined that, except forEast of Eden (1952), Steinbeck's writing declined after Ricketts's untimely death in 1948.[37]
In 1943, Steinbeck served as a World War IIwar correspondent for theNew York Herald Tribune and worked with theOffice of Strategic Services (predecessor of the CIA).[39] It was at that time he became friends withWill Lang Jr. ofTime/Life magazine. During the war, Steinbeck accompanied the commando raids ofDouglas Fairbanks Jr.'sBeach Jumpers program, which launched small-unit diversion operations against German-held islands in theMediterranean. At one point, he accompanied Fairbanks on an invasion of an island off the coast of Italy and used aThompson submachine gun to help capture Italian and German prisoners. Some of his writings from this period were incorporated in the documentaryOnce There Was a War (1958).
Steinbeck returned from the war with a number of wounds fromshrapnel and some psychological trauma. He treated himself, as ever, by writing.[40] He wroteAlfred Hitchcock's movie,Lifeboat (1944), and with screenwriterJack Wagner,A Medal for Benny (1945), aboutpaisanos fromTortilla Flat going to war. He later requested that his name be removed from the credits ofLifeboat, because he believed the final version of the film had racist undertones. In 1944, bruised, battered, and homesick, Steinbeck wroteCannery Row (1945), a love letter to the city of Monterey. In 1958, Ocean View Avenue inMonterey, the setting of the book, was renamed Cannery Row in his honor.
John Steinbeck plaque in Sag Harbor, N.Y. (20180916 151050)
After the war, he wroteThe Pearl (1947), knowing it would be filmed eventually. Steinbeck's relationship with Hollywood had solidified to the point where his books were beinggreen-lit as movies as they released. The story first appeared in the December 1945 issue ofWoman's Home Companion magazine as "The Pearl of the World". It was illustrated byJohn Alan Maxwell. The novel is an imaginative telling of a story which Steinbeck had heard in La Paz in 1940, as related inThe Log From the Sea of Cortez, which he described in Chapter 11 as being "so much like a parable that it almost can't be". Steinbeck traveled toCuernavaca,[41] Mexico for the filming with Wagner who helped with the script; on this trip he would be inspired by the story ofEmiliano Zapata, and subsequently wrote a film script (Viva Zapata!) directed byElia Kazan and starringMarlon Brando andAnthony Quinn.
Over the course of 276 days in 1952, Steinbeck wrote the first draft ofEast of Eden, a book he considered his ultimate test as a writer. He wrote a daily letter to his editor while writing the book. Through them, Steinbeck explored himself, his creative process, his love for writing, and his family life, for he had just married his third wife, Elaine Scott, the year prior. Steinbeck, according to Elaine Scott, consideredEast of Eden hismagnum opus, his greatest novel. As the book was released, he wrote to John Beskow, a Swedish artist and a confidant of his: "I have put all the things I have wanted to write all my life. This is 'the book'... having done this, I can do anything I want".[17] Also in 1952, John Steinbeck appeared as the on-screen narrator of20th Century Fox's film,O. Henry's Full House. Although Steinbeck later admitted he was uncomfortable before the camera, he provided interesting introductions to several filmed adaptations of short stories by the legendary writerO. Henry. About the same time, Steinbeck recorded readings of several of his short stories forColumbia Records; the recordings provide a record of Steinbeck's deep, resonant voice.
Following the success ofViva Zapata!, Steinbeck collaborated with Kazan on the 1955 filmEast of Eden,James Dean's movie debut.Jack Moffitt ofThe Hollywood Reporter, in a review that appeared after the March 1955 premiere, wrote "Beautifully acted, and superbly directed by Elia Kazan, it is bound to be one of the year’s important contributions to screen literature."[42]
From March to October 1959, Steinbeck and his third wife Elaine rented a cottage in the hamlet of Discove,Redlynch, nearBruton inSomerset, England, while Steinbeck researched his retelling of theArthurian legend ofKing Arthur and theKnights of the Round Table.Glastonbury Tor was visible from the cottage, and Steinbeck also visited the nearbyhillfort ofCadbury Castle, the supposed site of King Arthur's court ofCamelot. The unfinished manuscript was published after his death in 1976, asThe Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights. Steinbeck grew up enthralled by the stories of King Arthur, and the Steinbecks recounted the time spent in Somerset as the happiest of their life together.[43][44]
Rocinante, camper truck in which Steinbeck traveled across the United States in 1960
Travels with Charley: In Search of America is a travelogue of his 1960road trip with hispoodle Charley. Steinbeck bemoans his lost youth and roots, while dispensing both criticism and praise for the United States. According to Steinbeck's son Thom, Steinbeck made the journey because he knew he was dying and wanted to see the country one last time.[45]
Steinbeck's last novel,The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), examinesmoral decline in the United States. The protagonist Ethan grows discontented with his own moral decline and that of those around him.[46] The book has a very different tone from Steinbeck's amoral and ecological stance in earlier works such asTortilla Flat andCannery Row. It was not a critical success. Many reviewers recognized the importance of the novel but were disappointed that it was not anotherGrapes of Wrath.[46]In the Nobel Prize presentation speech the next year, however, the Swedish Academy cited it most favorably: "Here he attained the same standard which he set in The Grapes of Wrath. Again he holds his position as an independent expounder of the truth with an unbiased instinct for what is genuinely American, be it good or bad."[1]
Apparently taken aback by the critical reception of this novel, and the critical outcry when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962,[47] Steinbeck published no more fiction in the remaining six years before his death.
Steinbeck in Sweden during his trip to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962
In 1962, Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature for his "realistic and imaginative writing, combining as it does sympathetic humor and keen social perception". The selection was heavily criticized, and described as "one of the Academy's biggest mistakes" in one Swedish newspaper.[47] The reaction of American literary critics was also harsh.The New York Times asked why the Nobel committee gave the award to an author whose "limited talent is, in his best books, watered down by tenth-rate philosophising", noting that "[T]he international character of the award and the weight attached to it raise questions about the mechanics of selection and how close the Nobel committee is to the main currents of American writing. ... [W]e think it interesting that the laurel was not awarded to a writer ... whose significance, influence and sheer body of work had already made a more profound impression on the literature of our age".[47] Steinbeck, when asked on the day of the announcement if he deserved the Nobel, replied: "Frankly, no."[17][47] Biographer Jackson Benson notes, "[T]his honor was one of the few in the world that one could not buy nor gain by political maneuver. It was precisely because the committee made its judgment ... on its own criteria, rather than plugging into 'the main currents of American writing' as defined by the critical establishment, that the award had value."[17][47] In his acceptance speech later in the year in Stockholm, he said:
the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.
Fifty years later, in 2012, the Nobel Prize opened its archives and it was revealed that Steinbeck was a "compromise choice" among a shortlist consisting of Steinbeck, British authorsRobert Graves andLawrence Durrell, French dramatistJean Anouilh and Danish authorKaren Blixen.[47] The declassified documents showed that he was chosen as the best of a bad lot.[47] "There aren't any obvious candidates for the Nobel prize and the prize committee is in an unenviable situation," wrote committee memberHenry Olsson.[47] Although the committee believed Steinbeck's best work was behind him by 1962, committee memberAnders Österling believed the release of his novelThe Winter of Our Discontent showed that "after some signs of slowing down in recent years, [Steinbeck has] regained his position as a social truth-teller [and is an] authentic realist fully equal to his predecessors Sinclair Lewis and Ernest Hemingway."[47]
Although modest about his own talent as a writer, Steinbeck talked openly of his own admiration of certain writers. In 1953, he wrote that he considered cartoonistAl Capp, creator of the satiricalLi'l Abner, "possibly the best writer in the world today".[49] At his own first Nobel Prize press conference he was asked his favorite authors and works and replied: "Hemingway's short stories and nearly everythingFaulkner wrote."[17]
In 1967, at the behest ofNewsday magazine, Steinbeck went toVietnam to report on the war. He thought of theVietnam War as a heroic venture and was considered ahawk for his position on the war. His sons served in Vietnam before his death, and Steinbeck visited one son in the battlefield. At one point he was allowed to man a machine-gun watch position at night at afirebase while his son and other members of his platoon slept.[51]
Personal life
John and Elaine Steinbeck in 1950
Steinbeck and his first wife, Carol Henning, married in January 1930 in Los Angeles.[11] By 1940, their marriage was beginning to suffer, and it ended a year later.[17] In 1942, after his divorce from Carol, Steinbeck married Gwyndolyn "Gwyn" Conger.[36] With his second wife Steinbeck had two sons,Thomas ("Thom") Myles Steinbeck (1944–2016) andJohn Steinbeck IV (1946–1991).
In May 1948, Steinbeck returned to California on an emergency trip to be with his friend Ed Ricketts, who had been seriously injured when a train struck his car. Ricketts died hours before Steinbeck arrived. Upon returning home, Steinbeck was confronted by Gwyn, who asked for a divorce, which became final in October. Steinbeck spent the year after Ricketts's death in deep depression.
In June 1949, Steinbeck metstage managerElaine Scott at a restaurant inCarmel, California. Steinbeck and Scott eventually began a relationship, and in December 1950 they married, within a week of Scott's finalizing her own divorce from actorZachary Scott. This third marriage for Steinbeck lasted until his death in 1968.[22]
Steinbeck was an acquaintance of modernist poetRobinson Jeffers, a Californian neighbor. In a letter to Elizabeth Otis, Steinbeck wrote: "Robinson Jeffers and his wife came in to call the other day. He looks a little older but that is all. And she is just the same."[52][page needed]
In 1962, Steinbeck began acting as friend and mentor to the young writer and naturalistJack Rudloe, who was trying to establish his own biological supply company, nowGulf Specimen Marine Laboratory in Florida. Their correspondence continued until Steinbeck's death.[53]
In February 1966, Steinbeck and his wife traveled toIsrael.[54] He met officials, e.g.Teddy Kollek.[55] He visited inTel Aviv the site ofMount Hope, a farm community established by his grandfather, whose brother, Friedrich Großsteinbeck, had been murdered by Arab marauders in 1858 during theOutrages at Jaffa.[56]
Death and legacy
The Steinbeck family graves in the Hamilton plot at the Salinas Cemetery
In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated, and interred on March 4, 1969[57] at the Hamilton family gravesite in Salinas, with those of his parents and maternal grandparents. His third wife, Elaine, was buried in the plot in 2004. He had written to his doctor that he felt deeply "in his flesh" that he would not survive his physical death, and that the biological end of his life was the final end to it.[34]
Many of Steinbeck's works are required reading in American high schools. In England,Of Mice and Men was one of the key texts used by the examining bodyAQA for itsEnglish LiteratureGCSE until its removal from thereformed specification that was first examined in June 2018. Following concerns about racist language used in the book, it was also removed from the English Literature GCSE syllabus in Wales, along withTo Kill A Mockingbird, byWJEC.[58] It continues to be studied in Northern Ireland, although calls have also been made for its removal there.[59] A study by the Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature in the United States found thatOf Mice and Men was one of the ten most frequently read books in public high schools.[60] Steinbeck's works have also been banned.The Grapes of Wrath wasbanned in August 1939 by theKern CountyBoard of Supervisors from the county's publicly funded schools and libraries.[30] It was burned in Salinas on two occasions.[61][62] In 2003, a school board inMississippi banned it on the grounds of profanity.[63] According to theAmerican Library Association, Steinbeck was one of the ten most frequently banned authors from 1990 to 2004, withOf Mice and Men ranking sixth out of 100 such books in the United States.[64][65]
Literary influences
Steinbeck grew up in California's Salinas Valley, a culturally diverse place with a rich migratory and immigrant history. This upbringing imparted a regionalistic flavor to his writing, giving many of his works a distinctsense of place.[16][22]Salinas, Monterey and parts of theSan Joaquin Valley were the setting for many of his stories. The area is now sometimes referred to as "Steinbeck Country".[34] Most of his early work dealt with subjects familiar to him from his formative years. An exception was his first novel,Cup of Gold, which concerns the pirate/privateerHenry Morgan, whose adventures had captured Steinbeck's imagination as a child.
In his subsequent novels, Steinbeck found a more authentic voice by drawing upon direct memories of his life in California. His childhood friend,Max Wagner, a brother of Jack Wagner and who later became a film actor, served as inspiration forThe Red Pony. Later he used actual American conditions and events in the first half of the 20th century, which he had experienced first-hand as a reporter. Steinbeck often populated his stories with struggling characters; his works examined the lives of the working class andmigrant workers during theDust Bowl and theGreat Depression.
Steinbeck'sboyhood home, a turretedVictorian building in downtown Salinas, has been preserved and restored by the Valley Guild, a nonprofit organization. Fixed menu lunches are served Monday through Saturday, and the house is open fortours on Sunday afternoons during the summer.[66]TheNational Steinbeck Center is two blocks away at 1Main Street. Dana Gioia (chair of theNational Endowment for the Arts) told an audience at the center, "This is really the best modern literary shrine in the country, and I've seen them all."[citation needed] Its "Steinbeckiana" includes "Rocinante", the camper-truck in which Steinbeck made the cross-country trip described inTravels with Charley. His father's cottage on Eleventh Street in Pacific Grove, where Steinbeck wrote some of his earliest books, also survives.[34]
In Monterey,Ed Ricketts's laboratory survives (though it is not yet open to the public), and at the corner that Steinbeck describes inCannery Row, also the store that once belonged to Lee Chong and the adjacent vacant lot frequented by the hoboes of Cannery Row. The site of the HovdenSardine Cannery next to Doc's laboratory is now occupied by theMonterey Bay Aquarium. In 1958, the street that Steinbeck described as "Cannery Row" in the novel, once named Ocean View Avenue, was renamedCannery Row in honor of the novel. The town of Monterey has commemorated Steinbeck's work with an avenue of flags depicting characters fromCannery Row, historical plaques, and sculptured busts depicting Steinbeck and Ricketts.[34]
On February 27, 1979 (the 77th anniversary of the writer's birth), theUnited States Postal Service issued a stamp featuring Steinbeck, starting the Postal Service's Literary Arts series honoring American writers.[67]
Monterey Bay Roller Derby was founded in 2010. Their team names over the years have referenced Steinbeck, including Beasts of Eden, Cannery Rollers, Steinwreckers and Babes of Wrath. Their juniors league was known as the Dread Ponies.
To commemorate the 112th anniversary of Steinbeck's birthday on February 27, 2014, Google displayed an interactive doodle utilizing animation which included illustrations portraying scenes and quotes from several novels by the author.[70][71][72]
Steinbeck and his friend Ed Ricketts appear as fictionalized characters in the 2016 novelMonterey Bay, about the founding of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, by Lindsay Hatton (Penguin Press).[73]
In February 2016,Caltrans installed signage to identify a five-mile segment ofU.S. Route 101 in Salinas as the John Steinbeck Highway, in accordance with a 2014 state legislative resolution.[74]
John Steinbeck Waterfront Park
In 2019 the Sag Harbor town board approved the creation of the John Steinbeck Waterfront Park across from the iconic town windmill. The structures on the parcel were demolished and park benches installed near the beach. The Beebe windmill replica already had a plaque memorializing the author who wrote from a small hut overlooking the cove during his sojourn in the literary haven.
Religious views
Steinbeck was affiliated to the St. Paul's Episcopal Church and he stayed attached throughout his life toEpiscopalianism although Steinbeck later becameagnostic.[13] Especially in his works of fiction, Steinbeck was highly conscious of religion and incorporated it into his style and themes. The shaping of his characters often drew on theBible and the theology ofAnglicanism, combining elements ofRoman Catholicism andProtestantism.[75][76]
Steinbeck distanced himself from religious views when he left Salinas for Stanford. However, the work he produced still reflected the language of his childhood at Salinas, and his beliefs remained a powerful influence within his fiction and non-fiction work. William Ray considered his Episcopal views are prominently displayed inThe Grapes of Wrath, in which themes of conversion and self-sacrifice play a major part in the characters Casy and Tom, who achieve spiritual transcendence through conversion.[77]
Political views
John Steinbeck, with his 19-year-old son John (left), visits his friend,President Lyndon B. Johnson, in the Oval Office, May 16, 1966. John Jr. is shortly to leave for active duty in Vietnam.
Steinbeck's contacts withleftist authors, journalists, andlabor union figures may have influenced his writing, but his political views varied throughout his career.
Spying for the CIA
Documents released by theCentral Intelligence Agency in 2012 indicate that Steinbeck offered his services to the Agency in 1952, while planning a European tour, and the Director of Central Intelligence,Walter Bedell Smith, was eager to take him up on the offer.[78] What work, if any, Steinbeck may have performed for the CIA during the Cold War is unknown. It is also unclear if Steinbeck actually provided any useful information to the CIA.[79]
Documents released by theSecurity Service of Ukraine following theRevolution of Dignity in 2014 indicate that the Soviet KGB suspected him of being an American agent when he visited locations within the USSR, includingKyiv, in 1947.[80]
Steinbeck was a close associate ofplaywrightArthur Miller. In June 1957, Steinbeck took a personal and professional risk by supporting him when Miller refused to name names in theHouse Un-American Activities Committee trials.[61] Steinbeck called the period one of the "strangest and most frightening times a government and people have ever faced".[61]
In 1967, when he was sent to Vietnam to report onthe war, his sympathetic portrayal of theUnited States Army led theNew York Post to denounce him for betraying his leftist past. Steinbeck's biographer,Jay Parini, says Steinbeck's friendship withPresident Lyndon B. Johnson[86] influenced his views on Vietnam.[22] Steinbeck may also have been concerned about the safety of his son serving in Vietnam.[87] Steinbeck opposed the anti-war movement in the United States, denouncing the "fallout, drop-out, cop-out insurgency of our children and young people, the rush to stimulant as well as hypnotic drugs, the rise of narrow, ugly, and vengeful cults of all kinds, the mistrust and revolt against all authority – this in a time of plenty such as has never been known."[88]
Along withAlbert Einstein, Steinbeck was one of the sponsors of thePeoples' World Convention (PWC), also known as Peoples' World Constituent Assembly (PWCA), which took place in 1950–51 at Palais Electoral,Geneva, Switzerland.[89][90]
Government harassment
Steinbeck complained publicly about government harassment.[91] Thomas Steinbeck, the author's eldest son, said thatJ. Edgar Hoover, the director of theFBI at the time, could find no basis for prosecuting Steinbeck and therefore used his power to encourage theU.S. Internal Revenue Service to audit Steinbeck's taxes every single year of his life, just to annoy him. According to Thomas, a true artist is one who "without a thought for self, stands up against the stones of condemnation, and speaks for those who are given no real voice in the halls of justice, or the halls of government. By doing so, these people will naturally become the enemies of the political status quo."[92]
In a 1942 letter to United States Attorney GeneralFrancis Biddle, John Steinbeck wrote: "Do you suppose you could ask Edgar's boys to stop stepping on my heels? They think I am an enemy alien. It is getting tiresome."[93] The FBI denied that Steinbeck was under investigation.[94]
Steinbeck's first commercial success, published in 1935, is anepisodic fiction recounting adventures of a loosely attached group of delinquent locals in a shabby coastal district of California. Like other books of Steinbeck's,Tortilla Flat was adapted intoa feature film.[95]
In 1936, Steinbeck published the first of what came to be known as hisDust Bowl trilogy, which includedOf Mice and Men andThe Grapes of Wrath. This first novel tells the story of a fruit pickers' strike in California which is both aided and damaged by the help of "the Party", generally taken to be theCommunist Party, although this is never spelled out in the book.
Of Mice and Men is a 1937 tragic novel that Steinbeck rewrote as a play that same year. The story is about two traveling ranch workers, George and Lennie, trying to earn enough money to buy their own farm/ranch. As it is set in 1930s America, it provides an insight into The Great Depression, encompassing themes of racism, loneliness, prejudice against the mentally ill, and the struggle for personal independence. Along withThe Grapes of Wrath,East of Eden, andThe Pearl,Of Mice and Men is one of Steinbeck's best known works. It was made into movies three times:in 1939, starringBurgess Meredith,Lon Chaney Jr., andBetty Field; in 1981, starringRandy Quaid,Robert Blake andTed Neeley; andin 1992, starringGary Sinise andJohn Malkovich.
The Grapes of Wrath was published during theGreat Depression and had a contemporary setting, describing a family ofsharecroppers, the Joads, who were driven from their land by the dust storms of the Dust Bowl. The title is a reference to theBattle Hymn of the Republic. Some critics found it too sympathetic to the workers' plight and too critical of capitalism,[96] but it found a large audience of its own. It won both the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction (novels) and was adapted as afilm starringHenry Fonda andJane Darwell and directed byJohn Ford.
The 1945 novel tells of a marine biologist in a seedy district dotted with sardine canneries inMonterey, California, who is feted by colorful neighbors in gratitude for his kindness to them.Cannery Row and its sequel,Sweet Thursday, were adapted into amovie in 1982.
Steinbeck deals with the nature of good and evil in this 1952 Salinas Valley saga. The story follows two families: the Hamiltons – based on Steinbeck's own maternal ancestry[97] – and the Trasks, reprising stories about the biblical Adam and his progeny. His paternal ancestry is also reflected in the story.[98] The book was published in 1952. Portions of the novel were made into a 1955 movie directed byElia Kazan and starringJames Dean.
In 1960, Steinbeck bought a pickup truck and had it modified with a custom-builtcamper top – which was rare at the time – and drove across the United States with his faithful "blue"standard poodle, Charley. Steinbeck nicknamed his truckRocinante afterDon Quixote's "noble steed". In this sometimes comical, sometimes melancholic book, Steinbeck describes what he sees as he travels fromMaine toMontana to California, and from there toTexas andLouisiana and back to his home onLong Island. However, in 2011, after his death, a reporter who had followedTravels with Charley's trail using the author's own diaries controverted the book's accuracy, casting Steinbeck's claimed reportage as largely fictionalized, allegations supported by scholars and Steinbeck's son John.
^abIntroduction to John Steinbeck,The Long Valley, pp. 9–10, John Timmerman, Penguin Publishing, 1995
^abcdefghijklmnopqrsBenson, Jackson J. (1984).The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer. New York: The Viking Press. pp. 147, 915a, 915b, 133.ISBN978-0-14-014417-8.
^Introduction to 'The Grapes of Wrath' Penguin edition (1192) by Robert DeMott
^Benson, Jackson J. (1984).The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer. New York: The Viking Press. p. 196.ISBN978-0-14-014417-8.
^Benson, Jackson J. (1984).The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer. New York: The Viking Press. p. 197.ISBN978-0-14-014417-8.
^Benson, Jackson J. (1984).The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer. New York: The Viking Press. p. 199.ISBN978-0-14-014417-8.
^abcdefghJay Parini,John Steinbeck: A Biography, Holt Publishing, 1996
^Scott, Sam (July 27, 2021)."Beast of Eden".Stanford Magazine.Archived from the original on August 4, 2021. RetrievedAugust 4, 2021.
^Meyer, Michael (2008).The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, Writing (8th ed.). Boston:St. Martin/Bedford. pp. 744–745.ISBN978-0-312-47200-9.
^"Of Mice and Men (1939)". Internet Movie Database. January 12, 1940.Archived from the original on October 30, 2007. RetrievedOctober 10, 2007.
^"1939 Book Awards Given by Critics: Elgin Groseclose's 'Ararat' is Picked as Work Which Failed to Get Due Recognition",The New York Times, February 14, 1940, p. 25. ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851–2007).
^"Novel"Archived August 21, 2008, at theWayback Machine (Winners 1917–1947). The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved January 28, 2012.
^Benson, Jackson J. (1984).The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer. New York: The Viking Press. p. 978.ISBN978-0-14-014417-8.The impact of the country is stunning. The energy of the people is incredible.
^Benson, Jackson J. (1984).The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer. New York: The Viking Press. p. 979.ISBN978-0-14-014417-8.At one of the receptions, he got talking about his grandfather's journey to the Holy Land
^"Terijoen hallitus sai outoa tukea" [The Terijoki Government received odd support].Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). November 29, 2009.
^Bedevian, Ruth (December 5, 2006)."The Fragrance of the Roses Lingers On ... Hovhannes Shiraz".Armenian News Network / Groong.Archived from the original on April 1, 2023.Among all the memorabilia, a letter from American writer, John Steinbeck, who was awarded both a Pulitzer Prize for his `Grapes of Wrath' (1939) and a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, caught my attention. I immediately asked to photograph it which was generously allowed. It was dated May 9, 1964 in which Steinbeck thanked Shiraz for his hospitality when he visited him in Yerevan.
^DeMott, Robert (1996). Steinbecks's Typewriter: Essays on His Art. Troy, New York: The Whitston Publishing Company. p. 215. ISBN 0-87875-446-6. "the paternal Steinbeck line, whose gruesome experiences, including rape and murder, in Jaffa in the 1850s throw some startling new light onEast of Eden".
General sources
Benson, Jackson J.John Steinbeck, Writer (second ed.). Penguin Putnam Inc., New York, 1990, 0-14-01.4417X.
DeMott, Robert and Steinbeck, Elaine A., eds.John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath and Other Writings 1936–1941 (Library of America, 1996)ISBN978-1-883011-15-4.
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