John Steinbeck Totally Explained

Everything about John Steinbeck totally explained

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John Steinbeck (February 27, 1902—December 20, 1968) was one of the best-known and most widely read American writers of the 20th century. He wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939 and the novel Of Mice and Men, published in 1937. In all, he wrote twenty-five books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books and several collections of short stories. In 1962 Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
   Steinbeck grew up in the Salinas Valley region of California, a culturally diverse place of rich migratory and immigrant history. This upbringing imparted a regionalistic flavor to his writing, giving many of his works a distinct sense of place. Steinbeck moved briefly to New York City, but soon returned home to California to begin his career as a writer. Most of his earlier work dealt with subjects familiar to him from his formative years. An exception was his first novel which concerns the pirate Henry 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. Later he used real historical conditions and events in the first half of 20th century America, which he'd experienced first-hand as a reporter. Steinbeck often populated his stories with struggling characters; his works examined the lives of the working class and migrant workers during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. His later body of work reflected his wide range of interests, including marine biology, politics, religion, history, and mythology. One of his last published works was Travels with Charley, a travelogue of a road trip he took in 1960 to rediscover America. He died in 1968 in New York of a heart attack and his ashes are interred in Salinas.
   Seventeen of his works, including Cannery Row (1945), The Pearl (1947), and East of Eden (1952), went on to become Hollywood films (some appeared multiple times, for example, as remakes), and Steinbeck also achieved success as a Hollywood writer, receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Story in 1944 for Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat.

Biography

Early life and work

John Ernst Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. He was of German American and Irish American descent. Johann Adolf Großteinbeck (for example Grossteinbeck), Steinbeck's grandfather, changed the family name from Grossteinbeck to Steinbeck when he migrated to the United States. His father, John Steinbeck, Sr., served as the Monterey County Treasurer while his mother, Olive (Hamilton) Steinbeck, a former school teacher, fostered Steinbeck's love of reading and writing.
   At the time of his childhood, Salinas was a small Californian town. Though growing larger, more prosperous, and modern, it was still essentially a rough-and-tumble frontier place, set amid some of the world's most fertile land. Steinbeck spent his summers working on nearby ranches and later with migrants on the huge Spreckels ranch. During this time, Steinbeck became aware of the harsher aspects of the migrant life in the region and of the darker side of human nature-- material which was to be explored in works such as Of Mice and Men. He also explored the surrounding Salinas Valley, walking across local forests, fields and farms. This material was to provide background for most of his short stories.
   Steinbeck graduated from Salinas High School in 1919. He then attended Stanford University intermittently until 1925, eventually leaving without a degree, as he disliked the university lifestyle. From Stanford, he traveled to New York City and held various temporary jobs while pursuing his dream as a writer. However, he was unable to get any of his work published and returned to California where for a time he was resort handyman in Lake Tahoe.
   In California he continued to write. His first novel, was published in 1929. It is based on the privateer Henry Morgan's life and death. It centers on Morgan's assault and sacking of the city of Panama, sometimes referred to as the 'Cup of Gold', and the woman fairer than the sun reputed to be found there.
   After Cup of Gold Steinbeck produced three shorter works between 1931 and 1933: The Pastures of Heaven, published in 1932, consisted of twelve interconnected stories about a valley in Monterey, California, which was discovered by a Spanish corporal while chasing runaway American Indian slaves. In 1933 Steinbeck brought out two works: The Red Pony is a short 100-page, four-chapter story, which recollects memories from Steinbeck's childhood. To a God Unknown follows the life of a homesteader and his family in California, depicting a character with a primal and pagan worship of the land he works. He lived for many years in a cottage in Pacific Grove owned by his father, Ernest, who provided John ledger paper on which to write his manuscripts.
   Steinbeck achieved his first critical success with the novel Tortilla Flat (1935), which won the California Commonwealth Club's Gold Medal. The book portrays the adventures of a young group of classless and usually homeless men in Monterey, set in the era after World War I, just before U.S. prohibition. These characters, who are portrayed in ironic comparison to mythologic knights on a quest, reject nearly all of the standard morals of American society in enjoyment of a dissolute life centering around wine, lust, comradery, and petty thievery. The book, was made into a film of the same name in 1942, starring Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr, and John Garfield.

Critical success

Steinbeck began to write a series of "California novels" and Dust Bowl fiction, set among common people during the Great Depression. These included In Dubious Battle in 1936, Of Mice and Men in 1937, and The Grapes of Wrath in 1939. Of Mice and Men (1937), his novella about the dreams of a pair of migrant laborers working the California soil, was critically acclaimed.
   The stage adaptation of Of Mice and Men was a hit, starring Broderick Crawford as the mentally child-like but physically powerful itinerant farmhand "Lennie," and Wallace Ford as Lennie's companion, "George." However, Steinbeck refused to travel from his home in California to attend any performance of the play during its New York run, telling 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 would ultimately write only two stage plays (the second an adaptation of The Moon Is Down). Of Mice and Men was rapidly adapted into a 1939 Hollywood film, in which Lon Chaney, Jr. (who had portrayed the role in the Los Angeles production of the play) was cast as Lennie and Burgess Meredith as "George." Steinbeck followed this wave of success with The Grapes of Wrath (1939), based on newspaper articles he'd written in San Francisco. The novel would be considered by many to be his finest work. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940, even as it was made into a notable film directed by John Ford, starring Henry Fonda as Tom Joad, who was nominated for an Academy Award for the part. The success of The Grapes of Wrath, however, wasn't free of controversy, as Steinbeck's liberal political views, portrayal of the ugly side of capitalism, and mythical reinterpretation of the historical events of the Dust Bowl migrations led to backlash against the author, especially close to home. In fact, claiming the book was both obscene and misrepresented conditions in the county, the Kern County Board of Supervisors banned the book from the county's public schools and libraries in August 1939. This ban lasted until January 1941.
   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 the Okies 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 isn't healthy."
   The film versions of The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men (by two different movie studios) were in production simultaneously. Steinbeck spent a full day on the set of The Grapes of Wrath and the next day on the set of Of Mice and Men.

1940s—1950s

Steinbeck divorced his first wife, Carol Henning, in 1943. He married Gwyn Conger that same year, a union which produced Steinbeck's only children, Thomas ("Thom") Myles Steinbeck in 1944 and John Steinbeck IV (Catbird), in 1946. They divorced in 1948. Two years later, Steinbeck married Elaine (Anderson) Scott, the ex-wife of actor Zachary Scott. They would remain married until his death in 1968. She died in New York 27 April 2003.

Ed Ricketts

In 1940, Steinbeck's interest in marine biology and his friendship with Ed Ricketts led him to a voyage around the Gulf of California, also known as the "Sea of Cortez," where they collected biological specimens. Steinbeck's narrative portion of the total expedition report (with some philosophical additions by Ricketts) was later published as The Log from the Sea of Cortez, and describes the daily experiences of the trip. The narrative-log plus the full catalog of the marine invertebrates taken, had earlier been published as a naturalist's narrative and biological catalog of the invertebrate life of the Gulf of California. While it remains a classic of an earlier tradition in biological reporting, in 1942 it didn't sell well, in part due to failure to find a popular audience. Ed Ricketts had a tremendous impact on Steinbeck's writing. Not only did he help Steinbeck while he was in the process of writing, but he aided Steinbeck in his social adventures. Steinbeck frequently took small trips with Ricketts along the California coast, to collect the biological specimens which Ricketts sold for a living, and to give Steinbeck a vacation from his writing. Steinbeck's last novel, The Winter of Our Discontent, was written in 1961. The book examines moral decline in America through a tragic story. The book reflected Steinbeck's increasing concern over the loss of integrity amongst members of society and the subsequent moral decay; in the book, the protagonist Ethan, like Steinbeck grows discontented both with his own moral decline and of those around him. The book is quite different in tone to Steinbeck's amoral and ecological description of the innocent thievery of the protagonists of his earlier works such as Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row. Like many of Steinbeck's works, his last one was critically savaged. Many reviewers saw the quality and importance of the novel but were again disappointed, as many were still hoping for a work similar to the Grapes of Wrath.

Nobel prize for literature

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.” Privately, he felt he didn't deserve the honor. In his acceptance speech, 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 doesn't believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature."

In September of 1964, Steinbeck was awarded the United States Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
In 1967, at the behest of Newsday magazine, Steinbeck went to Vietnam to report on the war there. Thinking of the Vietnam War as a heroic venture, he was considered a Hawk for his position on that war. His sons both served in Vietnam prior to his death, and Steinbeck visited one son in the battlefield (at one point being allowed to man a machine-gun watch position at night at a firebase, while his son and other members of his platoon slept).

Death

On December 20, 1968 John Steinbeck died in New York City. His death is listed as heart disease or heart attack. An autopsy showed nearly complete occlusion of Steinbeck's main coronary arteries.
In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated and an urn containing his ashes was interred at his family gravesite. His ashes were placed with those of the Hamiltons (grandparents). His third wife, Elaine was buried with him in 2004.
Steinbeck's works have aroused controversy. For example, at the time of its release The Grapes of Wrath was banned by several school boards, who believed his work to be obscene and misrepresentational. In one case, Kern County Board of Supervisors banned the book from the county's public schools and libraries in August 1939. The Grapes of Wrath was also burned in Steinbeck's home town of Salinas on two occasions. Controversy however, still surrounds some of his work today; Of Mice and Men as another example, was banned in 2003 by a school board in Mississippi who considered the books use of profanity as a danger to its students. The American Library Association states that Steinbeck was one of the ten most challenged and banned authors from 1990 to 2004, with Of Mice and Men the sixth highest challenged out of the 100 most frequently challenged books in the United States.

California

The California area which includes Salinas and the Salinas Valley, Monterey, and parts of the nearby San Joaquin Valley, acted as a setting for many of his stories. The area is now sometimes referred to as "Steinbeck Country".
The National Steinbeck Center, two blocks away at One Main Street is the only museum in the U.S. dedicated to a single author. Dana Gioia (chair of the National 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." Its Steinbeckiana includes Rocinante, the camper truck in which Steinbeck made the crosscountry trip described in "Travels with Charley." A detailed breakdown of all of Steinbecks work are narrated through audio and visual materials including some original manuscripts, first editions and personal possessions.
The cottage his father owned on Eleventh Street in Pacific Grove, where Steinbeck wrote some of his earliest books, has also survived. His son, author Thomas Steinbeck accepted the award on his behalf. In 1979, the United States Postal Service issued a stamp featuring Steinbeck, starting the Postal Service’s Literary Arts series honoring American writers.

Political views

Steinbeck's literary background brought him into close collaboration with leftist authors, journalists, and labor union figures, who may have influenced his writing. Steinbeck was mentored by radical writers Lincoln Steffens and his wife Ella Winter, and through Francis Whitaker, a member of the United States Communist Party’s John Reed Club for writers, Steinbeck met with strike organizers from the Cannery and Agricultural Workers' Industrial Union.
   Steinbeck complained publicly about government harassment. In a 1942 letter to United States Attorney General Francis Biddle he wrote "Do you suppose you could ask Edgar's boys to stop stepping on my heels? They think I'm an enemy alien. It is getting tiresome". The FBI issued disingenuous denials that Steinbeck wasn't "under investigation". In fact, Steinbeck was indeed the object of intense FBI scrutiny. He wasn't under investigation, which is a technical term used by the FBI when it seeks to collect evidence in connection with a specific crime.
   Steinbeck was also screened for his political beliefs by Army Intelligence during World War II to determine his suitability for an officer's commission. It found him ideologically unqualified. In later years, he'd be criticized from the left by those who accused him of insufficient ideological commitment to socialism. In 1948 a women's socialist group in Rome condemned Steinbeck for converting to "the camp of war and anti-Sovietism". Then in a 1955 article in the Daily Worker his portrayal of the American Left was criticised.
   In 1967, Steinbeck traveled to Vietnam to report on the war, and his sympathetic portrait of the United States Army caused the New York Post to denounce him for betraying his liberal past. Steinbeck's biographer, Jay Parini, has suggested that Steinbeck's affection for Lyndon B. Johnson, whom he considered a friend, influenced his view of the situation in Vietnam.
   Steinbeck was a close associate of playwright Arthur Miller, author of Death of a Salesman and The Crucible. In June 1959, Steinbeck took a personal and professional risk by standing up for his companion, who was held in contempt of the United States Congress for refusing to name names in the House Un-American Activities Committee trials. Steinbeck called the period one of the "strangest and most frightening times a government and people have ever faced."

Major Works

Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men is a tragedy that was written in the form of a play in 1937. The story is about two traveling ranch workers, George and Lennie, trying to work up enough money to buy their own farm/ranch. It encompasses themes of racism, loneliness, prejudice against the mentally ill, and the struggle for personal independence. Along with Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and The Pearl, Of Mice and Men is one of Steinbeck's best known works. It was made into a movie three times, in 1939 starring Burgess Meredith, Lon Chaney Jr., and Betty Field, in 1982 starring Randy Quaid, Robert Blake and Ted Neeley, and in 1992 starring Gary Sinise and John Malkovich.

The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath was written in 1939 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940. The book is set in the Great Depression and describes a family of sharecroppers, the Joads, who were driven from their land due to the dust storms of the Dust Bowl. The title is a reference to the Battle Hymn of the Republic. The book was made into a film in 1940 starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford.

East of Eden

Steinbeck deals with the nature of good and evil in this Salinas Valley saga. The story follows two families: the Hamiltons - based on Steinbeck's own maternal ancestry - and the Trasks, reprising stories about the Biblical Adam and his progeny. The book was published in 1952.

Travels With Charley

In 1960, Steinbeck bought a pickup truck and had it modified with a custom-built camper top - rare for that day - and drove across the United States with his faithful poodle, Charley. In this sometimes comical, sometimes melancholic book, Steinbeck describes what he sees from Maine to Montana to California, and from there to Texas and Louisiana and back to his home in Long Island. The restored camper truck is on exhibit in the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California.

Film credits

1939—Of Mice and Men—directed by Lewis Milestone, featuring Burgess Meredith, Lon Chaney, Jr., and Betty Field
1940—The Grapes of Wrath—directed by John Ford, featuring Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell and John Carradine
1941—The Forgotten Village—directed by Herbert Kline, narrated by Burgess Meredith
1942—Tortilla Flat—directed by Victor Fleming, featuring Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr and John Garfield
1943—The Moon is Down—directed by Irving Pichel, featuring Lee J. Cobb and Sir Cedric Hardwicke
1944—Lifeboat—directed by Alfred Hitchcock, featuring Tallulah Bankhead, Hume Cronyn, and John Hodiak
1944—A Medal for Benny—directed by Irving Pichel, featuring Dorothy Lamour and Arturo de Cordova
1947—La Perla (The Pearl, Mexico)—directed by Emilio Fernández, featuring Pedro Armendáriz and María Elena Marqués
1949—The Red Pony—directed by Lewis Milestone, featuring Myrna Loy, Robert Mitchum, and Louis Calhern
1952—Viva Zapata!—directed by Elia Kazan, featuring Marlon Brando, Anthony Quinn and Jean Peters
1955—East of Eden—directed by Elia Kazan, featuring James Dean, Julie Harris, Jo Van Fleet, and Raymond Massey
1956—The Wayward Bus—directed by Victor Vicas, featuring Rick Jason, Jayne Mansfield, and Joan Collins
1961—Flight—featuring Efrain Ramírez and Arnelia Cortez
1962—Ikimize bir dünya (Of Mice and Men, Turkey)
1972—Topoli (Of Mice and Men, Iran)
1982—Cannery Row—directed by David S. Ward, featuring Nick Nolte and Debra Winger
1992—Of Mice and Men—directed by Gary Sinise and starring John Malkovich

Partial Bibliography

(1929)

The Pastures of Heaven (1932)

The Red Pony (1933)

To a God Unknown (1933)

Tortilla Flat (1935)

(1936)

In Dubious Battle (1936)

Of Mice and Men (1937)

The Long Valley (1938)

The Grapes of Wrath (1939)

Forgotten Village (1941)

Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research (1941)

The Moon Is Down (1942)

(1942)

Cannery Row (1945)

The Wayward Bus (1947)

The Pearl (1947)

A Russian Journal (1948)

Burning Bright (1950)

The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951)

East of Eden (1952)

Sweet Thursday (1954)

The Short Reign of Pippin IV: A Fabrication (1957)

Once There Was A War (1958)

The Winter of Our Discontent (1961)

(1962)

America and Americans (1966) Posthumous publishings include:

(1969)

Viva Zapata! (1975)

The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976)

(1989)Further Information

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