Steinbeck's Sympathy for Humans in Cannery Row
Uploaded by NYKIE on Jun 04, 2007
The Dark Side of the American Dream
John Steinbeck characters are ordinary people in extraordinary positions. Usually poor or working class, they struggle to survive on the fringes of society. John Steinbeck deep feelings for the nature and his sympathy for the plight of human beings is reflected in his novel Cannery Row. Steinbeck works and characters are windows into the essential aspects of humanity: conflict, grief, fear, and most importantly, the struggle humanity has with itself. His novel Cannery Row is a nostalgic portrayal of the lazy, shiftless, good-natured low-lifes of a canning community who prefer drinking, fighting and indolence to work and earning a living. Not even the lower-middle class citizens of the small canning community are able to persevere in their objection to societal values.
Mack, the unproclaimed œleader of œthe boys feels it is necessary to dress up their once-abandoned home known as the Palace Flophouse; the Malloys want curtains for their boiler room despite the fact that it has no windows; and a teenaged boy named Frankie feels it is essential that he purchase an expensive gift to impress his love (Meyer 2). In Cannery Row, Steinbeck exposes the dark side of what, in today society, is referred to as the American Dream. He celebrates the hopes symbolized in this dream and demonstrates the greatness of the human heart and mind. Steinbeck depicts a paradise once lost, while maintaining the hope of a paradise to be regained (œJohn 1453).
Cannery Row offers a wonderfully warm depiction of the colorful characters who clustered around the small community around the time of the Depression. Each and every character is cut off from society mainstream in some way but retains idealistic visions which give them strength. Though lacking a general sense of purpose or ambition, Steinbeck portrays each of his characters as a good person who clutches to the things they have, rather than striving for more. Dora, the owner of a whorehouse, for example, is successful and well-liked in spite of moral and social woes. Steinbeck sympathetically refers to Mack and they boys as the œangelic bums, the œbeauties, and the œVirtues (Fiorelli 2). Mack is irresponsible and unreliable, yet loyal and generous. He always means well, but his good intentions are often concealed by unexpected mishaps.
For every quality considered bad,...