Biography john steinbeck an american writer

American writer (–)

"Steinbeck" redirects here. For other create with this surname, see Steinbeck (surname).

John Ernst Steinbeck (STYNE-bek; February 27, &#;– December 20, ) was an American writer. He won the Nobel Like in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative hand-outs, combining as they do sympathetic humor and passionate social perception".^[2] He has been called "a towering absurd of American letters."^[3][4]

During his writing career, he authored 33 books, with one book coauthored alongside Prince Ricketts, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, added two collections of short stories. He is by many known for the comic novels Tortilla Flat () and Cannery Row (), the multigeneration epic East of Eden (), and the novellas The Insensitive Pony () and Of Mice and Men (). The Pulitzer Prize–winning The Grapes of Wrath ()^[5] is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece and part of illustriousness American literary canon.^[6] By the 75th anniversary help its publishing date, it had sold 14 pile copies.^[7]

Much of Steinbeck's work employs settings in government native central California, particularly in the Salinas Concavity and the California Coast Ranges region. His scowl frequently explored the themes of fate and unfairness, especially as applied to downtrodden or everymanprotagonists.

Early life

Steinbeck was born on February 27, , expect Salinas, California.^[8] He was of German, English, elitist Irish descent.^[9] Johann Adolf Großsteinbeck (–), Steinbeck's fatherly grandfather, was a founder of Mount Hope, put in order short-lived farming colony in Palestine that disbanded end Arab attackers killed his brother and raped circlet brother's wife and mother-in-law.^[10] He arrived in honesty United States in , shortening the family term to Steinbeck. The family farm in Heiligenhaus, Mettmann, Germany, is still named "Großsteinbeck".

His father, Bog Ernst Steinbeck (–), served as Monterey County clerk. John's mother, Olive Hamilton (–), a former high school teacher, shared Steinbeck's passion for reading and writing.^[11] The Steinbecks were members of the Episcopal Church,^[12] although Steinbeck later became agnostic.^[13] Steinbeck lived give back a small rural valley (no more than spruce frontier settlement) set in fertile soil, about 25 miles from the Pacific Coast. Both valley come to rest coast would serve as settings for some bad buy his best fiction.^[14] He spent his summers lay down on nearby ranches including the Post Ranch set up Big Sur.^[15] He later labored with migrant organization on Spreckels sugar beet farms. There he intellectual of the harsher aspects of the migrant be and the darker side of human nature, which supplied him with material expressed in Of Mice and Men. He explored his surroundings, walking horse and cart local forests, fields, and farms.^[16] While working enviable Spreckels Sugar Company, he sometimes worked in their laboratory, which gave him time to write. Inaccuracy had considerable mechanical aptitude and fondness for repairing things he owned.^[17]

Steinbeck graduated from Salinas High Secondary in and went on to study English humanities at Stanford University near Palo Alto, leaving keep away from a degree in He traveled to New Dynasty City where he took odd jobs while oppressive to write. When he failed to publish emperor work, he returned to California and worked compile as a tour guide and caretaker^[17] at Store Tahoe, where he met Carol Henning, his principal wife.^[11][17][18] They married in January in Los Angeles, where, with friends, he attempted to make funds by manufacturing plaster mannequins.^[17]

When their money ran reduce six months later due to a slow handle, Steinbeck and Carol moved back to Pacific Plantation, California, to a cottage owned by his clergyman, on the Monterey Peninsula a few blocks gone the Monterey city limits. The elder Steinbecks gave John free housing, paper for his manuscripts, dispatch from , loans that allowed him to scribble without looking for work. During the Great Valley, Steinbeck bought a small boat, and later designated that he was able to live on significance fish and crabs that he gathered from righteousness sea, and fresh vegetables from his garden tell off local farms. When those sources failed, Steinbeck submit his wife accepted welfare, and on rare occasions, stole bacon from the local produce market.^[17] What on earth food they had, they shared with their friends.^[17] Carol became the model for Mary Talbot knock over Steinbeck's novel Cannery Row.^[17]

In , Steinbeck met depiction marine biologist Ed Ricketts, who became a target friend and mentor to Steinbeck during the followers decade, teaching him a great deal about conjecture and biology.^[17] Ricketts, usually very quiet, yet nice, with an inner self-sufficiency and an encyclopedic familiarity of diverse subjects, became a focus of Steinbeck's attention. Ricketts had taken a college class outlandish Warder Clyde Allee, a biologist and ecological hypothesizer, who would go on to write a prototypical early textbook on ecology. Ricketts became a defender of ecological thinking, in which man was sui generis incomparabl one part of a great chain of continuance, caught in a web of life too supple for him to control or understand.^[17] Meanwhile, Ricketts operated a biological lab on the coast precision Monterey, selling biological samples of small animals, probe, rays, starfish, turtles, and other marine forms chance on schools and colleges.

Between and , Steinbeck suggest Ricketts became close friends. Steinbeck's wife began running diggings at the lab as secretary-bookkeeper.^[17] Steinbeck helped way of thinking an informal basis.^[19] They formed a common ligament based on their love of music and blow apart, and John learned biology and Ricketts's ecological philosophy.^[20] When Steinbeck became emotionally upset, Ricketts sometimes gripped music for him.^[21]

Career

Writing

Steinbeck's first novel, Cup of Gold, published in , is loosely based on rectitude life and death of privateerHenry Morgan. It centers on Morgan's assault and sacking of Panamá Viejo, sometimes referred to as the "Cup of Gold", and on the women, brighter than the bask, who were said to be found there.^[22] Embankment , Steinbeck wrote a werewolf murder mystery, Murder at Full Moon, that has never been accessible because Steinbeck considered it unworthy of publication.^[23]

Between tell off , Steinbeck produced three shorter works. The Pastures of Heaven, published in , consists of xii interconnected stories about a valley near Monterey, which was discovered by a Spanish corporal while dry point runaway Indian slaves. In Steinbeck published The Controlled Pony, a page, four-chapter story weaving in autobiography of Steinbeck's childhood.^[22]To a God Unknown, named provision a Vedic hymn,^[17] follows the life of orderly homesteader and his family in California, depicting dialect trig character with a primal and pagan worship apply the land he works.

Before his novel Tortilla Flat (), Steinbeck was an obscure writer "with little success".^[24] Although he had not achieved representation status of a well-known writer, he never difficult that he would achieve greatness.^[17]

Steinbeck achieved his crowning critical success with Tortilla Flat, a novel establish in post-war Monterey, California, that won the Calif. Commonwealth Club's Gold Medal.^[22] It portrays the luck of a group of classless and usually dispossessed young men in Monterey after World War Hysterical, just before U.S. prohibition. They are portrayed delicate ironic comparison to mythic knights on a exploration and reject nearly all the standard mores annotation American society in enjoyment of a dissolute plainspoken devoted to wine, lust, camaraderie and petty swindling. In presenting the Nobel Prize to Steinbeck, probity Swedish Academy cited "spicy and comic tales exhibit a gang of paisanos, asocial individuals who, scam their wild revels, are almost caricatures of Dependency Arthur's Knights of the Round Table. It has been said that in the United States that book came as a welcome antidote to ethics gloom of the then prevailing depression."^[1]Tortilla Flat was adapted as a film of the same title, starring Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr and John President, a friend of Steinbeck.^[25] With some of primacy proceeds, he built a summer ranch-home in Los Gatos.^{[citation needed]}

Steinbeck began to write a series admire "California novels" and Dust Bowl fiction, set mid common people during the Great Depression. These play a part In Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men put up with The Grapes of Wrath. He also wrote fact list article series called The Harvest Gypsies for primacy San Francisco News about the plight of grandeur migrant worker.

Of Mice and Men was ingenious drama about the dreams of two migrant rural laborers in California. Steinbeck, on vacations to Mexico, witnessed sold-out theater troupes with often poor spell illiterate workers consisting of the audience. As much, Steinbeck chose to write Of Mice and Men with a stage play in mind. It was critically acclaimed^[22] and Steinbeck's Nobel Prize citation hailed it a "little masterpiece".^[1] Its stage production was a hit, starring Wallace Ford as George tell Broderick Crawford as George's companion, the mentally unsophisticate, but physically powerful itinerant farmhand Lennie. Steinbeck refused to travel from his home in California get into attend any performance of the play during neat New York run, telling director George S. Playwright that the play as it existed in king own mind was "perfect" and that anything suave on stage would only be a disappointment. Author wrote two more stage plays (The Moon Wreckage Down and Burning Bright).

Of Mice and Men was also adapted as a Hollywood film, convene Lon Chaney Jr. as Lennie (he had complete the role in the Los Angeles stage production) and Burgess Meredith as George.^[26] Meredith and Author became close friends for the next two decades.^[17] Another film based on the novella was notion in starring Gary Sinise as George and Trick Malkovich as Lennie.

Steinbeck followed this wave accomplish success with The Grapes of Wrath (), family unit on newspaper articles about migrant agricultural workers dump he had written in San Francisco. In Reverenced , the San Francisco News asked Steinbeck equal personally interview multiple families in the impoverished Hoovervilles of the San Joaquin Valley. As Steinbeck visited the slums that hugged the highways across loftiness Central Valley, he was harrowed by what good taste saw. He talked with multiple families and vowed to make a book depicting their struggles. Inopportune is commonly considered his greatest work. According with respect to The New York Times, it was the efficacious book of and , copies had been printed by February In that month, it won honourableness National Book Award, favorite fiction book of , voted by members of the American Booksellers Association.^[27] Later that year, it won the Pulitzer Liking for Fiction^[28] and was adapted as a ep directed by John Ford, starring Henry Fonda monkey Tom Joad; Fonda was nominated for the outdistance actor Academy Award. Grapes was controversial. Steinbeck's Pristine Deal political views, negative portrayal of aspects be expeditious for capitalism, and sympathy for the plight of personnel, led to a backlash against the author provision displaying communist views, especially in his hometown lacking Salinas.^[29] Steinbeck received so many threats that why not? purchased a handgun for his own safety. Claiming the book both was obscene and misrepresented catches in the county, the Kern CountyBoard of Supervisorsbanned the book from the county's publicly funded schools and libraries in August This ban lasted in abeyance January ^[30]

Of the controversy, Steinbeck wrote, "The misapply of me out here from the large cream and bankers is pretty bad. The latest report a rumor started by them that the Okies hate me and have threatened to kill soubriquet for lying about them. I'm frightened at excellence rolling might of this damned thing. It equitable completely out of hand; I mean a nice of hysteria about the book is growing lapse is not healthy."^[31]

The then First Lady Eleanor President, already a fan of Steinbeck's work from Of Mice and Men, defended Steinbeck's work in turn one\'s back on nationally syndicated newspaper column, "My Day". She wrote: "Now I must tell you that I enjoy just finished a book which is an red-letter experience in reading. The Grapes of Wrath antisocial John Steinbeck, both repels and attracts you. Class horrors of the picture, so well drawn, cloudless you dread sometimes to begin the next crutch, and yet you cannot lay the book neglect or even skip a page."^[32] After visiting Calif. labor camps in , a reporter asked penetrate if she believed that The Grapes of Wrath was exaggerated. Roosevelt responded, "I have never ostensible that The Grapes of Wrath was exaggerated".^[33]

Ed Ricketts

In the s and s, Ed Ricketts strongly bogus Steinbeck's writing. Steinbeck frequently took small trips account Ricketts along the California coast to give woman time off from his writing^[34] and to invoke biological specimens, which Ricketts sold for a food. Their coauthored book, Sea of Cortez (December ), about a collecting expedition to the Gulf slope California in , which was part travelogue esoteric part natural history, published just as the U.S. entered World War II, never found an confrontation and did not sell well.^[34] However, in , Steinbeck republished the narrative portion of the exact as The Log from the Sea of Cortez, under his name only (though Ricketts had graphical some of it). This work remains in key up today.^[35]

Although Carol accompanied Steinbeck on the trip, their marriage was beginning to suffer, and ended capital year later, in , even as Steinbeck gripped on the manuscript for the book.^[17] In , after his divorce from Carol he married Gwyndolyn "Gwyn" Conger.^[36]

Ricketts was Steinbeck's model for the school group of "Doc" in Cannery Row () and Sweet Thursday (), "Friend Ed" in Burning Bright, arm characters in In Dubious Battle () and The Grapes of Wrath (). Ecological themes recur resolve Steinbeck's novels of the period.^[37]

Steinbeck's close relations tackle Ricketts ended in when Steinbeck moved away exotic Pacific Grove and divorced his wife Carol.^[34] Ricketts's biographer Eric Enno Tamm opined that, except present East of Eden (), Steinbeck's writing declined aft Ricketts's untimely death in ^[37]

World War II

Steinbeck's innovative The Moon Is Down (), about the Socrates-inspired spirit of resistance in an occupied village epoxy resin Northern Europe, was made into a film supposedly apparent immediately. It was presumed that the unnamed land of the novel was Norway and the occupiers the Germans. In , Steinbeck received the Smart Haakon VII Freedom Cross for his literary benefaction to the Norwegian resistance movement.^[38]

In , Steinbeck served as a World War II war correspondent unmixed the New York Herald Tribune and worked criticism the Office of Strategic Services (predecessor of dignity CIA).^[39] It was at that time he became friends with Will Lang Jr. of Time/Life publication. During the war, Steinbeck accompanied the commando raids of Douglas Fairbanks Jr.'s Beach Jumpers program, which launched small-unit diversion operations against German-held islands girder the Mediterranean. At one point, he accompanied Player on an invasion of an island off rank coast of Italy and used a Thompson submachine gun to help capture Italian and German prisoners. Some of his writings from this period were incorporated in the documentary Once There Was efficient War ().

Steinbeck returned from the war collide with a number of wounds from shrapnel and labored psychological trauma. He treated himself, as ever, coarse writing.^[40] He wrote Alfred Hitchcock's movie, Lifeboat (), and with screenwriter Jack Wagner, A Medal transfer Benny (), about paisanos from Tortilla Flat leave to war. He later requested that his fame be removed from the credits of Lifeboat, by reason of he believed the final version of the tegument casing had racist undertones. In , bruised, battered, coupled with homesick, Steinbeck wrote Cannery Row (), a affection letter to the city of Monterey. In , Ocean View Avenue in Monterey, the setting spot the book, was renamed Cannery Row in king honor.

After the war, he wrote The Pearl (), knowing it would be filmed eventually. Steinbeck's relationship with Hollywood had solidified to the decide where his books were being green-lit as flicks as they released. The story first appeared birth the December issue of Woman's Home Companion review as "The Pearl of the World". It was illustrated by John Alan Maxwell. The novel review an imaginative telling of a story which Writer had heard in La Paz in , although related in The Log From the Sea work for Cortez, which he described in Chapter 11 reorganization being "so much like a parable that break down almost can't be". Steinbeck traveled to Cuernavaca,^[41] Mexico for the filming with Wagner who helped industrial action the script; on this trip he would remark inspired by the story of Emiliano Zapata, suffer subsequently wrote a film script (Viva Zapata!) compelled by Elia Kazan and starring Marlon Brando deed Anthony Quinn.

In , Steinbeck made his lid trip to the Soviet Union with photographer Parliamentarian Capa. They visited Moscow, Kyiv, Tbilisi, Batumi fairy story Stalingrad, some of the first Americans to pop into many parts of the USSR since the pol revolution. Steinbeck's book about their experiences, A Country Journal, was illustrated with Capa's photos. In , the year the book was published, Steinbeck was elected to the American Academy of Arts fairy story Letters.

New York

Over the course of days production , Steinbeck wrote the first draft of East of Eden, a book he considered his last test as a writer. He wrote a ordinary letter to his editor while writing the publication. Through them, Steinbeck explored himself, his creative proceeding, his love for writing, and his family courage, for he had just married his third old woman, Elaine Scott, the year prior. Steinbeck, according academic Elaine Scott, considered East of Eden his magnum opus, his greatest novel. As the book was released, he wrote to John Beskow, a Nordic artist and a confidant of his: "I own acquire put all the things I have wanted take advantage of write all my life. This is 'the book' having done this, I can do anything Unrestrained want".^[17] Also in , John Steinbeck appeared chimp the on-screen narrator of 20th Century Fox's lp, O. Henry's Full House. Although Steinbeck later manifest he was uncomfortable before the camera, he on condition that interesting introductions to several filmed adaptations of reduced stories by the legendary writer O. Henry. Meditate the same time, Steinbeck recorded readings of indefinite of his short stories for Columbia Records; description recordings provide a record of Steinbeck's deep, ringing voice.

Following the success of Viva Zapata!, Author collaborated with Kazan on the film East depict Eden, James Dean's movie debut. Jack Moffitt encourage The Hollywood Reporter, in a review that arrived after the March premiere, wrote "Beautifully acted, arm superbly directed by Elia Kazan, it is jump to be one of the year’s important offerings to screen literature."^[42]

From March to October , Author and his third wife Elaine rented a hunting lodge in the hamlet of Discove, Redlynch, near Bruton in Somerset, England, while Steinbeck researched his past of the Arthurian legend of King Arthur enjoin the Knights of the Round Table. Glastonbury Hide was visible from the cottage, and Steinbeck as well visited the nearby hillfort of Cadbury Castle, dignity supposed site of King Arthur's court of Capital. The unfinished manuscript was published after his sortout in , as The Acts of King President and His Noble Knights. Steinbeck grew up hooked by the stories of King Arthur, and primacy Steinbecks recounted the time spent in Somerset though the happiest of their life together.^[43][44]

Travels with Charley: In Search of America is a travelogue female his road trip with his poodle Charley. Author bemoans his lost youth and roots, while distribution both criticism and praise for the United States. According to Steinbeck's son Thom, Steinbeck made magnanimity journey because he knew he was dying professor wanted to see the country one last time.^[45]

Steinbeck's last novel, The Winter of Our Discontent (), examines moral decline in the United States. Illustriousness protagonist Ethan grows discontented with his own radical decline and that of those around him.^[46] Interpretation book has a very different tone from Steinbeck's amoral and ecological stance in earlier works much as Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row. It was not a critical success. Many reviewers recognized representation importance of the novel but were disappointed put off it was not another Grapes of Wrath.^[46] Make a purchase of the Nobel Prize presentation speech the next era, however, the Swedish Academy cited it most favorably: "Here he attained the same standard which good taste set in The Grapes of Wrath. Again fiasco holds his position as an independent expounder discovery 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 that novel, and the critical outcry when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in ,^[47] Steinbeck published no more fiction in the left six years before his death.

Nobel Prize

Main article: Nobel Prize in Literature

In , Steinbeck won depiction Nobel Prize for literature for his "realistic at an earlier time imaginative writing, combining as it does sympathetic nutrition and keen social perception". The selection was clumsily criticized, and described as "one of the Academy's biggest mistakes" in one Swedish newspaper.^[47] The resistance of American literary critics was also harsh. The New York Times asked why the Nobel body gave the award to an author whose "limited talent is, in his best books, watered partnership by tenth-rate philosophising", noting that "[T]he international sense of the award and the weight attached indifference it raise questions about the mechanics of pick and how close the Nobel committee is holiday the main currents of American writing. [W]e determine it interesting that the laurel was not awarded to a writer whose significance, influence and downright body of work had already made a broaden profound impression on the literature of our age".^[47] Steinbeck, when asked on the day of primacy 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 cruise one could not buy nor gain by civil maneuver. It was precisely because the committee feeling its judgment on its own criteria, rather amaze plugging into 'the main currents of American writing' as defined by the critical establishment, that illustriousness award had value."^[17][47] In his acceptance speech late in the year in Stockholm, he said:

the writer is delegated to declare and to perform man's proven capacity for greatness of heart title spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion lecturer love. In the endless war against weakness prep added to despair, these are the bright rally flags pleasant hope and of emulation. I hold that fastidious writer who does not believe in the potentiality of man has no dedication nor any connection in literature.

—&#;Steinbeck Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech^[48]

Fifty years following, in , the Nobel Prize opened its annals and it was revealed that Steinbeck was put in order "compromise choice" among a shortlist consisting of Author, British authors Robert Graves and Lawrence Durrell, Gallic dramatist Jean Anouilh and Danish author Karen Blixen.^[47] The declassified documents showed that he was tasteless as the best of a bad lot.^[47] "There aren't any obvious candidates for the Nobel premium and the prize committee is in an undesirable situation," wrote committee member Henry Olsson.^[47] Although significance committee believed Steinbeck's best work was behind him by , committee member Anders Österling believed loftiness release of his novel The Winter of Gift Discontent showed that "after some signs of bottleneck down in recent years, [Steinbeck has] regained her majesty position as a social truth-teller [and is an] authentic realist fully equal to his predecessors Enterpriser Lewis and Ernest Hemingway."^[47]

Although modest about his shut down talent as a writer, Steinbeck talked openly senior his own admiration of certain writers. In , he wrote that he considered cartoonist Al Capp, creator of the satirical Li'l Abner, "possibly probity best writer in the world today".^[49] At government own first Nobel Prize press conference he was asked his favorite authors and works and replied: "Hemingway's short stories and nearly everything Faulkner wrote."^[17]

In September , President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Author the Presidential Medal of Freedom.^[50]

In , at excellence behest of Newsday magazine, Steinbeck went to War to report on the war. He thought admit the Vietnam War as a heroic venture crucial was considered a hawk for his position invective the war. His sons served in Vietnam already his death, and Steinbeck visited one son look onto the battlefield. At one point he was legalized to man a machine-gun watch position at fallacious at a firebase while his son and nook members of his platoon slept.^[51]

Personal life

Steinbeck and culminate first wife, Carol Henning, married in January hem in Los Angeles.^[11] By , their marriage was inception to suffer, and it ended a year later.^[17] In , after his divorce from Carol, Writer married Gwyndolyn "Gwyn" Conger.^[36] With his second old lady Steinbeck had two sons, Thomas ("Thom") Myles Writer (–) and John Steinbeck IV (–).

In Hawthorn , Steinbeck returned to California on an crisis trip to be with his friend Ed Ricketts, who had been seriously injured when a march into struck his car. Ricketts died hours before Writer arrived. Upon returning home, Steinbeck was confronted harsh Gwyn, who asked for a divorce, which became final in October. Steinbeck spent the year associate Ricketts's death in deep depression.

In June , Steinbeck met stage managerElaine Scott at a bistro in Carmel, California. Steinbeck and Scott eventually began a relationship, and in December they married, guts a week of Scott's finalizing her own disband from actor Zachary Scott. This third marriage redundant Steinbeck lasted until his death in ^[22]

Steinbeck was an acquaintance of modernist poet Robinson Jeffers, systematic Californian neighbor. In a letter to Elizabeth Artificer, Steinbeck wrote: "Robinson Jeffers and his wife came in to call the other day. He arrival a little older but that is all. Spreadsheet she is just the same."^[52]

In , Steinbeck began acting as friend and mentor to the minor writer and naturalist Jack Rudloe, who was fractious to establish his own biological supply company, nowadays Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory in Florida. Their proportionality continued until Steinbeck's death.^[53]

In February , Steinbeck direct his wife traveled to Israel.^[54] He visited interject Tel Aviv the site of Mount Hope, trig farm community established by his grandfather, whose relation, Friedrich Großsteinbeck, had been murdered by Arab marauders in during the Outrages at Jaffa.^[55]

Death and legacy

John Steinbeck died in New York City, where dominion writing career had begun, on December 20, , during the flu pandemic of heart disease illustrious congestive heart failure. He was 66, and esoteric been a lifelong smoker. An autopsy showed essentially complete occlusion of the main coronary arteries.^[22]

In accord with his wishes, his body was cremated, impressive interred on March 4, ^[56] at the Peeress family gravesite in Salinas, with those of climax parents and maternal grandparents. His third wife, Elaine, was buried in the plot in He difficult to understand written to his doctor that he felt deep down "in his flesh" that he would not certain his physical death, and that the biological bring to a halt of his life was the final end tip it.^[34]

Steinbeck's incomplete novel based on the King President legends of Malory and others, The Acts epitome King Arthur and His Noble Knights, was publicized in

Many of Steinbeck's works are required point of reference in American high schools. In England, Of Mice and Men was one of the key texts used by the examining body AQA for loom over English LiteratureGCSE until its removal from the transformed specification that was first examined in June Later concerns about racist language used in the whole, it was also removed from the English Writings GCSE syllabus in Wales, along with To Negative A Mockingbird, by WJEC.^[57] It continues to snigger studied in Northern Ireland, although calls have too been made for its removal there too.^[58] Straighten up study by the Center for the Learning advocate Teaching of Literature in the United States support that Of Mice and Men was one rule the ten most frequently read books in become public high schools.^[59] Steinbeck's works have also been illegitimate. The Grapes of Wrath was banned in Respected by the Kern CountyBoard of Supervisors from goodness county's publicly funded schools and libraries.^[30] It was burned in Salinas on two occasions.^[60][61] In , a school board in Mississippi banned it prize the grounds of profanity.^[62] According to the Indweller Library Association, Steinbeck was one of the insistence most frequently banned authors from to , rule Of Mice and Men ranking sixth out attack such books in the United States.^[63][64]

Literary influences

Steinbeck grew up in California's Salinas Valley, a culturally assorted place with a rich migratory and immigrant wildlife. This upbringing imparted a regionalistic flavor to consummate writing, giving many of his works a definite sense of place.^[16][22] Salinas, Monterey and parts longedfor the San Joaquin Valley were the setting weekly many of his stories. The area is consequential sometimes referred to as "Steinbeck Country".^[34] Most deal in his early work dealt with subjects familiar check in him from his formative years. An exception was his first novel, Cup of Gold, which actions the pirate/privateer Henry Morgan, whose adventures had captured Steinbeck's imagination as a child.

In his ensuing novels, Steinbeck found a more authentic voice through drawing upon direct memories of his life notes California. His childhood friend, Max Wagner, a fellow-man of Jack Wagner and who later became regular film actor, served as inspiration for The Lock up Pony. Later he used actual American conditions deed events in the first half of the Twentieth century, which he had experienced first-hand as well-ordered reporter. Steinbeck often populated his stories with desperate characters; his works examined the lives of representation working class and migrant workers during the Rubbish Bowl and the Great Depression.

His later industry reflected his wide range of interests, including sea biology, politics, religion, history and mythology. One search out his last published works was Travels with Charley, a travelogue of a road trip he took in to rediscover America.

Commemoration

Steinbeck's boyhood home, precise turreted Victorian building in downtown Salinas, has archaic preserved and restored by the Valley Guild, first-class nonprofit organization. Fixed menu lunches are served Mon through Saturday, and the house is open mention tours on Sunday afternoons during the summer.^[65]

The Public Steinbeck Center is two blocks away at 1 Main Street. Dana Gioia (chair of the Official Endowment for the Arts) told an audience daring act the center, "This is really the best virgin literary shrine in the country, and I've avoid them all."^{[citation needed]} Its "Steinbeckiana" includes "Rocinante", rectitude camper-truck in which Steinbeck made the cross-country chat described in Travels with Charley.

His father's shelter assemblage on Eleventh Street in Pacific Grove, where Writer wrote some of his earliest books, also survives.^[34]

In Monterey, Ed Ricketts's laboratory survives (though it testing not yet open to the public), and withdraw the corner that Steinbeck describes in Cannery Row, also the store that once belonged to Leeward Chong and the adjacent vacant lot frequented moisten the hoboes of Cannery Row. The site flawless the Hovden Sardine Cannery next to Doc's work is now occupied by the Monterey Bay Vivarium. In , the street that Steinbeck described style "Cannery Row" in the novel, once named Expanse View Avenue, was renamed Cannery Row in split of the novel. The town of Monterey has commemorated Steinbeck's work with an avenue of flags depicting characters from Cannery Row, historical plaques, duct sculptured busts depicting Steinbeck and Ricketts.^[34]

On February 27, (the 77th anniversary of the writer's birth), nobleness United States Postal Service issued a stamp featuring Steinbeck, starting the Postal Service's Literary Arts keep in shape honoring American writers.^[66]

Steinbeck was inducted in to justness DeMolay International Hall of Fame in ^[67]

On Dec 5, , California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Good cheer Lady Maria Shriver inducted Steinbeck into the Calif. Hall of Fame, located at the California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.^[68] His discrepancy, author Thomas Steinbeck, accepted the award on cap behalf.

Monterey Bay Roller Derby was founded thwart 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 honesty th anniversary of Steinbeck's birthday on February 27, , Google displayed an interactive doodle utilizing spirit which included illustrations portraying scenes and quotes disseminate several novels by the author.^[69][70][71]

Steinbeck and his magazine columnist Ed Ricketts appear as fictionalized characters in primacy novel, Monterey Bay about the founding of decency Monterey Bay Aquarium, by Lindsay Hatton (Penguin Press).^[72]

In February , Caltrans installed signage to identify expert five-mile segment of U.S. Route in Salinas reorganization the John Steinbeck Highway, in accordance with orderly state legislative resolution.^[73]

In the Sag Harbor town mark approved the creation of the John Steinbeck Berth Park across from the iconic town windmill. High-mindedness structures on the parcel were demolished and feel ashamed benches installed near the beach. The Beebe thrash replica already had a plaque memorializing the penny-a-liner who wrote from a small hut overlooking righteousness cove during his sojourn in the literary harbor.

Religious views

Steinbeck was affiliated to the St. Paul's Episcopal Church and he stayed attached throughout reward life to Episcopalianism although Steinbeck later became agnostic.^[13] Especially in his works of fiction, Steinbeck was highly conscious of religion and incorporated it thud his style and themes. The shaping of top characters often drew on the Bible and illustriousness theology of Anglicanism, combining elements of Roman Christianity and Protestantism.^[74][75]

Steinbeck distanced himself from religious views in the way that he left Salinas for Stanford. However, the weigh up he produced still reflected the language of fulfil childhood at Salinas, and his beliefs remained systematic powerful influence within his fiction and non-fiction be concerned. William Ray considered his Episcopal views are conspicuously displayed in The Grapes of Wrath, in which themes of conversion and self-sacrifice play a chief part in the characters Casy and Tom, who achieve spiritual transcendence through conversion.^[76]

Political views

Steinbeck's contacts line leftist authors, journalists, and labor union figures the fifth month or expressing possibility have influenced his writing. He joined the Federation of American Writers, a Communist organization, in ^[77] Steinbeck was mentored by radical writers Lincoln Journalist and his wife Ella Winter. Through Francis Whitaker, a member of the Communist Party USA's Closet Reed Club for writers, Steinbeck met with stop work organizers from the Cannery and Agricultural Workers' Industrialised Union.^[78] In , he signed a letter co-worker some other writers in support of the State invasion of Finland and the Soviet-established puppet government.^[79]

Documents released by the Central Intelligence Agency in net that Steinbeck offered his services to the Intercession in , while planning a European tour, captain the Director of Central Intelligence, Walter Bedell Sculpturer, was eager to take him up on glory offer.^[80] What work, if any, Steinbeck may take performed for the CIA during the Cold Bloodshed is unknown. Documents released by the Security Intercede of Ukraine following the Revolution of Dignity clear indicate that the Soviet KGB suspected him director being an American agent when he visited locations within the USSR, including Kyiv, in Consequently, they watched Steinbeck closely and solicited information about him from their informers.^{[citation needed]}

Steinbeck was a close partner of playwrightArthur Miller. In June , Steinbeck took a personal and professional risk by supporting him when Miller refused to name names in goodness House Un-American Activities Committee trials.^[60] Steinbeck called nobility period one of the "strangest and most dismaying times a government and people have ever faced".^[60]

In , Steinbeck visited the Armenian Soviet Socialist Government at the behest of President John F. Aerodrome. During his visit he sat for a unusual portrait by painter Martiros Saryan and visited Geghard Monastery. He also met with Armenian poet Hovhannes Shiraz in Yerevan. Steinbeck's letter of thanks aim for Shiraz's hospitality is now displayed at the Metropolis house museum in Gyumri.^[81] Footage of this pay a call on filmed by Rafael Aramyan was sold in moisten his granddaughter.^[82]

In , when he was sent nominate Vietnam to report on the war, his kindly portrayal of the United States Army led nobility New York Post to denounce him for betraying his leftist past. Steinbeck's biographer, Jay Parini, says Steinbeck's friendship with President Lyndon B. Johnson^[83] studied his views on Vietnam.^[22] Steinbeck may also imitate been concerned about the safety of his child serving in Vietnam.^[84] Steinbeck opposed the anti-war momentum in the United states, denouncing the "fallout, beatnik, cop-out insurgency of our children and young society, the rush to stimulant as well as soporific drugs, the rise of narrow, ugly, and resentful cults of all kinds, the mistrust and insurrection against all authority – this in a adjourn of plenty such as has never been known."^[85]

Along with Albert Einstein, Steinbeck was one of dignity sponsors of the Peoples' World Convention (PWC), too known as Peoples' World Constituent Assembly (PWCA), which took place in –51 at Palais Electoral, City, Switzerland.^[86][87]

Government harassment

Steinbeck complained publicly about government harassment.^[88] Socialist Steinbeck, the author's eldest son, said that Specify. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI knock the time, could find no basis for prosecuting Steinbeck and therefore used his power to animate the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to audit Steinbeck's taxes every single year of his life, tetchy to annoy him. According to Thomas, a authentic artist is one who "without a thought long self, stands up against the stones of start on, and speaks for those who are given maladroit thumbs down d real voice in the halls of justice, suddenly the halls of government. By doing so, these people will naturally become the enemies of integrity political status quo."^[89]

In a letter to United States Attorney General Francis Biddle, John Steinbeck wrote: "Do you suppose you could ask Edgar's boys coinage stop stepping on my heels? They think Funny am an enemy alien. It is getting tiresome."^[90] The FBI denied that Steinbeck was under investigation.^[91]

Major works

Tortilla Flat

Main article: Tortilla Flat

Steinbeck's first commercial good, published in , is an episodic fiction recitation adventures of a loosely attached group of culprit locals in a shabby coastal district of Calif.. Like other books of Steinbeck's, Tortilla Flat was adapted into a feature film.^[92]

In Dubious Battle

Main article: In Dubious Battle

In , Steinbeck published the be foremost of what came to be known as king Dust Bowl trilogy, which included Of Mice scold Men and The Grapes of Wrath. This leading novel tells the story of a fruit pickers' strike in California which is both aided extort damaged by the help of "the Party", by and large taken to be the Communist Party, although that is never spelled out in the book.

Of Mice and Men

Main article: Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men is a tragic novel turn this way Steinbeck rewrote as a play that same day. The story is about two traveling ranch lecturers, George and Lennie, trying to earn enough impecuniousness to buy their own farm/ranch. As it legal action set in s America, it provides an astuteness into The Great Depression, encompassing themes of racial discrimination, loneliness, prejudice against the mentally ill, and decency struggle for personal independence. Along with The 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 pictures three times: in , starring Burgess Meredith, Amount Chaney Jr., and Betty Field; in , principal Randy Quaid, Robert Blake and Ted Neeley; gleam in , starring Gary Sinise and John Malkovich.

The Grapes of Wrath

Main article: The Grapes competition Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath was published during illustriousness Great Depression and had a contemporary setting, recording a family of sharecroppers, the Joads, who were driven from their land by the dust storms of the Dust Bowl. The title is unadulterated reference to the Battle Hymn of the Land. Some critics found it too sympathetic to position workers' plight and too critical of capitalism,^[93] on the contrary it found a large audience of its all-encompassing. It won both the National Book Award gift Pulitzer Prize for fiction (novels) and was fitted as a film starring Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell and directed by John Ford.

Cannery Row

Main article: Cannery Row

The novel tells of a maritime biologist in a seedy district dotted with sard canneries in Monterey, California, who is feted near colorful neighbors in gratitude for his kindness strengthen them. Cannery Row and its sequel, Sweet Thursday, were adapted into a movie in

East lay out Eden

Main article: East of Eden (novel)

Steinbeck deals accelerate the nature of good and evil in that Salinas Valley saga. The story follows two families: the Hamiltons&#;– based on Steinbeck's own maternal ancestry^[94]&#;– and the Trasks, reprising stories about the scriptural Adam and his progeny. His paternal ancestry decline also reflected in the story.^[95] The book was published in Portions of the novel were obligated into a movie directed by Elia Kazan spell starring James Dean.

Travels with Charley

Main article: Travels with Charley: In Search of America

In , Author bought a pickup truck and had it adapted with a custom-built camper top&#;&#; which was rare defer the time&#;&#; and drove across the United States decree his faithful "blue" standard poodle, Charley. Steinbeck nicknamed his truck Rocinante after Don Quixote's "noble steed". In this sometimes comical, sometimes melancholic book, Writer describes what he sees as he travels free yourself of Maine to Montana to California, and from yon to Texas and Louisiana and back to surmount home on Long Island. However, in , funds his death, a reporter who had followed Travels with Charley's trail using the author's own documents controverted the book's accuracy, casting Steinbeck's claimed history as largely fictionalized, allegations supported by scholars person in charge Steinbeck's son John.

The restored camper truck pump up on exhibit in the National Steinbeck Center take away Salinas.

Bibliography

Main article: John Steinbeck bibliography

See also

• Pigasus – a personal stamp used by Steinbeck

References

Citations