Cannery Row John Steinbeck Summary

Cannery Row

John Steinbeck writing career is quite interesting. It is said, that he was an on and off student at Stanford University. Which, after six years he decided to leave the Stanford. Steinbeck never received his degree, he moved to New York where he pursued his writing career. In August 1929, his first novel was published called,Cup of Gold. The novel focuses on seventeenth-century pirate Henry Morgan’s adventures in Panama. Steinbeck then had his first critical and commercial success with the novel Tortilla Flat, the book was about a small band of errant friends enjoying life and wine in the days after the end of the Great War. In 1937 on February, Steinbeck won a New York Drama Critic Circle Award for his novella, Of Mice and Men,

If you read Cannery Row, you will know that it differs from other books. Due to, the lack of structure in the novel.For instance, there are random chapters in the book that seem to have no meaning. Let’s consider chapter 26 in Cannery Row, perhaps one of the strangest of them all. We have two boys, Joey and Willard, playing hide and seek. It is then they stop playing and begin to have a conversation. We read this disturbing chapter, where Willard is making a joke out of Joey’s dad who suicide himself. Willard rants about Joey’s father being a rat because he committed suicide with rat poison. Joey then mentions that his father could not find a job,which lead to his death. People question themselves bout this chapters’ meaning. Many do not see a purpose, due limited information that is given to the readers. But that’s what makes Cannery Row unique. The novel does not have structure, it doesn’t follow the guidelines unlike others. Throughout the entire book, Steinbeck does not focus just on one character nor setting. Making all chapters different from the previous one. The lack of structure captivates readers attention. More so, not knowing what the turning page will consist of, gauges readers to continue