John Steinbeck's Life In The Long Run

Where one grows up can significantly impact one’s life in the long run. John Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California to Olive Hamilton and John Ernst Steinbeck. The third of four children, he was expected to do the same chores as his older sisters Elizabeth Ainsworth and Esther Rodgers, and younger sister Mary Dekker. He had a comfortable childhood with his mother, a retired school teacher, and his father, a manager at a local flour mill. Even so he had some challenges. When he was a teenager his father lost his job at the flour mill, and only after John was in college did his father get a job as the treasurer of Monterey and secure the family’s finances. *new paragraph? Maybe?* Steinbeck received his love of literature

After boarding a freighter ship and moving to New York, Steinbeck attempted to prosper as a freelance writer. When Steinbeck reached New York he had very little money and took a construction job at Madison Square Garden. He eventually got a job as a reporter with the New York American newspaper from which he was fired from not soon later. Steinbeck attempted to sell a collection of short stories to Robert M. McBride & Company but failed. Tired and defeated, Steinbeck returned to California. He later said about the experience, “I had a thin, lonely, hungry time of it”(Steinbeck). Upon returning to California he took a job in Lake Tahoe as a caretaker to _________________. It was during this time that Steinbeck wrote his first novel. His first novel was “Cup of Gold”. This work of historical fiction was loosely based on the life of real life pirate Sir Henry Morgan. The story takes place in Panama where he stopped during his voyage to New York. Cup of Gold was published in 1929 by the Robert M. McBride & Company, the same company who turned down is collection of short stories just years earlier. Within the next few years Steinbeck published two more novels “The Pastures of Heaven” and “To a God Unknown” but neither were very successful. Then in 1935, he published “Tortilla Flat”, which attracted a great deal of critical attention. The book followed the lives of a group of ‘Paisanos”, men of various ethnicities and backgrounds, and

True friends are always there for you. This is shown in the case of Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts. Ed Ricketts was a well respected biologist and ecologist. He wrote many scientific papers and researched a great deal of marine life in his lab Pacific Biological Laboratory. As one of Steinbeck 's best friends and collaborators They worked together several times. Together they went on an expedition to the Gulf of California to investigate invertebrate sea life along the Baja Peninsula. Steinbeck later wrote “Sea of Cortez” about the expedition which is considered a great literary travel exploration book. Steinbeck based the fictional character Doc from one of his most critically acclaimed books “Cannery Row” off his friend Ed Ricketts. He starts the story off, “Cannery row in Monterey, in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream”(Steinbeck). One of the main things that inspired Steinbeck to write “Cannery Row” was the location. Steinbeck grew up in nearby Salinas and often visited the famous neighborhood. His friend Ed Ricketts also lived on Cannery Row and may have served as an inspiration for the piece. It was also written at the end of World War 2 and in Steinbeck’s own words, a kind of nostalgic thing, written for a group of soldiers who said to me, ‘Write something funny that isn’t about war. Write something for us to read- we’re sick of