How Does Steinbeck Present The Unpredictability Of Nature

Next, Steinbeck depicts the unreliability of nature in order to explain man’s place in nature. He uses the deaths of Gabilan and Nellie as the evidences of this unpredictability of nature. One day Billy Buck convinced Jody to leave Gabilan outside of the barn. Jody was worried about having rain, but Billy promised to him that the weather was going to be fine, claiming that “Not likely to rain today. She’s rained herself out” (p.21). Unfortunately, however, it rained heavily and the pony eventually died because of that rain. Furthermore, after Carl, Jody’s father, promised to give a colt to Jody if he took a good care of Nellie, Jody was afraid of losing his colt again. Although Billy did not make any promise to Jody because of his experience with Gabilan in the past, he assured Jody by saying that “Why I’m half horse myself, you see… I’ll see you get a good colt” (p.69). However, when he went into the

Human beings, as a part of it, are connected to nature and interact with it all the time. However, the unity of nature is not always in favor of human beings. The deaths of Gabilan and Nellie, the approaching death of Gitano, and Grandfather’s sense of failure demonstrate how nature can be cruel and all humans are fallible and vulnerable. While nature is sometimes harsh and mysterious as seen throughout the book, people should recognize that it can also be a bounteous wellspring of hope. Death sometimes becomes an opportunity for a new life just as the genial warmth of spring comes right after tough winter. Therefore, man should know how to accept personal failure and transcend it just as all of Jody’s experiences deepened his respect for life and led him become mature enough to take an interest in others instead of himself, moving into the more compassionate stage of an adult, which is the lesson given by