Steinbeck Essays

Set in America during the great depression, The Grapes of Wrath opens up with the bleak backdrop of the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma, where the anguished and undernourished land is a parallel to the famine and poverty which the tenants are suffering from. Steinbeck immediately draws the reader into a …

To begin with, Curley’s wife is an extremely lonely woman; she has a loveless marriage and no friends out in the ranch. This means she has no one to talk to, she can’t talk to her husband because he “spends all his time sayin’ what he’s gonna do to guys …

The opening of The Road immediately captures the dark mood of the novel. “Nights dark beyond darkness and days more gray each one than what had gone before.” This sentence suggests the desolation of the world. Grapes of Wrath similarly starts off with the author describing in vivid detail the …

Society isolates individuals from others because they fear the reactions they will evoke from others. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck displays isolation through Crooks, Candy, and Curley’s wife. Candy is isolated because of his disability and his and the death of his dog. Crook is isolated mainly due …

A shy man. A class act. A visionary. An experimental writer. A socially engaged citizen. A “shameless magpie,” as he described his habit of picking up on the sounds of people’s speech, fragments of their stories. Although opinions vary on how to describe the man, he is one of America’s …

John Steinbeck’s short story ‘The Chrysanthemums’ is one of the most critically acclaimed short stories ever. Elisa Allen is a middle-aged, strong but handsome woman working at her husband’s ranch. And surprisingly, not once does she complain, or show any kind of regrets with her lifestyle. But from Steinbeck’s writing, …

He is shown as the only black man in the ranch who no one cares about. Also because of his race he is prejudiced against for example by Curley’s wife. Steinbeck shows sympathy for crooks by portraying all the negativity in his life, for example the size of his room, …

Lennie watched as the Frog bounded between the Lilly pads on the water, he saw the frog’s eyes dart suddenly, as it sensed its prey was near. It sank under the water and let the current pull it down stream and then suddenly it jumped out of the water like …

The book should be read over the summer. A student reading this book will be sent to the library to work on the following study guide questions. In sentence format answer the following questions. All answers should be typed. KEY: STUDY GUIDE QUESTIONS – The Pearl Chapter 1 1. What, …

In this passage taken from ‘Of Mice and Men’, Steinbeck illustrates how people from different walks of life can share a similar dream. The three characters, Lennie, Crooks and and Candy have all been damaged and bruised by life, yet still aim to have something small to call their own. …