Cannery RowJohn Steinbeck

Created by: Wen Min WenShuMay WilliamsElizabeth Oakley

DO NOW: Which DIDLSS do you think is the most

important/ which one is the most distinguishable from author to author? Which ones seem to be repetitive?

Details Image Diction

Language Shifts Syntax

John Steinbeck

Born February 17th, 1902, Steinbeck was one of the best known authors of the 20th century. Steinbeck grew up in Salinas, California. His mother was a school teacher and his father a treasurer. He attended Stanford University but ended up leaving without a degree. Although his family was wealthy, he was interested in the lives of the farm laborers and spent time working with them. He wrote a number of novels about poor people who worked on the land and dreamed of a better life. In his life he has written over 25 books including, Of mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, Travels with Charley, the Pearl, Cup of Gold, and many more. Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, six years before his death in 1968.

 

John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row is a very full and colorful story of a small town and its inhabitants.

Throughout the book Steinbeck describes all different types of people, from Mr. Lee Chong the grocery store owner, to the marine biologist named Doc and the girls

down at Dora’s spot. We are shown how even those with nothing have everything they could ever want.

There are the Malloy’s, who live in a broken boiler out on a lot and rent out large metal pipes for people to sleep in, all the way to Mack and the boys, who are

known as the hustlers of the neighborhood. They are all kind men and they’re all special in their own way but they will always find some way to make a dollar out of 5 cents, even if that means tricking you out of

95 cents in the process.

Brief Summary

DetailsDetailsChapter 14-pg85

Early morning is a time of magic in Cannery Row. In the gray time after the light has come and before the sun has risen, the Row seems to hang suspended out of time in a silvery light. The street lights go out, and the weeds are brilliant green. The corrugated iron of the canneries glows with the pearly lucence of platinum or gold pewter. No automobiles are running then. The street is silent of progress and business. And the rush and drag of the waves can be heard as they splash in among the piles of the canneries. It is a time of great peace, a deserted time, a little era of rest. Cats drip over the fences and slither like syrup over the ground to look for fish heads. Silent early morning dogs parade majestically picking and choosing judiciously whereon to pee. The sea gulls come flapping in to sit on the cannery roofs to await the day of refuse. They sit on the roof peaks shoulder to shoulder. From the rocks near the Hopkins Marine Station comes the barking of sea lions like the baying of hounds. The air is cool and fresh…

ImageChapter 15-pg 92

The frog pool was square-fifty feet wide and seventy feet long and four feet deep. Lush soft grass grew about its edge and a little ditch brought the water from the river to it and from it little ditches went out to the orchards. There were frogs there all right, thousands of them. Their voices beat the night, they boomed and barked and croaked and rattled. They sang to the stars, to the waning moon, the waving grasses. They bellowed love songs and challenges. The men crept through the darkness toward the pool.

Chapter 20-pg 118“We go see flog,” Lee said at last.

In front of the Palace he had a drink of the whiskey inspected the damp sacks of frogs, and agreed to the transaction. He stipulated, however, that he would take no dead frogs. Now Mack counted fifty frogs into a can and walked back to the grocery with Lee and got two dollar’s worth of bacon and eggs and bread.

Lee, anticipating a brisk business, brought a big packing case out and put it into the vegetable department. He emptied the fifty frogs into it and covered it with a wet gunny sack to keep his charges happy.

And business was brisk. Eddie sauntered down and bought two frogs’ worth of Bull Durham. Jones was outraged a little later when the price of Coca-Cola went up from one to two frogs. In fact bitterness arose as the day wore on and prices went up. Steak, for instance-very best steak shouldn’t have been more than ten frogs a pound but Lee set it at twelve and a half. Canned peaches were sky high, eight frogs for a No.2 can…

DICTION/LANGUAGE I

Chapter 9-Page 55 Mack plunged into his thesis. “Will you let us take your

old truck to go up Carmel Valley for frogs for Doc—for good old Doc?”Lee Chong smile din triumph. “Tluck no good,” he said, “Bloke down.”

This staggered Mack for a moment but he recovered. He spread the order for gasoline on the cigar counter. “Look!” he said. “Doc needs them frogs. He gives me this order for gas to get them. I can’t let Doc down. Now Gay was a good mechanic. If he fix your truck and puts it in good shape, will you let us take it?

 

Diction/Language IIDiction/Language II

Chapter 10-Page 58 Doc asked, “Why do you come here?”“You don’t hit me or give a nickel,” said Frankie“Do they hit you at home”“There’s uncles around all the time at home. Some of

them hit me and tell me to get out and some of them give me a nickel and tell me to get out.”

“Where’s your father?”“Dead,” said Frankie vaguely.“Where’s your mother?”“With the uncles.”Doc clipped Frankie’s hair and got rid of the lice. At

Lee Chong’s he got him a new pair of overalls and a striped sweater and Frankie became his salve.

“I love you,” he said one afternoon. “Oh, I love you.”

Chapter 17-Page 105-106, Doc traveled on the highways a good deal. He was an old hand. You have to pick your hitchhikers carefully. It’s best to get an experience one, for he relapses into silence…Doc made a quick survey of the line and chose his company, a thin-faced salesman-like man in a blue suit. He had deep lines beside his mouth and dark brooding eyes.

He looked at Doc with dislike. “Going south, Mister?”“Yes” said Doc, “a little way.”:Mind taking me along?”“Get in!” said Doc.When they got to Ventura it was pretty soon after the heavy dinner so Doc only stopped for beer.

The hitchhiker hadn’t spoken once. Doc pulled up at a roadside stand. “Want some beer?”“No,” said the hitchhiker. “and I don’t mind saying I think it’s not a very good idea to drive under

the influence of alcohol…”At the beginning Doc had slightly started “Get out of the car,” he said softly.“What?”“I am going to punch you in the nose ,” said Doc. “If you aren’t out of this car before I count ten

—One—two—three—“ The man fumbled at the door catch and backed hurriedly out of the car. But once outside he howled, “I’m going to find an officer. I’m going to have you arrested.”Doc opened the box on the dashboard and took out a monkey wrench. His guest aw the gesture and walked hurriedly away.

Doc walked angrily to the counter of the stand.The waitress, a blonde beauty with just a hint of a goiter, smiled at

him. “What’ll it be?”“Beer milk shake,” said Doc.“What”Well here it was and what the hell. Might just as well get it over with

now as some time later.The blonde asked, “Are you kidding?”Doc knew wearily that he couldn’t explain, couldn’t tell the truth. “I’ve

got a bladder complaint,” he said. “Bipalychetoronectomy the doctor call it. I’m supposed to drink a beer milk shake. Doctor’s orders.”

The blonde smiled reassuringly. “Oh! I thought you was kidding,” she said archly. “You tell me how to make it. I didn’t’ know you was sick.”

“Very sick,” said Doc, “and due to be sicker. Put in some milk, and add half a bottle of beer. Give me the other half in a glass—no sugar in the milk shakes.” When she served it, he tasted it wryly. And it wasn’t so bad—it just tasted like stale beer and milk.

REMEMBER…

• Steinbeck is very descriptive. He would write pages about one specific thing

• He is repetitive

• He would a small dialogue after or in between a long paragraph

The End!