John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row chronicles the daily lives, hardships, and successes of the inhabitants of this working-class town. Steadfast, admiring, and proud, he gives a voice to these unrepresented citizens despite their low income and seemingly insignificant paths in life. By employing purposeful craft choices Steinbeck challenges the expected to establish the great worth of the drifters, lowlifes, and “bums” of Cannery Row, articulating the essential role of these “least ones.”
Although Cannery Row’s poor, uneducated citizens appear irrelevant to the outside world, Steinbeck employs conflicting elements to evoke appreciation and compassion for all people, no matter income, social class, or prominence. At the end of the first paragraph …show more content…
Doc, the novel’s most educated and sophisticated man, when discussing a parade with a friend, stresses that Mack and the Boys are “true philosophers…[who] survive in this particular world better... All of our so-called successful men, with bad stomachs, and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean.’” (129). Doc admires and envies their liberty and moral worth. In this case the moneyless, unsuccessful men are the most free to live their life unencumbered by a lust for wealth. Instead, they are “clean,” speaking to their content and ethical life. Furthermore, they are “philosophers,” students in pursuit of studying the nature of knowledge and human existence. Although, ostensibly, they are not formally educated, their philosophical, enlightened abilities allow them to create their own wisdom, differentiating themselves from the rest of their community. Likewise, when Mack and the Boys’ dog shows the first signs of healing after a time of hardship in Cannery Row, the narrator writes, “Mack shouted others awake. He danced heavily… At last a crack had developed in the wall of evil. There were evidences of it everywhere” (135). Mack and the Boy’s disastrous party made the whole
Although Cannery Row’s poor, uneducated citizens appear irrelevant to the outside world, Steinbeck employs conflicting elements to evoke appreciation and compassion for all people, no matter income, social class, or prominence. At the end of the first paragraph …show more content…
Doc, the novel’s most educated and sophisticated man, when discussing a parade with a friend, stresses that Mack and the Boys are “true philosophers…[who] survive in this particular world better... All of our so-called successful men, with bad stomachs, and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean.’” (129). Doc admires and envies their liberty and moral worth. In this case the moneyless, unsuccessful men are the most free to live their life unencumbered by a lust for wealth. Instead, they are “clean,” speaking to their content and ethical life. Furthermore, they are “philosophers,” students in pursuit of studying the nature of knowledge and human existence. Although, ostensibly, they are not formally educated, their philosophical, enlightened abilities allow them to create their own wisdom, differentiating themselves from the rest of their community. Likewise, when Mack and the Boys’ dog shows the first signs of healing after a time of hardship in Cannery Row, the narrator writes, “Mack shouted others awake. He danced heavily… At last a crack had developed in the wall of evil. There were evidences of it everywhere” (135). Mack and the Boy’s disastrous party made the whole