Finally, redemption is possible and is achieved by some: when Hester, Pearl and Dimmesdale all stand on the public scaffold, Dimmesdale falls fatally ill and Pearl kisses him, the spell of sinfulness is broken for them (Hawthorne 175), while Chillingworth "positively withered up, shrivelled away and almost vanished from mortal sight" because his plan to destroy Dimmesdale were simultaneously broken (Hawthorne 175). In sum, Puritan religious views are highly influential in Hawthorne's the Scarlet Letter. However, Steinbeck's Cannery Row is not at all concerned with formal religion's concepts of sin, guilt, alienation and redemption.
3. Conclusion

John Steinbeck's Cannery Row and Nathaniel Hawthorne's the Scarlet Letter reveal views of humanity that are very much alike in at least one respect and quite different in at least another respect. oth authors extensively use paradox to describe their characters and therefore speak to the complexity of human beings. In Steinbeck's characters of Doc,…...

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Bibliography

Benson, Jackson J. John Steinbeck, Writer: A Biography. New York, NY: Penguin Putnam, Inc., 1990. Print.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter (Dover Thrift Study Edition). Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 2009. Print.

Miller, Edwin Haviland. Salem is My Dwelling Place: A Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Ames, IA: University of Iowa Press, 1991. Print.

Railsback, Brian. "Dreams of an Elegant Universe on Cannery Row." Ed. Shillinglaw, Susan and Kevin Hearle. Beyond Boundaries: Rereading John Steinbeck. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2002. Print.

As one writer says, not reading this novel "…deprives individuals and communities of the opportunity to respond to an ethical imperative insisting on virtuous treatment of our fellow human beings" (George, 83).
This is a tremendous summation of fundamentally what Steinbeck is trying to achieve with a novel like of Mice and Men, and a notion which sums up most likely Steinbeck's strongest motivation for writing the novel.

However, as one writer points out, even though the ending of this novel might disturb most readers, "these scenes also point us in the direction of an understanding of human virtue that underscores the idea that no one is expendable and that illuminates the power of courage, compassion and goodness, even under the bleakest of circumstances" (George, 83). This quote naturally leads to a discussion of the ending and with good reason. The ending of Mice and Men is indeed disturbing. After unintentionally…...

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Works Cited

George, S.K. The Moral Philosophy of John Steinbeck. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2005.

Print.

Kew, M.. "Of Mice and Men -- Steinbeck's Influences."ac.jp. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr

2013. .

Ed. Peter Lisca and Kevin Hearle. New York, NY: Penguin, 1997. 604-615.
Outline

Thesis:

The three critical appraisals this essay will examine shows a changing "magnification." Each of our three critics has the "Okies" under the microscopic; but they employ three different lenses to examine their subjects. As we move from Reed to Owens to Gladstein, the calibration of the microscope moves steadily away. The movement starts with a narrow aperture, and "zooms out" to encompass a universal perspective: the "Okies" however, remain solidly in the center of our lens' field of vision.

Points

John R. Reed, in his article "The Grapes of rath and the Esthetics of Indigence" close scrutiny of life & language of the migrants.

A reveals their dignity focus firmly on them, no need for archetypal / biblical interpretation

Louis Owens, in his article "The American Joads," widens the lens of perspective symbolic of the entire American ethos: the westward search for…...

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Works Cited

Gladstein, Mimi Reisel. "The Grapes of Wrath: Steinbeck and the Eternal Immigrant.." The Grapes of Wrath: Text and Criticism. Ed. Peter Lisca and Kevin Hearle. New York, NY: Penguin, 1997. 682-692.

Owens, Louis. "The American Joads." The Grapes of Wrath: Text and Criticism. Ed. Peter Lisca and Kevin Hearle. New York, NY: Penguin, 1997. 644-653.

Reed, John, R. "The Grapes of Wrath and the Esthetics of Indigence."

The Grapes of Wrath: Text and Criticism. Ed. Peter Lisca and Kevin Hearle. New York, NY: Penguin, 1997. 604-615.

In the end of the book Rosasharn agrees and goes to him.
In the film version there is no flood, Rosasharn does not give birth, and the baby does not die. When Tom leaves at the end, his speech to Ma about fighting injustice seems almost victorious, as though Tom were a hero instead of a victim. After he leaves, Ma and Pa get in their old truck and head for a different part of the state, hoping to get work. Pa admits to Ma that he's not good for much anymore, and Ma gives him a nice talk. She tells him the people will always go on because the backbone of the country is the people. Although the Joads are still poor, the film ending leaves hope for better times, whereas Steinbeck's ending is tragic and leaves no hope that anything will improve. The film, on the other hand,…...

She describes the transcendental experience of a starry night: "Every pointed star gets driven into your body. It's like that. Hot and sharp and -- lovely" (p. 345) It is a moment that shows the close connection of the painful and the sublime for Elisa, a connection that she understands perhaps because the brutal and tender nature of gardening.
The most profound contradiction in the story comes at the end, when we see her reaction to the stranger's callous treatment of her chrysanthemum shoots. Before she sees the chrysanthemums wilting on the side of the road, she is full of pride and awareness of her own strength as a woman, as a grower of things, and as a potential fixer of things. At the sight of the abandoned chrysanthemum shoots, however, that vision of herself crumbles. Her question to the husband about the violence of professional fighting suggests a desire…...

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References

Steinbeck, John. "The Chrysanthemums." 50 Great Short Stories, ed. Milton Crane. New York: Random House, 1988. p. 337-348.

John Steinbeck, why soldiers won't talk.
"hy soldiers won't talk:"

John Steinbeck's imaginative essay on the psychological impact of war

One of the most interesting aspects of John Steinbeck's essay "hy Soldiers on't Talk" is the way in which he subtly shifts from the first person to the second person in the essay. He begins the essay stating that he himself is not a soldier: "During the years between the last war and this one, I was always puzzled by the reticence of ex-soldiers about their experiences in battle" (Steinbeck 1). However, according to Steinbeck, gradually he has come to understand why soldiers struggle to articulate the horrors they have seen. Then, the essay makes a major shift from 'I' to 'you': "This is how you feel after a few days of constant firing. Your skin feels thick and insensitive. There is a salty taste in your mouth" (Steinbeck 1). Steinbeck asks the…...

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Works Cited

Shillinglaw, Susan. "John Steinbeck, American Writer." Steinbeck Center.

1 Jan 2014.

 http://as.sjsu.edu/steinbeck/biography/index.jsp?val=biography_biography_in_depth 

This biography is a summary of John Steinbeck's life, with a particular emphasis on how his life events shaped his works. There is a stress upon how Steinbeck's identity as a Californian influenced his major literary works and the role of the environment in creating the characters. Steinbeck believed that environment created a man's character, not vice versa.

authors, John Steinbeck puts a lot of himself in his novels. In his novels we can see self-characters, representing Steinbeck himself in some ways and also hidden characters that represent his family, his friends and the events of his life. We also see how the people he met in his life resulted in his interest in some major themes that are seen in many of his novels. The greatest of these themes is the question of what is real wealth, which this question provoked by Steinbeck's own family and childhood and also his interaction with poor farm workers.
The greatest example of self-character is seen in East of Eden. In A Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letter Steinbeck calls the novel "the story of my country and the story of me." The story is narrated by Steinbeck as himself, telling the story as the Grandson of the…...

John Steinbeck's 1942 novel The Moon is Down can be interpreted as a propaganda piece, aimed at emboldening and comforting the conquered peoples of Europe during the Second World War. However, admitting this pragmatic objective of the book does not necessarily detract from the value of the arguments or themes found within. Steinbeck manages to convey a comprehensive picture of contrasting world perspectives though his depiction of a fictitious small town in Scandinavia. He takes special care to characterize the standpoints of individual German soldiers, suggesting their mentalities' representative and prevalent holds upon the nation's broader self-identity. Additionally, notable emphasis is placed upon the ordinary nature of the townsfolk. The fundamental theme that Steinbeck wishes to communicate is that the very mechanisms by which the German military extends its dominance over the conquered demand that their empire will ultimately fail: it is a consequence of the social structure that…...

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Bibliography:

1. Bender, David and Bruno Leone. (1996). Readings on John Steinbeck. San Diego: Greenhaven.

2. Books and Writers. (2003). "John Steinbeck: 1902-1968." Retrieved from, www.kirjasto.sci.fi/johnstei.htm.

3. Library of America. (2005). "Steinbeck Novels: 1942-1952." Retrieved from, classiclit.about.com/library/weekly/aafpr090103a.htm.

4. Newman, Gerald and Eleanor Newman Layfield. (2004). A Student's Guide to John Steinbeck. Berkeley Heights: Enslow.

A gift like this should be a time of joy, but with Jody's hard-edged dad, it was more tension than joy. "God's preference seems arbitrary and apparently denies Cain free will," Etheridge writes, alluding again to Cain and Able. And there is also an element of "laying down the law" in what Carl Tiflin said to his son. And Tiflin leaves the job of showing Jody how to care for his pony to the hired hand, Billy.
Jody may be obedient when it comes to doing what his parents want him to do, but he is also rebellious on another level, as essayist Joyce Hart writes in the book Novels for Students. Steinbeck, "slowly but surely," hints that Jody is becoming more independent of his parents and is doing things that rebellious little boys will do. For example, out of anger Jody kicks a muskmelon with his heel. "He doesn't…...

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Works Cited

Bernardo, Anthony. "The Red Pony: The Gift. Masterplots II: American Fiction Series,

Revised Edition (Work Analysis). MagillOnLiterature Plus / EbscoHost.

Eckley, Wilton. "The Red Pony: Overview." Reference Guide to Short Fiction. Detroit: St.

James Press. Gale Document Number: GALE/H1420007687.

Dubious attle, by John Steinbeck. Specifically, it will focus upon how characters represent the various ideas held by capital and labor by the 1930's. "In Dubious attle" is the story of poor field workers fighting a lost cause against prosperous owners. Rather than a story of reform and revolt, "In Dubious attle" is really a struggle between good and evil, and the self-destructive behavior that lives in all mankind.
IN DUIOUS ATTLE

Steinbeck wrote the novel "In Dubious attle" in 1935, after visiting migrant settlements in the Central Valley of California. Jim Nolan, the tale's main character, is a young man searching for himself when he meets a Communist Party organizer trying to organize the fruit pickers into a cohesive union. One critic noted the fruit farms are an important theme throughout the novel, as are Jim's reactions to what is happening around him. "However, although the beckoning potential of the…...

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Bibliography

DeMott, Robert. Steinbeck's Typewriter: Essays on His Art. Troy, NY: Whitston, 1996.

Hayashi, Tetsumaro, ed. John Steinbeck: The Years of Greatness, 1936-1939. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1993.

Owens, Louis. "Writing 'in Costume': The Missing Voices of 'In Dubious Battle.'" John Steinbeck: The Years of Greatness, 1936-1939. Ed. Hayashi, Tetsumaro. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1993. 77-94.

Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1906.

Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck's novel, "The Grapes of Wrath," described the economic divide that existed in America during the Great Depression of the 1930's and the tragic result that occurred as a result. A native Californian, Steinbeck used his home state as the backdrop for a story of a family of migrant farm workers, derisively called "Okies" for their area of origin, Oklahoma. The troubles the family faced, although originally brought on by a natural catastrophe, seem to be made worse as a result of man's inhumanity toward his fellow man. Steinbeck novel was a criticism of a system of economics that allowed a few wealthy landowners to take advantage of scores of powerless, yet honorable, common people.

Growing up in California, John Steinbeck was fully aware of the wealthy landowners who, after acquiring the land from it's original Mexican owners through dubious means, transformed the state into an agricultural wonderland.…...

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References

Railsback, Brian, and Michael Meyer. (2006). A John Steinbeck Encyclopedia. Westport,

CT: Greenwood Press. Print.

Steinbeck, John. (1939). "The Grapes of Wrath." Big English Novels. Retrieved from http://142.23.40.13/big/english/novels/GrapesOfWrath.pdf

Windschuttle, Keith. (June 2002). "Steinbeck's myth of the Okies (Another archtypical myth debunked). New Criterion. Retrieved from  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/709593/posts

...and then by her unfortunate marriage to Curley, whom... she does not even like." (Attell) All of her attempts to talk to the other characters, disastrous as they potentially might be, can be seen as attempts to make any kind of human contact. The solution for the farmhands in their loneliness is more simple -- they need to learn to reach out and make friends, and commit to each other as people in their journey. Curley's wife has a more difficult quest before her, because she has already tried to take that first step (marrying Curley was no doubt an attempt to break out of her loneliness), and now any further steps are being restricted by him. On can definitely see why she asks, "Wha's the matter with me? Ain't I got a right to talk to nobody? Whatta they think I am, anyways? You're a nice guy. I don't…...

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Bibliography

Attell, Kevin. "An Overview of Mice and Men." Exploring Novels. Literature Resource Center. Gale, 1998.   dcoll=gale& locID=d0_mlpbcls& c=13& ste=47& DT=Criticism& n=10& frmknp=1& docNum=H1420006089http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/LitRC?vrsn=3& ;

French, Warren. "John Steinbeck." Twayne's United States Authors Series. New York: G.K. Hall & Co., 1999.

McCarthy, Paul. John Steinbeck. New York: Ungar Publishing Co, 1980.

Scarseth, Thomas. "A Teachable Good Book: Of Mice and Men." Censored Books: Critical Viewpoints. Ed. Burress, Lee; Karolides, Nicholas; and Kean, John. New York: Scarecrow Press, 1993. 388-394.

Grape Depression
John Steinbeck's Naturalism and Direct Historical epresentation: The Great Depression and the Grapes of Wrath

Literature cannot help but be reflective of the period in which it is written. Even novels that are set somewhere outside the time and place that author occupies will necessarily include some degree of commentary on the issues, beliefs, and values of the author's own world. This is, in part, what makes an understanding of history so essential to a true understanding of individual works of literature as well as larger literary movements, periods, and genres; though historical criticism is certainly not the only valid approach to reading and interpreting literature, a lack of basic historical knowledge concerning the background of a specific text will almost certainly lead to a misinterpretation of that text and a lack of awareness of certain subtleties and implications in a given work.

At other times, of course, authors make their…...

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References

Campbell, D. (2010). Naturalism in American Literature. Accessed 3 January 2011.  http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/natural.htm 

Cutajar, M. (2010). Realism and Naturalism in Literature. Accessed 3 January 2011.  http://www.suite101.com/content/realism-and-naturalism-in-literature 

DeLong, J. (1997). The Great Crash and the Great Slump. Accessed 3 January 2011. http://econ161.berkeley.edu/tceh/slouch_crash14.html

Shmoop. (2010). The Grapes of Wrath Symbolism, Imagery & Allegory. Accessed 3 January 2011.  http://www.shmoop.com/grapes-of-wrath/symbolism-imagery.html

They work when they can picking crops, but agitators create a violent atmosphere, after wages are cut due to the overabundance of pickers. People are starving and the law is harsh with locked out strikers who fight with desperate workers who become "scabs." This is a forceful story about how a proud family survives, and about the humanity in even the meanest of men.
Of Mice and Men George and Lennie are brothers, and all they have is each other. Lennie is strong and mentally retarded. George is trying to take care of him. Lennie kills puppies, because he loves them too much and squeezes them too hard, and he kills a young women, Curly's wife, by accident, because he is trying to stop her from doing what he knows is wrong. Curly's wife comes to visit Lennie, attracted to his strength after he crushes Curly's hand. he gets scared…...

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Sources

Steinbeck, John: In Dubious Battle 1936

The Red Pony 1938

The Grapes of Wrath 1939

Of Mice and Men 1937

The message is that money and possessions get a hold on you. You don't own them -- they own you. Your freedom is gone and enjoyment of the little things that make life worth living -- eating with family members, for instance, and lying in bed with someone you love in safety and comfort.
The scene in which Kino and Juana find water up in the mountains -- a very small pool of pure, fresh water -- bring out this idea. The simple things in life that God gives are what is important, not what you can buy. The water gives them life and satisfaction and beauty, whereas the pearl brings nothing but destruction, hatred, envy, and death. The pearl cannot quench their thirst. Love and the simple enjoyments of life can.

Kino loses his innocence also when he focuses on money and possessions instead of spiritual things -- like home,…...

In John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men, the author's structural choices effectively depict the harsh realities of the American Dream, its hopeful pursuit, and the tragic consequences of shattered dreams. One way to formulate a unique thesis statement for your novel could be to focus on Steinbeck's use of symbolism and imagery to convey the themes of friendship, loneliness, and the struggle for independence in a society marked by economic hardship and prejudice. By analyzing how these literary devices contribute to the overall message of the novel, you can craft a strong thesis statement that highlights the depth and complexity....

Structural Analysis of John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men": Interplay of Time, Isolation, and the American Dream

Thesis Statement:

John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" is a meticulously structured novel that employs a dynamic interplay of time, isolation, and the American Dream to explore the complexities of human existence and the fragility of hope. Through the novel's unique structural framework, Steinbeck illuminates the profound impact of these elements on the characters' relationships, choices, and ultimate fates.

Part I: Temporal Flux and the Illusion of Control

Non-Linear Narrative: The novel's unconventional structure juxtaposes past and present, fragmenting the narrative into disjointed memories and flashbacks.....

Metaphors: Captivating and Memorable Title Creation
Metaphors, figurative devices that compare two unlike things without using "like" or "as," hold immense power in crafting captivating and unforgettable titles. They transcend literal meaning, evoking emotions, creating vivid imagery, and leaving a lasting impression on the reader's mind.
1. Establishing Intrigue and Enchantment:
Metaphors evoke curiosity by hinting at deeper meanings. Titles like "The Great Gatsby" (F. Scott Fitzgerald) or "Gone with the Wind" (Margaret Mitchell) intrigue readers with their metaphorical undertones of unattainable dreams and the transience of time, respectively.
2. Creating Emotional Resonance:
Metaphors tap into human emotions. "The Catcher in the Rye" (J.D. Salinger)....

Literary Analysis and Criticism:

"The Profound Influence of Shakespeare's Soliloquies on Character Exploration"
"Deconstructing the Symbolism in 'The Great Gatsby': A Journey of Dreams and Desolation"
"The Evolution of the Gothic Novel from Horace Walpole to Mary Shelley"
"The Psychological Complexity of Hamlet: A Freudian and Jungian Analysis"
"The Role of Irony in Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice': A Critique of Social Etiquette"

English Language and Linguistics:

"The Evolution of the English Language: From Anglo-Saxon to Modern English"
"The Impact of Technology on English Language Usage: A Sociological Perspective"
"Regional Dialects in the United States: A Study of Linguistic Diversity and....