John Steinbeck was a famous American author during the 20th century. He wrote two great American classics, The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, along with many other well-known books. His books are still widely read through out the world today. John Steinbeck wrote about the common man and about social issues in America. He achieved worldwide appreciation for his depiction and dedicated writings on the human condition. Overall, he will be remembered for years to come by the way he lived his life and his writing style.
Jonathan Steinbeck was born on February 27th, 1902, to Ernst and Olive Steinbeck in Salinas, California. John’s mother was a teacher at the local school and helped nuture his passion for reading. When he was young, his favorite hobbies included reading with his mother and exploring the countryside with his older sister Mary. At the age of 18, Steinbeck started to attend Sanford University. He studied marine biology for six years but never received his degree because he planned on being a writer. He would often drop out of school for whole quarters in order to pay for his education. After six years of going to college, Steinbeck had only completed three years of full time study. Throughout college he sent articles he had written into magazines and newspapers but never put a return address on his them out of fear of rejection. He finally quit going to school to become a land surveyor in 1926.
After college, Steinbeck drifted from job to job, never staying at one place too long. At the age of 27, he met Carol Henning. They got married 3 months later in 1929. After 14 years of marriage, John and Carol got a divorce in 1943. Right after the divorce, Steinbeck met and married his second wife, Gwendolyn Conger in 1943. During the marriage they had two sons, Thomas and John. Steinbeck’s second marriage ended in divorce in 1948. By this point, Steinbeck had become very famous and was wealthy. In 1950 he met a woman named Elaine Scott. They got married a few months later. During the middle part of Steinbeck’s life, he found success, happiness, and wealth.
John Steinbeck’s life never slowed down. He said, “even during the later end of my life, it doesn’t wait on me.” Steinbeck wrote plays, helped in the production of movies, and stil wrote often eight hours a day. In the spring of 1962, Steinbeck was contacted by President John F. Kennedy. President Kennedy said he wanted Steinbeck to serve as ambassador to Russia. After Steinbeck had been in Russia for a few years, the new President, Lyndon Johnson, asked Steinback to be one of his advisors. While in Russia, Steinbeck’s health began to decline. A few years after returning from Russia, John Steinbeck died on December 20th, 1968 of a heart attack. His ashes were thrown out over Whales Bay in New York. Although Steinbeck was famous and influencial during his lifetime, it is his writings for which he will be remembered.
John Steinbeck always knew that he wanted to be a writer. He did not want to write for the money, but for the people. It is a good thing he did not write for the money at first. After college he took out a 250 dollar loan from a publisher to write his first book, Cup of Gold. Although Cup of Gold sold more copies than his next to books combined, it failed to pay back the $250 loan. Steinbeck said,”Isn’t it a shame that a thing which has as many indubitably fine things in it as my Cup of Gold should be, as a whole, utterly worthless.” Steinbeck’s early writings were not successful. The disappointment of his writings did not set him back for he continued writing. For Steinbeck, it did not matter, everything was subject to his scrutiny and writing.
When Steinbeck wrote, he lent all of his time to the writing. He was very passionate about his work. Steinbeck tried to appeal to the emotions of the reader by bringing up controversial subjects in this books. He would write about people’s sorrows and troubles but unlike his contemporaries, he also included the joy that comes along with family and friends. W.H Frohock wrote that in Steinbeck’s writings he found “a maximum of two emotional attitudes, one compounded of some delight and much compassion toward the people he writes about, the other of compassion and wrath.” Just by reading a few of Steinbeck’s books, one can see this is true. Along with the emotional attitudes found in Steinbeck’s novels, on can find that he took a great amount of time developing his characters. In all of his novels, he interweaves his characters. He also was attracted to allowing his characters to have an external control over them, whether it was good or evil. In every work he did, he took time to make sure it was done right.
John Steinbeck wrote many articles, letters, and short stories before people started to take notice. His first big success was Of Mice and Men. It is a story of well-meaning ranch hands but ends up as a story of shattered dreams. Written in 1939, it is the first book to have the concept of the American Dream in it. In the novel, Steinbeck uses many Biblical parallels, providing variety and depth to the story. Critics had a few things to say about the book. Most critics claimed that the characters were heightened beyond the limit of credibility, to the point where they are hard to believe. Others said that the novel had sudden lapses of material and writing ability Steinbeck did not let the critics affect how he wrote. He continued writing the way he always had.
Overall, the most famous book John Steinbeck wrote was The Grapes of Wrath. After writing many short stories and the fame from writing Of Mice and Men had quelled, Steinbeck started to write The Grapes of Wrath in 1939. The novel follows the poor Joad family and their exodus from Oklahoma to California during the depression. Steinbeck was inspired to write The Grapes of Wrath once he got back from touring California migrant camps. Before publishing the novel, Steinbeck wrote, “If only I could do this book properly, it would be one of the really fine books and a truly American book.” Unlike all the other novels before, it took Steinbeck only seven months to write the two hundred thousand word novel. Right when it was published it became a success. People all over the country were reading about the trails of the Joad Family and what life was like in a California migrant camp. Many Californians were angry at the way the novel portrayed life in select parts of the state. California congressman Lyle Boren criticized the book as “a lie, a black, infernal creation of a twisted, distorted mind.” Although there were a few criticisms of the novel everyone else praised it. The Swedish academy called it “an epic chronicle.” James Gray speculated that Steinbeck wrote about migrant workers in the book because, “He found these occupations congenial because they brought hi into intimate association with the great company of workers among whom he chose as friends long before he used them as models for characters.” In all of Steinbeck’s writing, he inserts a small nostalgic idea of his boyhood. The scenes for most of his works are based close to his hometown, either in California or Mexico. Overall, The Grapes of Wrath is an enduring American classic that will not soon be forgotten.
John Steinbeck won many awards for his writings and was very influential. In 1962, he won the Nobel Prize. After the Nobel Prize, Steinbeck got involved in the process of changing his writings into movie scripts. He made sure the movies portrayed his writing style correctly and that all the characters remained basically the same. He did not want anything added or taken away from his writing. The films turned out to be very successful. Overall, John Steinbeck published 34 novels. The Grapes of Wrath continues to sell over 100,000 copies annually and a library has been built in honor of John Steinbeck’s legacy.
