John Steinbeck the Author an
John Steinbeck - the Author anHe didn't know it at the time, but John Steinbeck started getting
ready to write The Grapes of Wrath when he was a small boy in
California. Much of what he saw and heard while growing up found its
way into the novel. On weekends his father took John and his three
sisters on long drives out into the broad and beautiful valleys
south of Salinas, the town where John was born in 1902. John passed
vast orchards, and endless fields green with lettuce and barley. He
observed the workers and the run-down shacks in which they lived.
And he saw, even before he was old enough to wear long pants, that the
farmhands' lives differed from his own.
Although the Steinbecks weren't wealthy (John's father ran a flour
mill), they lived in a comfortable Victorian house. John grew up on
three square meals a day. He never doubted that he would always have
enough of life's necessities. He even got a pony for his 12th
birthday. (The pony became the subject of one of Steinbeck's
earliest successes, his novel The Red Pony.) But don't think John
was pampered; his family expected him to work. He delivered newspapers and did odd jobs around town.
Family came first in the Steinbeck household. While not everyone saw
eye-to-eye all the time, parents and children got along well. His
father saw that John had talent and encouraged him to become a writer.
His mother at first wanted John to be a banker- a real irony when
you consider what Steinbeck says about banks in The Grapes of Wrath-
but she changed her mind when John began spending hours in his room
scrawling stories and writing articles for the school paper. Later
in life, Steinbeck denied that his family served as a model for the
Joads in The Grapes of Wrath. But both families understood well the
meaning of family unity.
As a boy, John roamed the woods and meadows near his home and
explored the caves. He swam in the creeks and water holes and became
acquainted with the ways of nature. He developed a feel for the
land. Each year the Salinas River flooded and then dried up, and
John began to understand the cycles of seasons. He saw that weather
was more than just something that might cancel a picnic. He saw that
sunshine and clouds and rain and temperature readings were vital to
farmers and growers. You can tell that John must have loved the
out-of-doors. Otherwise, how could he have set four novels and several
stories in the lush countryside where he spent his youth?
During high school (1915-19) he worked as a hand on nearby
ranches. There he saw migrant workers, men without futures, breaking
their backs all day for paltry wages and at night throwing away
their cash in card games and barrooms. Out of this experience came the
novel Of Mice and Men. Yet he also developed a profound respect...
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