John Steinbeck Disillusionment

In Bloom’s How to Write about John Steinbeck, Catherine Kordich wrote, “Steinbeck made understandable the misunderstood. His books depict the experience of the common person, the powerless, and the underdog with conviction, empathy and poignancy” (48). John Steinbeck used the mass movements and events of the age in which he wrote to create characters understand the grand scheme of their time (Kordich 49). He connected with the people of America on a personal level by writing about their social and economic problems. Steinbeck is worthy of the Nobel Prize because he spoke to the growing feeling of disillusionment in America. This disillusionment is portrayed through the characters and their experiences in Of Mice and Men and East of Eden
Before

we can understand Steinbeck’s writing we have to understand the time in which he lived. The social context most directly associated with Steinbeck is the Great Depression of the 1930s, especially the dust bowl refugees (Kordich 64). However, Steinbeck believed that America’s feelings of disillusionment started during World War I, as depicted through East of Eden. American’s were idealistic about the superiority of their nation. This dream was broken, and Steinbeck tracks this call back to reality from World War I in East of Eden through to the Great Depression of the 1930s in Of Mice and Men.
The characters in Of Mice and Men are perfect example of how Steinbeck shows the social ills of the day. George Milton and Lennie Small, the main characters in Of Mice and Men, symbolize the growth and destruction of the American Dream for migrant workers. At the beginning of George and Lennie’s tale, the two go through a conversation they have had many times before:
“Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place. They come to a ranch an’ work up a stake and then they go inta town and blow their stake, and the first thing you know they’re poundin’ their tail on some other ranch. They ain’t got nothing to look ahead to.”
Lennie was delighted. “That’s it – that’s it. Now tell how it is with us.”
George went on. “With us it ain’t like that…” (Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men 13-14)
Lennie has heard the story often enough that he is able to recite its precise language, as Lisca explains in his essay “Patterns that Make Meaning in Of Mice and Men” (124). George and Lennie’s dream of “livin’ off the fatta the land” becomes more of a reality than a dream when George finds 10 acres of land for sale and Candy offers to help pay for the land. Crooks also offers to work on the farm, but not before expressing his hesitance towards the subject.
Crooks is the stable hand who works with the ranch horses. He is also the only black man on the ranch, so he lives in a place of isolation. Gerald Newman states in A Student’s Guide to John Steinbeck that Crooks is a pragmatist, which he exhibits when he is forced to tell Lennie that the dream he shares with George is a foolish one (44). Crooks eventually gives into this idealistic farm and puts aside his better judgment in return for a feeling of acceptance. However, no sooner had he started believing in this American Dream than Curley’s wife came in and ruined his vision of not being discriminated against because of his race. Before Candy leaves Crooks’ room, Crooks tells him that he no longer wants a job on the new farm. Crooks was the first to realize the disillusionment of the American Dream, and soon after George does too.
Without a second of doubt after Candy and George find Curley’s wife’s dead body, they know it was Lennie who committed the crime. Yet, Lennie’s safety was not on the forefront of Candy’s mind. Instead, the disintegrating dream of owning a farm was all Candy could think about. This incident made George finally admit the truth, “I think I knowed from the very first. I think I knowed we’d never do her. He usta like to hear about it so much I got to thinking maybe we would” (Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men 94). Although the dream of owning the farm has died for Candy and George, Lennie still believes in the possibility. Lisca states that since Lennie is caught up in his dream vision when George shoots him, one on level the vision is accomplished – the dream never interrupted, the rabbits never crushed (124). It is through this last mercy killing that most Americans of the time related to the story of George and Lennie. Many migrant workers travelled to California with a dream to own their own land, and Steinbeck wrote the truth that no others wanted to admit. Through this plot line, we can conclude that only a select few ever truly reach the American Dream.
Although Steinbeck was widely known for his three novels known as the Dustbowl trilogy, he wrote another noteworthy novel based on events that occurred before his time. Steinbeck composed stories set in California, more specifically his hometown Salinas Valley, stories of lonely ranchers and farmers, of men and women who dreamed of opportunity in California – and often failed to carve out the lies they envisioned. East of Eden taps into this oft-told Steinbeck tale of disillusioned dreamers, more precisely through the feelings of Americans during World War I (Shillinglaw). The narrator, who is perceived to be Steinbeck himself, explains in chapter 42 of East of Eden:
A war comes always to someone else. In Salinas we were aware that the United States was the greatest and most powerful nation in the world. Every American was a rifleman by birth, and one American was worth ten or twenty foreigners in a fight…
There were some in Salinas who began to talk softly in the poolrooms and bars. These had private information from a soldier—we weren’t getting the truth. Our men were being sent in without guns. Troopships were sunk and the government wouldn’t tell us. The German army was so far superior to ours that we didn’t have a chance… (Steinbeck 484-485)
Through his characters feelings and beliefs, we can see how World War I brought the destruction of some of “America’s cherished beliefs of its superiority and invincibility” (“East of Eden by John Steinbeck”). In the article “East of Eden by John Steinbeck”, the author also explains how Steinbeck shed the American Dream in a negative light:
The self-made men in this story, the rags-to-riches stories that appear, tend to be tainted by dishonesty, deflating the myth of America as the land of opportunity for the deserving. The Hamiltons remain poor, for the most part, and Trask fortunes rise on ill-gotten money. Cathy's fortunes rise too, although the path of her success is littered with corpses. This is part of a wider economic critique in the novel, as Steinbeck portrays American capitalism in his usual negative light. The poor and disenfranchised are represented here in Adam's experiences roaming the country as a boxcar hobo, the hardness of life for immigrant families like the Hamiltons, and the wheelings and dealings that leave visionaries like Adam nearly broke, and amply rewards war profiteers.
Just as in Of Mice and Men, the characters in East of Eden try with all their might to achieve prosperity, yet none achieve their ideal American Dream. Although East of Eden did not contain the modern events of Steinbeck’s time, he connected the feelings of disillusionment at that present time to the equivalent feelings of Americans during World War I.
During the presentation speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962, Anders Osterling, the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, stated that the prize was being awarded to John Steinbeck “for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception.” The presentation emphasized Steinbeck’s concern with the common American’s everyday life.

His upbringing in a small town out him “on equal terms with the workers’ families in this rather diversified area. Steinbeck deserves the Nobel Prize because he wrote about the disillusionment that Americans were feeling when no other author dared to. He presented the everyday man’s feelings through his characters and their experiences. Many of the dustbowl migrants longed to own their own farm, just as George and Lennie felt in Of Mice and Men. Although it was before their time, many Americans also felt a connection to the characters in East of Eden as they realized that America was not as superior and invincible as they had previously thought. In his acceptance speech, Steinbeck said, “The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.” Steinbeck took all the faults and failures that many were too scared to examine, and created beautiful Nobel Prize worthy stories that the every American could relate to in more than one aspect of their

lives.