John Steinbeck's Cannery Row - Living Heaven on Earth

Cannery Row: Living Heaven on Earth

Cannery Row (1945), a novel written by John Steinbeck, Nobel Prize winner for Literature, is a book without much of a plot. Instead, it's a novel where setting, atmosphere and most importantly character, take precedence. Steinbeck creates a colorful array of characters struggling to understand their own unique places in the world.

The story is set in the early 20th century, immediately following the Depression and World War II. The characters live in Monterey, California amid the jumble of the sardine fisheries, the "Palace Flophouses", Lee Chong's grocery, Dora's whorehouse, and Doc's Biological Lab. Throughout the book, Steinbeck has the uncanny ability to combine his characters' everyday problems with the twist of a utopian style of living. The end result is a novel with a strange mixture of fantasy and reality, which insists that good fellowship and warm-heartedness are all that are needed to create a paradise anywhere on earth, even in the run-down Cannery Row.

In the beginning of the book, Steinbeck attempts to capture the feeling and life of Cannery Row by introducing his readers to a number of its' intriguing inhabitants. The audience is introduced to Mack and the boys, a group of unemployed yet resourceful men who inhabit a converted fishmeal shack on the edge of a vacant lot. They decide that they want to do something nice for the kind hearted Doc, who is the owner of a biological supply house. Doc is a gentle, intellectual man as well as a friend and caretaker to all, but he always seems haunted by a certain gloominess.

Among the other characters, there is Dora, the owner of the "clean, honest, old-fashioned sporting house" (13). Dora is a nice...

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...oken. To make matters worse Doc does not even actually make it to his own party. However, Steinbeck is able to teach his characters that the thought is what really matters even if the end result is not the desired one. The fact that they tried to do something nice was in itself something to be proud of. Mac and the boys learn from their mistakes and in the end throw a successful party for their friend.

By adding subtle humor to sticky situations, Steinbeck is able to transform the otherwise monotonous town of Cannery Row to a place of delightfulness even in the wake of unexpected occurrences. Since Steinbeck's characters are warm-hearted and willing to do what they can to contribute to others well being, they were able to build a heaven on earth right in their hometown.

Work Cited

Steinbeck, John. Cannery Row. New York:The Viking Press, 1973.