John Steinbeck Author Study

Is the American dream achievable for everyone? In Steinbeck’s three novels; of mice and men, the grapes of wrath, and the pearl, he proves that the American dream isn’t achievable for everyone in the end of each of these novels. Of mice and men ends with George shooting Lennie, and not living his dream, which is obviously not living the American dream. The grapes of wrath also ends in tragedy, Rose of Sharon’s baby doesn’t survive and the Joads continue on without money, food or a place to sleep. The pearls ending, in my opinion is the worst, Juana and Kino’s baby Coyotito end up dead from a gunshot to the head. So because at the ending of each novel what happens to the characters after tragedy is unknown, John Steinbeck’s three novels as a whole prove that literature is the question minus the answer.
“John Steinbeck was born in the farming town of Salinas California on February 27,1902.”(Shillingwa, and Shillingwa) “His father John Ernest Steinbeck was not a terribly successful man”, (Shillingwa, and Shillingwa) and “his mother the strong willed olive Hamilton Steinbeck was a former school teacher.”(Shillingwa, and Shillingwa) “Steinbeck dropped in and out of universities, sometimes to work closely with migrants and bindle stiffs on California ranches. Those relationships coupled with   an early sympathy for the weak and defenseless deepened his empathy for workers. The disenfranchised, and dislocated, an empathy that is characteristic in his work.”(Shillingwa, and Shillingwa) Steinbeck himself didn’t achieve the American dream and because of that he expresses it through literature.
“I remember about the rabbits, George. The hell with the rabbits, that’s all you can ever remember is them rabbits.”(Chapter 1 paragraph 18-19)Lennie and Georges dream was to get a farm and raise farm animals and vegetables, but all Lennie wanted was the rabbits and for the both of them to live there dream. “Slim sat for a moment didn’t hurt the girl none, huh? He asked finally,...