Steinbeck Essays - English-language Films, John Steinbeck, Dust Bowl

Steinbeck Essays - English-language Films, John Steinbeck, Dust Bowl Steinbeck Well in this short report on John Steinbeck I am about to include all of the work that I have done in this class Including my full report on one of his books, a little background on Mr. Steinbeck and many other things, All out of the mind and the computer of Jeremy Slaven. An American author and winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize for literature, John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr., b. Salinas, Calif., Feb. 27, 1902, d. Dec. 20, 1968, based most of his novels on the American experience, often with sympathetic focus on the poor, the eccentric, or the dispossessed. Steinbeck grew up in Salinas Valley, a rich agricultural area of Monterey County and the setting of many of his works, where he learned firsthand of the difficulties of farm laborers. From 1919 to 1925 he studied intermittently at Stanford University but did not receive a degree. His early novels (Cup of Gold, 1929; The Pastures of Heaven, 1932; and To a God Unknown, 1933) aroused little public interest. The latter novel, however, a mystical story of self-sacrifice, is one of Steinbeck's strongest statements about the relationship between people and the land. Steinbeck turned to filmmaking after the film success of The Grapes of Wrath. He wrote impressive screenplays for the Mexican-based The Forgotten Village (1941) and Viva Zapata! (1952), as well as film scripts for his stories The Red Pony (1938) and The Pearl (1947). Another novel and play, The Moon Is Down (1942), about the German invasion of Norway, won critical praise. After World War II, in which he served as a war correspondent, Steinbeck wrote increasingly about social outcasts. Cannery Row (1945) relates the story of a group of vagabonds on the Monterey coast. The Wayward Bus (1947) presents a morality tale about characters who supposedly represent middle-class society. Burning Bright (1950) preached universal brotherhood but was largely unsuccessful. Steinbeck devoted several years to his most ambitious project, East of Eden (1952; film, 1955), which paralleled the history of his mother's family and was an allegorical modernization of the biblical story of Adam. Subsequent novels proved anticlimacticSweet Thursday (1954), a sentimental sequel to Cannery Row; The Short Reign of Pippin IV (1957), a burlesque; and The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), a moralistic tale about a decaying Long Island seaport. Steinbeck wrote popular sketches of his travels in Once There Was a War (1958), Travels with Charley (1962), and America and Americans (1966). He spent many of his later years writing a modern version of Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur, which was published, incomplete and posthumously, as The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976). He has remained popular principally, however, for his compassionate portrayal of America's forgotten poor.(griolers) The works of Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by U.S. novelist John Steinbeck is one of the most powerful chronicles in American literature of the Depression of the 1930s. It deals with the Joads, a family that loses its farm through foreclosure and leaves the Oklahoma Dust Bowl for California in the hope of finding work. The eldest generation has the comfort of religion, the next one has a dogged perseverance, but the youngest has little to believe in. Embittered by the brutal exploitation of migrant workers, Tom, who had been jailed for murder and who later kills again, becomes a labor organizer. In this Pulitzer Prize-winning (1940) novel, Steinbeck alternates his narrative with serious discussion of the problems of migrant laborers.(Groliers) Of Mice and Men (1937; film, 1939), a short novel by John Steinbeck set in Salinas, Calif., has been called Steinbeck's most successful work. The novel deals with two migrant workers: Lennie, a physically powerful but mentally retarded giant, and George, his friend and protector. They share the dream of someday buying a farm together. The dream is shattered when Lennie accidentally kills the wife of a rich farmer and is then sought by a lynch mob. He and George tenderly recall their dream just before George shoots Lennie to save him from the crueler death he will inevitably face at the hands of the mob. The book established Steinbeck as a writer of distinction. It was made into a play shortly after publication. These are just a few of his most