Thursday, November 10, 2011

All About John Steinbeck

John Ernst Steinbeck was born of half German and half Irish descent into a moderate means family in Salinas, California on February 27, 1902.
Throughout his childhood, Steinbeck worked the majority of the summers at nearby migrant farms with other migrant laborers. In the year 1919, Steinbeck graduated from Salinas High School, and later attended Stanford University. After a total of six years spent at the university, Steinbeck withdrew himself, never earning himself a degree. Shortly after dropping out of college, the soon-to-be renown author packed up his belongings and moved to New York City with the hope of becoming an acclaimed author. His plan failed. Upon returning back to California to start his life over, Steinbeck, once again, took up jobs as a migrant laborer, alongside many oversea immigrants and settlers from the West.
Refusing to become a bitter and discouraged, Steinbeck retried the art of novel writing; the first half dozen or so novels he wrote are not worth mentioning. It was not until 1935 when he published his first successful work, Tortilla Flat. The author then began to create novels originated around the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. These works are among his most acclaimed, including: In Dubious Battle, Of Mice of Men, and The Grapes of Wrath (the Dust Bowl trilogy).
By the time Steinbeck died in 1968, he was the author of twenty-seven books-- sixteen novels, six non-fiction books, and five collections of short-stories-- and the winner of numerous awards-- The Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the American Arts Gold Medallion.

Un Video Sobre Las Uvas de...Wrath

Novel Context + Author Background= Greatness

John Steinbeck was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his astounding work in The Grapes of Wrath in 1940.Steinbeck worked as a migrant laborer and worker for sporadic periods during his lifetime. Due to this past lifestyle, Steinbeck was able to channel the experiences he went through as a laborer, as well as the experiences he saw others undergo, primarily westerners, into many of his novel.
The novel centers in on a family of Western origin moving to California to escape the Dust Bowl, in hopes of finding prosperous work. With the same aspiration of hundreds of other "Okie" families, the Joads endure countless heartaches and struggles as they journey to the heartless West coast.
In order to fully understand the trials and the journey families from the Midwest encountered on their expedition, Steinbeck packed up his own goods, traveled to Oklahoma, and migrated back to California with his designated family. The journey no doubt further opened the author's eyes as to the brutality of the situation. Often times, as noted in The Grapes of Wrath, families traveled thousands upon thousands of miles, only to come to the realization that jobs were not as plentiful as they were proclaimed to be, nor was the western coast welcoming to their kind. Many returned home, preferring to die in their homeland than be mistreated by foreigners, but even more remained in California "Hoovervilles" filled with despair, regret, and, ironically, emptiness.
Through Steinbeck's realistic dialogue and personal experience, the novel was able to capture the hearts of millions of Americans during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, creating a household name for his novel as well as title recognition in hundreds of high-schools and colleges across the nation.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

Bibliography

All videos courtesy of YouTube
All photos courtesy of GoogleImages

"John Steinbeck - Biography". Nobelprize.org. 10 Nov 2011 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1962/steinbeck-bio.html

"John Steinbeck". Wikipedia.com. 10 Nov 2011
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck

"The Grapes of Wrath". Wikepedia.com. 10 Nov 2011
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath