Cannery Row (novel)
Encyclopedia
Cannery Row is an English language novel by American author John Steinbeck
. It was published in 1945
. A film version
was released in 1982. A stage version was produced in 1995.
Cannery Row takes place on a small fictional street lined with sardine
fisheries in Monterey known as Cannery Row
(Ocean View Avenue in Monterey, the thinly disguised location, was later re-named "Cannery Row" in honor of the book). It revolves around the people living there during the Great Depression
: Lee Chong, the local grocer; Doc, a marine biologist based on Steinbeck's friend Ed Ricketts
; and Mack, the leader of a group of bums.
Steinbeck revisited these characters and this milieu nine years later in his novel Sweet Thursday
.
owner and operator of the neighborhood grocery store known as "Lee Chong's Heavenly Flower Grocery". "The grocery opened at dawn and did not close until the last wandering vagrant dime had been spent or retired for the night. Not that Lee Chong was avaricious. He wasn't, but if one wanted to spend money, he was available." "No one is really sure whether Lee ever receives any of the money he is owed or if his wealth consisted entirely of unpaid debts, but he lives comfortably and does legitimate business in the Row."
coast. Most of these creatures are preserved in some way and are sent all over the country to universities, laboratories, and museums. "You can order anything living from Western Biological, and sooner or later you will get it." Doc is described as "deceptively small" with great strength and the potential for passionate anger. He wears a beard, very strange and unpopular at the time, and has great charisma. "Doc tips his hat to dogs as he drives by and the dogs look up and smile at him." Doc is also the smartest man in Cannery Row, interested in knowing something about everything. "Doc would listen to any kind of nonsense and change it for you to a kind of wisdom. His mind had no horizon," Steinbeck wrote. "Everyone who knew him was indebted to him. And everyone who thought of him thought next, 'I really must do something nice for Doc.'"
The character of Doc is based on Steinbeck's friend Ed Ricketts
, to whom he also dedicated the novel. Ricketts was a noted marine biologist and the one who got Steinbeck interested in the subject. Doc's Western Biological Laboratory is a reference to Ricketts' real Pacific Biological Laboratories, which stood at 800 Cannery Row from 1928 to 1948. His appearance in the book shows him falling in love but he actually turns bi-sexual in the series.
, she has certain standards - selling no hard liquor, keeping an honest price on the services of the house, and allowing no vulgarity to be spoken on the premises. Dora is also kind to those who have helped her, never turning out a girl too old or infirm to work: "Some of them don't turn three tricks a month, but they go right on eating three meals a day." Being an illegal operation, Dora has to be "twice as law abiding" and "twice as philanthropic" as anyone else in Cannery Row. When the general donation for a policeman's ball is a dollar, Dora is asked for and gives 50. "With everything else it is the same, Red Cross, Community Chest
, Boy Scouts
, Dora's unsung, unpublicized dirty wages of sin
lead the list of donations." During the darkest days of the Great Depression, Dora paid people's grocery bills and fed their children, very nearly going broke in the process. Dora runs a business that plays an important role in Cannery Row's society. Dora is debatably the most successful character in the book.
, drink and contentment. But whereas most men in their search for contentment destroy themselves and fall wearily short of their targets, Mack and his friends approached contentment casually, quietly, and absorbed it gently." Mack has few compunctions about lying, stealing, or swindling, but his intentions are generally good, so he is able to justify his actions and those of his friends as means to an end. It is said he is highly intelligent and "could be President if he wanted to be". He and his group of friends are known to all as "Mack and the boys" and spend a great deal of their time in an abandoned storage shed they christen "The Palace Flophouse and Grill".
who supplies the boys with "hooch" poured off from whatever patrons leave in their glasses at Ida's Bar. "He kept a gallon jug under the bar and in the mouth of the jar was a funnel. Anything left in the glasses Eddie poured into the funnel before he washed the glasses... The resulting punch he took back to the Palace was always interesting and sometimes surprising. The mixture of rye
, beer
, bourbon
, scotch
, wine
, rum
and gin
was fairly constant, but now and then some effete customer would order a stinger
or an anisette
or a curaçao
and these little touches gave a distinct character to the punch."
"Cannery Row in Monterey
in California
is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonk
s, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches,' by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, 'Saints and angels and martyr
s and holy men,' and he would have meant the same thing."
" in which you could buy, "clothes, food both fresh and canned, liquor, tobacco
, fishing
equipment, machinery, boats, cordage, caps, pork chops. You could buy at Lee Chong's a pair of slippers, a silk
kimono
, a quarter pint of whiskey and a cigar
. You could work out combinations to fit almost any mood." Almost everyone in the area owes money to Lee Chong, but he is generous with his debtors because he has found they will usually pay him back rather than make the long trek to the next nearest store over in New Monterey.
ists (an implicit threat). To save face, Lee asks Mack for five dollars a week in rent (all the while knowing he will never see a dime of it). Lee figures that if Mack and the boys ever had any money they would spend it at his place and would have very little reason to steal from him, as he had the right to evict them at any time. "The saving to Lee Chong in cans of beans and tomatoes and milk and watermelons more than paid the rent. And if there was a sudden and increased leakage among the groceries in New Monterey that was none of Lee Chong's affair." The Palace receives its name from Hazel, who juxtaposes what he knows (flophouses) with something wonderful he does not know (palaces). As the weeks go on furniture and paint and other niceties begin appearing in the Palace, and, piece by piece, it becomes a home to Mack and the boys and their adopted pointer
dog, Darling.
s, starfish, octopi, etc. Doc makes frequent trips up and down the California coast to collect specimens from the ocean. He sells them for dissection or observation at universities, museums and labs all across the country. Doc also has a library's worth of books and records and an old phonograph player besides. Scattered around the walls are reproductions of great works of art, ".....pinned here and there at eye level so you could look at them if you want to." Doc loves his records, each song evoking a different emotion in him. Doc is also known to bring a girl home from time to time, though these flings never seem to last.
, George has a small monologue in which he states that a man can go into a whorehouse and get a beer and sex for a price agreed upon up front - unlike less professional relationships, you know what you're going to get and what you will have to pay for it. The same theme of respect is expressed in Cannery Row in Steinbeck's descriptions of the Bear Flag: it is a business that provides a service in demand, it is run cleanly and honestly, and it benefits the community.
near "Cannery Row" and the laboratory of his friend, Ed Ricketts. This began in 1930 and lasted to 1941 when Steinbeck's marriage broke up and he fled eastward to marry again (eventually). After a traumatic time documenting the war in the Mediterranean campaign in 1943, Steinbeck returned home to find that his second marriage was also in difficulties. Cannery Row was written in 1944 in an attempt to recover a Depression-era world in Monterey which was, by then, already inaccessible to Steinbeck. Major influences for this change included the war's effect on both Steinbeck and Monterey, the breakup of Steinbeck's first marriage, and the insulation caused by Steinbeck's new wealth arising from his increasing fame and success as a writer. Steinbeck was already beginning to suspect that he would never again be able to go back to living in this, his favorite part of California. Indeed, after a failed attempt to live in California in the late 1940s, he left to spend the rest of his life in New York.
, in which several new characters are introduced and Doc finds love, with the active help of his friends. The film version of Cannery Row incorporates elements from both books.
and Debra Winger
. The screenplay, by David S. Ward
(The Sting
, Major League
), took many liberties with the source material, and drew scorn from the Steinbeck Estate.
in Salinas, California
, commissioned J.R. Hall to adapt the novel for the stage. A year later, it was produced as part of the National Steinbeck Festival. Subsequently, it has been revived by the Western Stage in 2005, and by the Community College of Allegheny County
, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
, in 2007.
" and the 1967 Tom and Jerry
cartoon short "Cannery Rodent
" have their titles based on a play-on-words of this book's name.
John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...
. It was published in 1945
1945 in literature
The year 1945 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*November 1 - The magazine Ebony is published for the first time.*Noel Coward's short play, Still Life, is adapted to become the film, Brief Encounter....
. A film version
Cannery Row (film)
Cannery Row is the title of a 1982 film directed by David S. Ward. It stars Nick Nolte and Debra Winger.Like the 1955 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Pipe Dream, the movie is adapted from John Steinbeck's novels Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday and contains many of the same plot elements...
was released in 1982. A stage version was produced in 1995.
Cannery Row takes place on a small fictional street lined with sardine
Sardine
Sardines, or pilchards, are several types of small, oily fish related to herrings, family Clupeidae. Sardines are named after the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, around which they were once abundant....
fisheries in Monterey known as Cannery Row
Cannery Row
Cannery Row is the waterfront street in the New Monterey section of Monterey, California. It is the site of a number of now-defunct sardine canning factories. The last cannery closed in 1973...
(Ocean View Avenue in Monterey, the thinly disguised location, was later re-named "Cannery Row" in honor of the book). It revolves around the people living there during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
: Lee Chong, the local grocer; Doc, a marine biologist based on Steinbeck's friend Ed Ricketts
Ed Ricketts
Edward Flanders Robb Ricketts commonly known as Ed Ricketts, was an American marine biologist, ecologist, and philosopher...
; and Mack, the leader of a group of bums.
Synopsis
Cannery Row has a simple premise: Mack and his friends are trying to do something nice for their friend Doc, who has been nice to them without asking for reward. Mack hits on the idea that they should throw a Thank-you party, and the entire community quickly becomes involved. Unfortunately, the party rages out of control, and Doc's lab and home are ruined—and Doc's mood. In an effort to return to Doc's good graces, Mack and the boys decide to throw another party—but to make it work this time. A procession of linked vignettes describes the denizens' lives on Cannery Row. These constitute subplots that unfold concurrently with the main plot.Steinbeck revisited these characters and this milieu nine years later in his novel Sweet Thursday
Sweet Thursday
Sweet Thursday is a 1954 novel by John Steinbeck. It is a sequel to Cannery Row and set in the years after the end of World War II. According to the author, "Sweet Thursday" is the day after Lousy Wednesday and the day before Waiting Friday....
.
Lee Chong
Lee Chong is the shrewd ChineseChina
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
owner and operator of the neighborhood grocery store known as "Lee Chong's Heavenly Flower Grocery". "The grocery opened at dawn and did not close until the last wandering vagrant dime had been spent or retired for the night. Not that Lee Chong was avaricious. He wasn't, but if one wanted to spend money, he was available." "No one is really sure whether Lee ever receives any of the money he is owed or if his wealth consisted entirely of unpaid debts, but he lives comfortably and does legitimate business in the Row."
Doc
Doc is a marine biologist who studies and collects sea creatures from all along the CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
coast. Most of these creatures are preserved in some way and are sent all over the country to universities, laboratories, and museums. "You can order anything living from Western Biological, and sooner or later you will get it." Doc is described as "deceptively small" with great strength and the potential for passionate anger. He wears a beard, very strange and unpopular at the time, and has great charisma. "Doc tips his hat to dogs as he drives by and the dogs look up and smile at him." Doc is also the smartest man in Cannery Row, interested in knowing something about everything. "Doc would listen to any kind of nonsense and change it for you to a kind of wisdom. His mind had no horizon," Steinbeck wrote. "Everyone who knew him was indebted to him. And everyone who thought of him thought next, 'I really must do something nice for Doc.'"
The character of Doc is based on Steinbeck's friend Ed Ricketts
Ed Ricketts
Edward Flanders Robb Ricketts commonly known as Ed Ricketts, was an American marine biologist, ecologist, and philosopher...
, to whom he also dedicated the novel. Ricketts was a noted marine biologist and the one who got Steinbeck interested in the subject. Doc's Western Biological Laboratory is a reference to Ricketts' real Pacific Biological Laboratories, which stood at 800 Cannery Row from 1928 to 1948. His appearance in the book shows him falling in love but he actually turns bi-sexual in the series.
Dora Flood
Owner and operator of the Bear Flag Restaurant, Dora possesses a keen business mind as well as a strong spirit. Despite the fact that she runs a whorehouseProstitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
, she has certain standards - selling no hard liquor, keeping an honest price on the services of the house, and allowing no vulgarity to be spoken on the premises. Dora is also kind to those who have helped her, never turning out a girl too old or infirm to work: "Some of them don't turn three tricks a month, but they go right on eating three meals a day." Being an illegal operation, Dora has to be "twice as law abiding" and "twice as philanthropic" as anyone else in Cannery Row. When the general donation for a policeman's ball is a dollar, Dora is asked for and gives 50. "With everything else it is the same, Red Cross, Community Chest
Community Chest (US organization)
The Community Chests in the United States and Canada were fund-raising organizations that collected money from local businesses and workers and distributed it to community projects. The first Community Chest, "Community Fund," was founded in 1913 in Cleveland, Ohio by the Federation for Charity and...
, Boy Scouts
Boy Scouts of America
The Boy Scouts of America is one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with over 4.5 million youth members in its age-related divisions...
, Dora's unsung, unpublicized dirty wages of sin
Sin
In religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...
lead the list of donations." During the darkest days of the Great Depression, Dora paid people's grocery bills and fed their children, very nearly going broke in the process. Dora runs a business that plays an important role in Cannery Row's society. Dora is debatably the most successful character in the book.
Mack
Mack, a 48-year-old man, described as "the elder, leader, mentor and to a small extent exploiter of a little group of men who had in common no families, no money, and no ambitions beyond foodFood
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
, drink and contentment. But whereas most men in their search for contentment destroy themselves and fall wearily short of their targets, Mack and his friends approached contentment casually, quietly, and absorbed it gently." Mack has few compunctions about lying, stealing, or swindling, but his intentions are generally good, so he is able to justify his actions and those of his friends as means to an end. It is said he is highly intelligent and "could be President if he wanted to be". He and his group of friends are known to all as "Mack and the boys" and spend a great deal of their time in an abandoned storage shed they christen "The Palace Flophouse and Grill".
Hazel
Hazel is a dim but good, strong and loyal young man living with Mack and the boys in the Palace Flophouse. His name is feminine because his mother was tired when he was born (the eighth child in seven years) and named the baby after an aunt who was rumored to have life insurance. When she realized that Hazel was a boy she had already gotten used to the name and never changed it. Hazel "did four years of grammar school, four years of reform school, and didn't learn anything in either place." Hazel loves to listen to people's conversations and remembers everything he is told but can hardly make sense of any of it.Eddie
Another resident of the Palace, Eddie is a part-time bartenderBartender
A bartender is a person who serves beverages behind a counter in a bar, pub, tavern, or similar establishment. A bartender, in short, "tends the bar". The term barkeeper may carry a connotation of being the bar's owner...
who supplies the boys with "hooch" poured off from whatever patrons leave in their glasses at Ida's Bar. "He kept a gallon jug under the bar and in the mouth of the jar was a funnel. Anything left in the glasses Eddie poured into the funnel before he washed the glasses... The resulting punch he took back to the Palace was always interesting and sometimes surprising. The mixture of rye
Rye
Rye is a grass grown extensively as a grain and as a forage crop. It is a member of the wheat tribe and is closely related to barley and wheat. Rye grain is used for flour, rye bread, rye beer, some whiskeys, some vodkas, and animal fodder...
, beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
, bourbon
Bourbon whiskey
Bourbon is a type of American whiskey – a barrel-aged distilled spirit made primarily from corn. The name of the spirit derives from its historical association with an area known as Old Bourbon, around what is now Bourbon County, Kentucky . It has been produced since the 18th century...
, scotch
Scotch whisky
Scotch whisky is whisky made in Scotland.Scotch whisky is divided into five distinct categories: Single Malt Scotch Whisky, Single Grain Scotch Whisky, Blended Malt Scotch Whisky , Blended Grain Scotch Whisky, and Blended Scotch Whisky.All Scotch whisky must be aged in oak barrels for at least three...
, wine
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
, rum
Rum
Rum is a distilled alcoholic beverage made from sugarcane by-products such as molasses, or directly from sugarcane juice, by a process of fermentation and distillation. The distillate, a clear liquid, is then usually aged in oak barrels...
and gin
Gin
Gin is a spirit which derives its predominant flavour from juniper berries . Although several different styles of gin have existed since its origins, it is broadly differentiated into two basic legal categories...
was fairly constant, but now and then some effete customer would order a stinger
Stinger (cocktail)
A stinger is a Duo cocktail made by adding crème de menthe to a spirit.The classic recipe is based on brandy and white crème de menthe, shaken and served in a cocktail glass. The origins of this drink are unclear, but it is mentioned in bartender's recipe books as far back as Tom Bullock's Ideal...
or an anisette
Anisette
Anisette is an anise-flavored liqueur that is consumed mainly in France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. It is colorless and, unlike some other anise-based liqueurs, contains no licorice.True anisette is produced by means of distilling aniseed...
or a curaçao
Curaçao liqueur
Curaçao is a liqueur flavoured with the dried peel of the laraha citrus fruit, grown on the island of Curaçao. A non-native plant similar to an orange, the laraha developed from the sweet Valencia orange transplanted by Spanish explorers. The nutrient-poor soil and arid climate of Curaçao proved...
and these little touches gave a distinct character to the punch."
Chinaman
The enigmatic figure of "The Chinaman" appears in the story several times. He walks quietly through the town, usually while the narrator is himself on the way down to the ocean. The Chinaman's association with the eternal sea reminds us that the fast-paced and hilarious adventures of the Cannery Row characters are merely ripples in the vast sweep of human experience.Locations
Cannery Row is the living backdrop for the book. As described in the opening paragraph:"Cannery Row in Monterey
Monterey, California
The City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,810. Monterey is of historical importance because it was the capital of...
in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonk
Honky tonk
A honky-tonk is a type of bar that provides musical entertainment to its patrons...
s, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches,' by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, 'Saints and angels and martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
s and holy men,' and he would have meant the same thing."
Lee Chong's Grocery
Lee Chong's is the first location we are introduced to in the novel, the hub of commerce in Cannery Row. Lee Chong's store is truly a "general storeGeneral store
A general store, general merchandise store, or village shop is a rural or small town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, sometimes in a small space, where people from the town and surrounding rural areas come to purchase all their general...
" in which you could buy, "clothes, food both fresh and canned, liquor, tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
, fishing
Fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....
equipment, machinery, boats, cordage, caps, pork chops. You could buy at Lee Chong's a pair of slippers, a silk
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
kimono
Kimono
The is a Japanese traditional garment worn by men, women and children. The word "kimono", which literally means a "thing to wear" , has come to denote these full-length robes...
, a quarter pint of whiskey and a cigar
Cigar
A cigar is a tightly-rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco that is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the mouth. Cigar tobacco is grown in significant quantities in Brazil, Cameroon, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Philippines, and the Eastern...
. You could work out combinations to fit almost any mood." Almost everyone in the area owes money to Lee Chong, but he is generous with his debtors because he has found they will usually pay him back rather than make the long trek to the next nearest store over in New Monterey.
The Palace Flophouse and Grill
Home to Mack and the boys, the house was originally a storage shed for fish meal and was given to Lee Chong to clear a debt. Mack convinces Lee Chong that letting him and boys move in will keep it safe from vandals and arsonArson
Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...
ists (an implicit threat). To save face, Lee asks Mack for five dollars a week in rent (all the while knowing he will never see a dime of it). Lee figures that if Mack and the boys ever had any money they would spend it at his place and would have very little reason to steal from him, as he had the right to evict them at any time. "The saving to Lee Chong in cans of beans and tomatoes and milk and watermelons more than paid the rent. And if there was a sudden and increased leakage among the groceries in New Monterey that was none of Lee Chong's affair." The Palace receives its name from Hazel, who juxtaposes what he knows (flophouses) with something wonderful he does not know (palaces). As the weeks go on furniture and paint and other niceties begin appearing in the Palace, and, piece by piece, it becomes a home to Mack and the boys and their adopted pointer
Pointer (dog breed)
The Pointer, often called the English Pointer, is a breed of dog developed as a gun dog. It is one of several pointing breeds.-Appearance:...
dog, Darling.
The Bear Flag Restaurant
The Bear Flag is the local whorehouse, owned and operated by Dora Flood. It is described as, "A decent, clean, honest, old-fashioned sporting house where a man can take a glass of beer among friends... a sturdy, virtuous club," where profanity and hard liquor are not allowed. The Bear Flag is respected (if not liked) by the residents of Cannery Row for the simple fact that many of them depend on it. When a sickness spreads through Cannery Row, it is the girls of the Bear Flag who go delivering soup and company to the sick while they recuperate, and on the list of generous donors to local charities or events, the Bear Flag is always at the top.Western Biological Laboratories
Doc's home and office, the lab is a place where all kinds of living things are kept and preserved: live rattlesnakeRattlesnake
Rattlesnakes are a group of venomous snakes of the genera Crotalus and Sistrurus of the subfamily Crotalinae . There are 32 known species of rattlesnake, with between 65-70 subspecies, all native to the Americas, ranging from southern Alberta and southern British Columbia in Canada to Central...
s, starfish, octopi, etc. Doc makes frequent trips up and down the California coast to collect specimens from the ocean. He sells them for dissection or observation at universities, museums and labs all across the country. Doc also has a library's worth of books and records and an old phonograph player besides. Scattered around the walls are reproductions of great works of art, ".....pinned here and there at eye level so you could look at them if you want to." Doc loves his records, each song evoking a different emotion in him. Doc is also known to bring a girl home from time to time, though these flings never seem to last.
La Jolla
Doc goes on a trip to collect octopi from the tide pools in La Jolla, California. This is also where he finds a girl floating dead in the water, leaving a lasting impression on him.Camaraderie
The residents of Cannery Row work together to hold a party for Doc. They struggle to find the date, get the funds, find the location and even fail at the first attempt. But this endeavor pulls together and exemplifies the vastly different skills and resources of the residents to make a culminating goal for the book.Contentment
Mack and the boys at the Palace Flophouse need little and appreciate much, and whatever they do need they acquire by cunning. Doc is happy with his station in life and in the community (but many worry about his being lonely without a companion). Lee Chong could very easily go after the people in Cannery Row and collect on the debts he is owed, but he chooses instead to let the money come back to him gradually. "Henri the painter" is happy building his ever-changing boat and will continually dismantle it and start again so that he can continue building it. Cannery Row is content because its denizens are not ambitious to be anything other than who they are: their sole ambition is to better befriend Doc.Prostitutes
Steinbeck expresses a certain respect for prostitution for its honesty of motives, while reserving moral judgment for the reader. In Of Mice and MenOf Mice and Men
Of Mice and Men is a novella written by Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck. Published in 1937, it tells the tragic story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers during the Great Depression in California, USA....
, George has a small monologue in which he states that a man can go into a whorehouse and get a beer and sex for a price agreed upon up front - unlike less professional relationships, you know what you're going to get and what you will have to pay for it. The same theme of respect is expressed in Cannery Row in Steinbeck's descriptions of the Bear Flag: it is a business that provides a service in demand, it is run cleanly and honestly, and it benefits the community.
Overcoming superficial views of people
Throughout the story characters such as Dora Flood, Mack, and Doc are all expanded upon and they reveal that they are much more complicated than they at first appear to be. For example, Dora Flood is the owner of the brothel and is disliked by the women of the town because of her business, but she is very generous and for two years donates groceries to hungry people. Doc, who is a loved and respected member of society, is, deep down, a very sad and lonely person who, until the end of the story, never opens up to other people.Nostalgia
The novel opens with the words: "Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream." Author John Steinbeck spent some of the happiest years of his life in a house in Pacific GrovePacific Grove, California
Pacific Grove is a coastal city in Monterey County, California, USA, with a population of 15,041 as of the 2010 census, down from 15,522 as of the 2000 census...
near "Cannery Row" and the laboratory of his friend, Ed Ricketts. This began in 1930 and lasted to 1941 when Steinbeck's marriage broke up and he fled eastward to marry again (eventually). After a traumatic time documenting the war in the Mediterranean campaign in 1943, Steinbeck returned home to find that his second marriage was also in difficulties. Cannery Row was written in 1944 in an attempt to recover a Depression-era world in Monterey which was, by then, already inaccessible to Steinbeck. Major influences for this change included the war's effect on both Steinbeck and Monterey, the breakup of Steinbeck's first marriage, and the insulation caused by Steinbeck's new wealth arising from his increasing fame and success as a writer. Steinbeck was already beginning to suspect that he would never again be able to go back to living in this, his favorite part of California. Indeed, after a failed attempt to live in California in the late 1940s, he left to spend the rest of his life in New York.
Sweet Thursday
Steinbeck later wrote a sequel called Sweet ThursdaySweet Thursday
Sweet Thursday is a 1954 novel by John Steinbeck. It is a sequel to Cannery Row and set in the years after the end of World War II. According to the author, "Sweet Thursday" is the day after Lousy Wednesday and the day before Waiting Friday....
, in which several new characters are introduced and Doc finds love, with the active help of his friends. The film version of Cannery Row incorporates elements from both books.
Film
A film version was released in 1982, starring Nick NolteNick Nolte
Nicholas King "Nick" Nolte is an American actor whose career has spanned over five decades, peaking in the 1990s when his commercial success made him one of the most popular celebrities of that decade.-Early life:...
and Debra Winger
Debra Winger
Mary Debra Winger is an American actress. Three-times an Oscar nominee, she received awards for acting in Terms of Endearment, for which she won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress in 1983, and in A Dangerous Woman, for which she won the Tokyo International Film Festival...
. The screenplay, by David S. Ward
David S. Ward
David Schad Ward is an American film director and screen writer.-Life and career:Ward was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of Miriam and Robert McCollum Ward. Ward has degrees from Pomona College , as well as both USC and the UCLA Film School...
(The Sting
The Sting
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
, Major League
Major League (film)
Major League is a 1989 American satire comedy film written and directed by David S. Ward, starring Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Wesley Snipes, James Gammon, and Corbin Bernsen. Made for US$11 million, Major League grossed nearly US$50 million in domestic release...
), took many liberties with the source material, and drew scorn from the Steinbeck Estate.
Stage
In 1994 the Western Stage at Hartnell CollegeHartnell College
Hartnell Community College is a 2-year community college in Salinas, California, USA. It was founded in 1920 as Salinas Junior College, and renamed in 1948 for William Edward Petty Hartnell...
in Salinas, California
Salinas, California
Salinas is the county seat and the largest municipality of Monterey County, California. Salinas is located east-southeast of the mouth of the Salinas River, at an elevation of about 52 feet above sea level. The population was 150,441 at the 2010 census...
, commissioned J.R. Hall to adapt the novel for the stage. A year later, it was produced as part of the National Steinbeck Festival. Subsequently, it has been revived by the Western Stage in 2005, and by the Community College of Allegheny County
Community College of Allegheny County
Community College of Allegheny County, or CCAC as it is officially abbreviated, is a community college in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. With four campuses and six centers, the college offers associate's degrees, certificate and diploma programs....
, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
, in 2007.
In popular culture
The 1950 Tweety Bird cartoon "Canary RowCanary Row
Canary Row is a 1949 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies short, released in 1950 and directed by Friz Freleng, written by Tedd Pierce, and starring Tweety Bird and Sylvester. This is the first Sylvester and Tweety cartoon to feature Granny...
" and the 1967 Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry are the cat and mouse cartoon characters that were evolved starting in 1939.Tom and Jerry also may refer to:Cartoon works featuring the cat and mouse so named:* The Tom and Jerry Show...
cartoon short "Cannery Rodent
Cannery Rodent
Cannery Rodent is a 1967 Tom and Jerry cartoon produced and directed by Chuck Jones. It was the final Tom and Jerry cartoon directed by Chuck Jones, and one of the very last of the theatrical Tom and Jerry cartoons to be released by MGM...
" have their titles based on a play-on-words of this book's name.