John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California, a farming community with of about 2500 people. He was the third of four children and the only son of John Ernst and Olive Hamiton Steinbeck. His sisters Beth and Esther were much older than John and he felt closest to Mary, the youngest. He spent his childhood and adolescence in the Salinas Valley, which he later called "the salad bowl of the nation." John's mother, Olive, was the daughter of Irish immigrants. She left her parents' ranch to become a teacher. John remembered his mother as energetic and full of fun. He called his father, in contrast, "a singularly silent man." Steinbeck's father, also named John, worked as the treasurer of Monterey County. He had chosen a safe, practical course in life, in order to support his family. John enjoyed literature from an early age on. His mother read him the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Robert Louis Stevenson, and the stories of King Arthur. John attended Salinas High School, an experience he generally disliked, but one bright spot in his high school carrer was his ninth grade English teacher, Miss Cupp. She admired the compositions he wrote and encouraged him to continue with his writing
While attending Stanford University, John Steinbeck decided that a degree was of no use to a writer. Instead, he studied the things that interested him and would help him progress as a writer. He studied literature, history, and classical Greek. He convinced university officials to let him learn human anatomy alongside the medical students. Dissecting cadavers would help him "know more about people", he explained. Steinbeck's creative writing teacher taught him to write stories that were "true." She didn't mean the events in the story had to have actually happened, but instead the story and characters must reflect real human feelings and conflicts. The Nobel Foundation was established in 1900 on the will of Alfred Nobel, Swedish chemist who invented dynamite. In his will Nobel said that the interest from his $9 million estate be used to fund the annual prizes. Perhaps Alfred Nobel set up this prize to compensate for all the destruction that his dynamite was responsible for. Each year a medallion and cash prize is awarded in different catagories including physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, peace, and economics. The Prize is awarded to those who have made valuable contributions to the "good of humanity." John Steinbeck's final novel was "The Winter of Our Discontent." It was set in a fictional New York village telling a story of a man who is dissatisfied with his life. None of these later works seem to match the work he did on "Grapes of Wrath." In May of 1948 John learned the terrible news that Ed Ricketts had been killed in an automobile accident. When Steinbeck returned from the funeral in California, he received another shock. Gwyn told him that she no longer loved him and wanted a divorce. John Steinbeck felt despair, but found joy in summer visits with his boys. John fell in love when he met Elaine Scott, a stage manager in New York. They were married in 1950 and lived in New York, so John could be close to his sons. His acceptance speech concluded with the observation that "St. John the Apostle may well be paraphrased: In the end is the Word, and the Word is Man--the Word is with Man." . Throughout high school, John spent most of his free time writing stories in his room. In January of 1945 "Cannery Row" was published. It's a short novel inspired by Ed Ricketts and his neighbors in Monterey who worked at the fish cannery. The novel included an essay about John's best friend titled "About Ed Ricketts."
Some common words found in the essay are:
John Steinbeck, Ed Ricketts, Salinas Valley, Cup Gold, Alfred Nobel, Tortilla Flat, Pulitzer Prize, Red Pony, Sea Cortez, Miss Cupp, john steinbeck, ed ricketts, grapes wrath, john carol, king arthur john, farm workers, cannery row, home york, vacation home, salinas valley, stanford university john, mother olive,
Approximate Word count = 1851
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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