Cannery Row

Major ideas

Camaraderie

Mack and the boys work together to plan a party for Doc. After a failed first attempt, where Doc is not even present, their second attempt is more successful. Their transformation into an organised group in order to do something nice for Doc shows the value of comradeship and sociality.

Contentment

Mack and the boys at the Palace Flophouse need little and appreciate much, and whatever they do need they acquire by cunning and oftentimes stealing. 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 Men (1937), 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: prostitution 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 owns the brothel and is disliked by the townswomen 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 Grove near "Cannery Row" and the laboratory of his friend, Ed Ricketts. This began in 1930 and lasted to 1941, when Steinbeck's marriage failed, 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. He wrote Cannery Row in 1944 in an attempt to recover a Depression era world in Monterey which was, by then, already inaccessible to Steinbeck.[2]

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.

Main characters

Doc is a marine biologist who runs a biological specimen business, Western Biological Laboratories, who collects, prepares and markets specimens of fish and mammals for research and dissection. He pays bounties for certain creatures he needs, like cats and frogs. In addition to keeping live creatures on the premises such as rattlesnakes, Doc prepares the specimens in his laboratory that also serves as his living quarters. Doc, along with the grocer Lee Chong and madam Dora Flood, is the leading citizen on Cannery Row.

Lee Chong, an immigrant from China, owns and personally operates the grocery store across from Doc's lab, "Lee Chong's Heavenly Grocery". His store supplies all the needs of the denizens of Cannery Row, except for what can be had at the Dora Flood's bordello. Lee winds up owning a shack used to store fish meal when it is given to him by a debtor to settle a large outstanding grocery bill. He is forced to deal with Mack, the leader or a group of homeless men, when Mack suggests he and his boys take over the shack as a living space for which they will pay rent. Lee Chong knows that no rent will ever be paid but acquiesces to the deal as he can imagine the boys burning the shack down. Despite his realization that Mack often gets the best of him in their deals, he continues to deal with him throughout the novel, such as permitting his ancient Model T, also taken possession by him to settle a debt, to be overhauled and used on a trip to gather frogs for Doc.

Dora Flood is the owner and proprietor of the Bear Flag Restaurant, the most prominent and busiest bordello in Monterey. She is a whore with a heart of gold who greatly benefits the community with her public and private charity.

Mack is a seemingly homeless person who is the de facto leader of a group of other homeless men that congregate in Cannery Row. Mack negotiates with Lee Chong for the occupancy of a storage shack where he and the boys can live, which is fixed up and dubbed "The Palace Flophouse". Mack was once married but tells Doc he was a disappointment to his wife. The boys generally are unemployed but occasionally take jobs. Doc is aware of the cunning of Mack and the boys, but is fascinated by it as he often looks at them as he would a marine specimen.

Hazel, a simple minded but good hearted-young man who was given a female name by a mother too tired from child-bearing to realize her error at first or subsequently to care, is the most prominent of Mack's boys. Hazel goes on marine specimen hunting trips with Doc. The Palace Flop House boys also include Eddie, a part-time bartender at La Ida Cafe, and Hughie and Jones, who occasionally collected specimens of cats and frogs for Doc. They are subsequently joined by Gay, who unlike other members of the Palace Flophouse, has a wife and a home. Gay's wife was in the habit of swearing out warrants and having him put in jail, but she began to feel he liked jail and taken to beat him at night while he slept, so he moves in with Mack and the Boys. A gifted mechanic, Gay is arrested during the trip to catch frogs after he goes off to seek a Model T carburetor and disappears from the story, as he winds up back in jail.

Henri is a painter and visual artist who creates works of art out of different materials, such as feathers and nutshells. He is building a boat on blocks that he will never put out to sea. He romances a succession of women in the boat, who finally leave him due to its cramped quarters and lack of a bathroom.

Frankie is a differently abled boy suffering from neglect by his mother. The boy hero-worships Doc, whom he lets hang about his lab. Frankie has problems with motor coordination and never does anything quite right, and at times, his body fails him in the middle of performing tasks.

The Chinaman is an ancient man who daily scavenges for food under the piers of Cannery Row. His appearance and being are akin to an apparition.

Inspiration for the characters

Doc was based on Steinbeck's friend Ed Ricketts, a marine biologist and entrepreneur.[3]

Mack was based on Cannery Row denizen Harold Otis "Gabe" Bicknell.[4] A photo of Bricknell was used on the cover of the 1994 paperback edition of the novel.

Gay was based on aspects of Bicknell and on Grant McLean of Cannery Row, whom Steinbeck called Mack.[5]

Bear Flag Restaurant owner and madam Dora Flood and her sister Fauna in the sequel Sweet Thursday were based on Flora Woods Adams, a bordello owner who also figures in Steinbeck's earlier novel Tortilla Flat and in East of Eden.[6]

The Chinese grocer Lee Chong was inspired by Won Yee, an immigrant from China who operated the Wing Chong Company Grocery. Won pioneered the drying and preparation of squid, which was exported to China. He also figures in Tortilla Flat as Chin Kee, the owner of the squid packing business that employs the piasanos for one day, so they can raise money to pay for a party. Unlike Lee Chong in Cannery Row, Chin Kee is talked about but never appears in the novel Tortilla Flat. Won died in 1934.[7]


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