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Examples Of Reality In Cannery Row By John Steinbeck

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Cannery Row by John Steinbeck is a novel containing the problems that people in old Monterey, California, dealt with. Steinbeck grew up in this broken town and watched how life worked around him. Steinbeck himself went through these struggles of having multiple secret insecurities while others perceived him as much different. John Steinbeck now writes about the reality of how people are not always what they seem to be.
First of all the theme can be clearly seen when the novel compares expectations versus reality. The first example is, “In spite of his friendliness and his friends Doc was a lonely and set apart man” (Steinbeck 100). In the beginning of the novel Steinbeck portrays Doc as someone who is friendly and very nice, although deep …show more content…

An even better example is, “When there was laughter at a joke he didn’t understand Frankie laughed delightedly behind his chair and when the conversation dealt with abstractions his brow furrowed and he became intent and serious” (Steinbeck 59). Frankie pretends to understand what they are talking about to fit in with them and try to be more adult-like. He feels as though if he acts different the adults will like him more.

Last but not least is that no matter what something or somewhere may look like, it can always contain beauty. The first great example is, “House-ridden, the boys grew tired of squatting on the floor. Their eyes became outraged by the bare board walls. Because it sheltered them the house grew dear to them” (Steinbeck 40). This quote shows how something like an old beat up house can be something much more on the inside. The house contains love and care inside with family and friends living inside of it. An example even better than the first is, “...as a 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 martyrs and holy men,’ and he would have meant the same thing” (Steinbeck 1). This quote shows how perspective works, someone may look at a town such as Cannery Row and not

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