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Characterization of Doc in Cannery Row

This study will examine the characterization of Doc in John Steinbeck's novel Cannery Row. The novel is a celebration of life, including the grime and the glory, and Doc's character is meant to personify this broadly inclusive philosophy. As we read of Cannery Row's people:

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 martyrs and holy men," and he would have meant the same thing (1).

Doc is a scientific man, to be sure, but he is also a man grounded in the pleasures of everyday life. We first see him leaving his Western Biological Laboratory to buy five quarts of beer. His defiance of powerful institutions is symbolized in his suggested "method for getting revenge on a bank if anyone should ever want to: `Rent a safety deposit box, then deposit in it one fresh salmon and go away for six months'" (15). Doc is a man who accepts and appreciates all of the many contradictory facets of life.

Doc's Western Biological is a kind of clearing house for all living things:

Western Biological deals in strange and beautiful wares. It sells the lovely animals of the sea. . . . And [it] sells bugs and snails and spiders. . . . You can order anything living from Western Biological and sooner or later you will get it (15).

As proprietor of this establishment, Doc is meant to be an earthly god of sorts, and if there is any doubt about that fact, Steinbeck quickly removes it:

Doc . . . wears a beard and his face is half Christ and half satyr and his face tells the truth. . . . Doc has the hands of a brain surgeon, and a cool warm mind. . . He can kill anything for need but he could not even hurt a feeling for pleasure (16).

Doc is not infallible, however, for Steinbeck wants us to see him as a thoroughly human being. He is subject to "passionate anger" and a terri...

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Characterization of Doc in Cannery Row. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 12:28, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1690548.html