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Female Characters in Steinbeck's Fiction

This essay will offer a very short biographical sketch of Steinbeck, bringing out the themes that seemed to concern him the most. It will then examine three women characters from his other works, including Ma Joad and Rose from The Grapes of Wrath, (1939), and Ruth Tiflin, JodyÆs mother in ôLeader of the People,ö (1945). These women characters have been selected because they help us to set the character of Elisa Allen into a context which emphasizes both her similarities to other Steinbeck women characters and those traits which make her distinctive as a æSteinbeck woman.Æ It will be argued that Elisa AllenÆs appearance, actions, and speech depict some typical frustrations of a woman during SteinbeckÆs time, but that she is unique in her attempts to liberate herself from SteinbeckÆs typically masculine world (Renner 306). As such, Elisa Allen is SteinbeckÆs attempt to explore the authentic woman and her world, with all of its frustrations and yearnings for a freer existence.

Steinbeck spent the Great Depression in a house given to him by his father in Pacific Grove, California, where he survived by living on the land. From this vantage point, he composed his first successful novel, Tortilla Flats (1935), a warmly humorous, episodic treatment of the lives of the Mexican-Indian-Caucasian mix peopleùthe paisanosùwho lived in the Salinas Valley and whose earthy, uninhibited lives provided a colorful contrast to the valleyÆs more ôrespectableö society (Timmerman 84). Thus began a career of attending to the plights and concerns of the workers, and the themes of the workers vs. the bosses, townspeople vs. country people, and past vs. present. Steinbeck is concerned with the simple people who farm the lands, struggling to find a place for themselves in the world. His characters ôglow with life,ö (ôJohn Steinbeck Pageö) and reflect the simple passions of simpler times. Life is hard for these people, and the women a...

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Female Characters in Steinbeck's Fiction. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 05:21, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1712175.html