Dean was later nominated for an Academy Award for his performance, which he received posthumously.
The book was later adapted into a 1955 film directed by Elia Kazan and starring James Dean in his first major movie role. Once again set in Steinbeck’s hometown of Salinas, California, this story follows the intersecting stories of two farming families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, from the Civil War to World War I, as their lives reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the rivalry of Cain and Abel. The pearl, which brings the potential of great fortune, ignites the neighbors’ jealousy, eventually becoming a dangerous agent of evil. On the same day Coyotito is stung by a scorpion and is turned away by the town doctor because they can’t afford care, Kino finds the largest pearl he’s ever seen on one of his dives. Kino, a poor diver who gathers pearls from the ocean floor, lives with his wife Juana and their infant son Coyotito by the sea. This story, based on a Mexican folktale, explores human nature and the potential of love. The book was later transformed into a Broadway play and three movies.
However, Lennie’s inclinations eventually get him into trouble again, spiraling to a tragic conclusion for both men. After they both secure jobs working the fields of the Salinas Valley - Steinbeck’s own hometown - their dream seems more attainable than ever.
Their goal: to own an acre of land and a shack. Lennie, who has a mild mental disability, is steadfastly faithful to his friend George, but he has a habit of getting into trouble. Two poor migrant workers, George and Lennie, are working for the American dream in California during the Great Depression. His most well-known novels include Of Mice and Men (1937), Grapes of Wrath (1939) and East of Eden (1952). Steinbeck wrote 31 books over the course of his career. He briefly moved to New York City, where he found work as a construction worker and a newspaper reporter, but then returned to California, where he took a job as a caretaker in Lake Tahoe and began his writing career. Over the next six years, Steinbeck drifted in and out of school, eventually dropping out for good in 1925, without a degree.įollowing Stanford, Steinbeck tried to make a go of it as a freelance writer. In 1919, Steinbeck enrolled at Stanford University - a decision that had more to do with pleasing his parents than anything else - but the budding writer would prove to have little use for college. I think I know better what I am doing than most writers but it still isn't much.” “Give a critic an inch and he'll write a play.” And it is also the best therapy because sometimes the troubles come tumbling out.” “The craft or art of writing is the clumsy attempt to find symbols for the wordlessness.” “I learned long ago that you cannot tell how you will end by how you start.” “We work in our own darkness a great deal with little real knowledge of what we are doing. Perhaps I am too lazy for anything else.” “For poetry is the mathematics of writing and closely kin to music. The crazy thing is that I get about the same number of words down either way.” “I guess it is a good thing I became a writer. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done.” “I know that no one really wants the benefit of anyone's experience, which is probably why it is so freely offered.” “I should think that a comfortable body would let the mind go freely to its gathering.” “I do a whole of a day's work and then the next day, flushed with triumph, I dawdle. He puts the last word down and it is done. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome.” “The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.” “A writer lives in awe of words, for they can be cruel or kind, and they can change their meanings right in front of you.” “To finish is sadness to a writer-a little death.
You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.” “We are lonesome animals. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip a trip takes us.” “In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.” “Ideas are like rabbits. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. “A journey is a person in itself no two are alike.