Biography of John Steinbeck In the biography of “John Steinbeck” by Catherine Reef his life was full of hardships just as his characters’ lives were. One major case was that his own parents did not want him to be a writer. They wanted him to have a true profession as a lawyer. But overcoming these obstacles is what helped Steinbeck become such an influential and non-conformist writing style.
John Steinbeck knew he wanted to become a writer at the age of 15; influenced by an English teacher, and fellow students faintly remembered him spending so much time in certain rooms reading. After leaving Stanford University in 1925 he started many different jobs that affected his life as a writer. Some of these jobs include an apprentice hod carrier, an apprentice printer, a working chemist, caretaker of Like Tahoe Estate surveyor in Big Sur County, and a fruit picker. Many of his more physically labored jobs were rancher, road worker, deck hand, cotton picker, and bricklayer.
While involved in these jobs, he made many close friends that he came to admire because of their “cant and hypocrisy” which Steinbeck applauded. All of these people he had meet in the many laboring jobs were made as characters in his novels. Many of these experiences were the “helpers” to his many novels. Many things such as the Great Depression, World War 2 and the Vietnam War are the major influences.
His fruit picking and Great Depression led him to write “The Grapes of Wrath,” his best known and most ambitious of his works. Also he wrote “Of Mice and Men,” which was formed from his job as a hired hand on many farms he worked. Also after World War 2 many of his works focused on greed and materialism in the being of modern civilizations, such as “Cannery Row.” John Steinbeck was best known for his basis on the American experience often with sympathetic focus on the poor, eccentric or the de possessed. Steinbeck was a great and influential writer and this is illustrated through the many awards that he has won for his novels. Steinbeck won a Pulitzer Prizes such as “The Grapes of Wrath” and his novel “Tortilla Flat” won the California Commonwealth Club’s annual gold medal for the best novel by a California writer. Steinbeck’s life can be seen through his books where he expresses his own experiences in life..
The Essay on Meaning of Life by John Cottingham
Every person has questioned the meaning of life; It is an idea that can be traced through out the history of mankind. John Cottingham, author of “The Meaning of Life” is just one of the many who have tried to explain and simplify this complicated question. “The Meaning of Life” is a short but informative book that attempts to breakdown the meaning of life with as little religious intervention as ...
