Hello everyone!
We're glad you're along with us for this SIC Steinbeck class and we hope this blog will be a useful tool in starting the discussion about Steinbeck's works. Our first novel will be Tortilla Flat, the epic and comic tale of a group of paisanos near Monterey.
For this week's blog prompt and to think about as you read: we want you to consider and look at Steinbeck's characters. How does he construct the paisanos and their relationship to each other? How do they draw upon Aurthurian legend and where do they differ from it? How do they construct their moral codes and do they stick to them (keep in mind how they are always rationalizing theft and wine-drinking, for instance)? From a prose perspective, how does he introduce characters into the story and make them memorable? These are all intro questions and you don't have to feel compelled to answer any or all.
But, here are the main questions we'd like you to answer and start discussion with:
1) Are Steinbeck's characters believable? Or are they more fantastic (fantasy-like characatures)?
2) Even if the characters may not be believable, do you believe their interactions/relationships and do those resonate as true?
3) Finally, does Steinbeck have any comtempt, condescension, mockery, satire, or just adoration towards his characters? Are there parts of the book that seem to you to be parody?
Don't forget to respond to someone before you (or me if you're first) and add any interesting insights or questions you have.
Bill & Clay
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ReplyDeleteI found the characters believable except when Steinbeck uses archaic language like “dost thou and hast thou” to emphasize the Arthurian feel. Each time I read a comment like this, it pulled me out of the story. This dialect feels unnatural coming from men who steal food and wine, and whose base concerns are keeping gallons of wine in the house. While they do many good deeds for the community, there is always an underlying greed that gets in the way of the reader recognizing their humanitarian efforts.
ReplyDeleteThe character's interaction with each other was mostly believable. I found the scene where they beat Big Joe to a pulp was unrealistic, yet their sympathetic nursing him back to health more true to their nature. All in all, they cared for each other and the rest of their town, they just wanted a free ride in the process.
I wasn't sure what to make of the several references to the “miserly Jew” and I wonder if Steinbeck was anti-Semitic.
While I thought that Steinbeck’s characters are more fantasy than believable, I do think the relationships he creates between them resonate as authentic. I read their interactions a bit different than Sarah, though, as I found the characters very sympathetic sympathetically. They steal and cheat, but they do not do so out of malevolence or greed. The paisanos follow a strict code of conduct, and although it does not necessarily align with the law, it is a moral code nonetheless, and it centers around honor and charity.
ReplyDeleteI particularly liked the character of Pirate, who Steinbeck portrays to be valuable despite his simplicity. Though he has an immature mind, he is kind and good-hearted, he values friendship, and he treats his companions, whether they be dogs or humans, with respect and love. He spends most of his time collecting coins, but his most prized possession is his relationships, not his wealth. I like how Pirate represents the innate goodness of simplicity, and this idea appears in other places in the book as well, such as when Danny feels burdened by the ownership of property and longs for his simpler, if more difficult, homeless life.
I agree with Natalie that the characters of Tortilla Flat are far more fantastic than believable. I also think that that's exactly how they are supposed to be. I think Steinbeck encodes the Aurthurian legend into the very fabric of the story by creating a set of surreal, simplistic and yet larger than life characters. The interactions between characters, on the other hand, struck me as very true to life. The characters themselves represent very mystic and abstract aspects of human nature, much as the characters of myths and legends do, but their interactions hold the authenticity of real life. Whereas many books have realistic, complex characters who fail to interact with each other realistically, Tortilla Flat has fantastic characters that interact perfectly and truthfully perhaps exactly because they are simplified and represent only portions of human complexity. Steinbeck can explore the paradoxical motivations behind all human interactions (greed, selfishness, empathy, sexual desire, kindness, selflessness) in their most basic form.
ReplyDeleteTortilla Flat reminds me very much of Norse legend, with it's string of loosely connected side stories and underlying code of morality that is about 30 degrees off of normal ideas of right and wrong. The "great men" are not what we would call great, the good life is not what we would call good, and the moral message is ultimately hard to define. And perhaps that's the point of Tortilla Flat. Perhaps Steinbeck is attempting not to proselytize (as opposed to Grapes of Wrath) but rather to comment on the fundamental grayness of human nature.
I think that incidences like Pablo and Pilon's use of the term "Old Jew" and so forth are good examples of reasons why Steinbeck isn't taught much at the University level nowadays. By today's standards, Steibeck is not a politically correct writer in any sense. But as Twain's use of the term "nigger" in Huckleberry Finn, I do not think Steinbeck's inclusions of these terms should be conflated so as to make him out to be an anti-Semitic. If you need proof that he's on the level, there is a collection of Steinbeck's personal correspondence that was published a while back which includes a letter where Steinbeck lamented the ongoing prejudice against Jewish people after a reader inquired whether "Steinbeck" was a Jewish name.
ReplyDeleteI think categorizing the characters as a whole as realistic versus fantastic may not be as helpful as looking at what aspects of each of these characters were astute, yet simplified metaphorical representations of human nature. While certain physical actions of these characters might be hard for us to conceptualize as realistic, I think that their thought processes are very realistic.
ReplyDeleteIt might be better not to look at the characters as individual "persons," but rather, as individual character traits. Viewed together, Danny, Pilon, Pirate, Pablo, Jesus, Joe, etc.. are a collection of different aspects of real person's eclectic personality. Taken as a whole, it is not hard to find parallels between each of these characters to particular thought processes that I have had over my lifetime. These thoughts compete and synergize within my own persona just as the characters in the novel fight, love, fall apart, and join together within the small community of Tortilla Flats.
It appears to me that Steinbeck loves his characters as he loves the everyday imperfections of the common man - I can't help but think of Steinbeck's fond reflections of Ed Rickett's (or Doc's) affinity for the bums on Cannery Row. Perhaps Steinbeck in this and other works is trying to convey his love for humanity but contempt for the capitalist (and later industrial and commercial) institutions that govern modern human interactions.
In particular, in this book I was fascinated by Steinbeck's overt disgust for materialism, but was unsure what his feelings were about capitalism in general. The characters always seemed happier when unburdened by material possessions. Yet their great joy in eating, drinking spirits, staying warm, and sleeping comfortably would not have been possible without the great chain of fortune and conniving originating with people that did have "means."
Anyways, this is long enough but at some point I would love to talk more about Steinbeck's philosophy regarding materialism, economics, resource scarcity, markets, socialism, and money in general. I would also like to talk more the role of alcohol in his novels.
I, like several of the other posters found his characters more fantasy than believable. However, I do believe Rachael is right that we should be considering certain attributes about the characters instead of each character as a whole.
ReplyDeleteDespite their language being completely unbelievable, their actions, however, can be justified and seen as rather believable. Each of the piasianos (except Danny and the Pirate) are looking for the easy road. Lying, cheating, and stealing their way to get there is something that can be seen in the world around us.
However, what makes them characters of fantasy (in my opinion) is their ability to get away with their crimes, as well as their actions within the context of the other characters in the book. Their were definite times where I was questioning if a bunch of drunks guys would have come to such successful and smart conclusions.
While I believe their actions between each other were clearly true and believable, I don't believe their relationships were. In fact, in my mind, much of their actions showed a selfishness that would be broken by such deep friendship and caring for each other.
And one thing to add to Rachael's comment about alcohol: One of the driving devises in many novels about the prohibition is their illegal consumption of alcohol.
On the surface, I think Tortilla's characters fit roles that make "believable" sense only when they interact with one another--when those roles get to be played out. So while I don't think the crafted and simple morality of Jesus Maria, for example, is meant to invent a fully formed character, it is more important that the sentiments in him and the others lead to stories that stand for the plainest, realest emotions.
ReplyDeleteIn creating characters that could come off as caricatures, Steinbeck takes a risk. He bets that he can make social observations despite the likelihood of his characters becoming translucent vessels for those observations. Personally, I kept expecting him to fail. At the end of chapter about the friends' helping Teresina find food to feed her eight kids, Steinbeck writes that "she wondered idly which one of Danny's friends was responsible." This characteristic punchline to a story built entirely on the premise that the friends' actions were genuine might seem glib. But I felt that Steinbeck's bet paid off because of the time he invests in the real intentions behind the ultimate actions that veer off course.
In the final chapter, the friends are truly depressed that they cannot attend Danny's funeral. The fact that Steinbeck tells us that attending the funeral is less important than being seen there does not diminish their connection to Danny--or to the broken group. Rather, it makes the relationships convincing in a way that we can recognize: simple characters acknowledging simple social rules. The result is too complex to call one thing.
We’ve spent a lot of discussion trying to distinguish the line between realism and fantasy in these characters – in their interactions between each other, with their circumstance, and with the community in which they live. I want to draw the form into this discussion. While some comments mentioned the Arthurian dialogue as distracting and seemingly unnecessary, I think it is more indicative of the epic form. We are introduced to the tale:
ReplyDelete“This story deals with the adventuring of Danny’s friends, with the good they did, with their thoughts and endeavors…In Monterey, that old city on the coast of California, these things are well known, and they are repeated and sometimes elaborated.”
When we see these characters and this novel, we read it as an epic. It is a story with simple elements that are easy to remember: basic character traits that dominate the story, but with little tidbits of fantasy that have been sometimes added as it is retold. So when Danny shrugs off the cry that his house is on fire, we find it hard to believe. But that little piece is irrelevant compared to the outcome of the fire, Danny’s “true emotion, one of relief that at least one of his burdens was removed.” We are intended to absorb the underlying flow of the plot and characters and take the idiosyncrasies as little embellishments of the epic.
And a little note on the anti-Semitism: when Steinbeck writes in Pilon’s reference to Danny as an “Old Jew,” he does it in such a hyperbolic way (Danny has asked for the rent once in months) that I think he’s satirizing Pilon rather that using the term in any derogatory comment on Judaism.
I agree with RDG (name?) that it seems somewhat inconclusive to simply cast Steinbeck's characters in Tortilla Flat as either realistic or fantastical. Rather, by focusing on the characters interactions with one another and their meditations of their actions, we can start to see how each of them illustrate the complexities of human nature. Steinbeck's opposition to law, rules, governance, and capitalism - institutions that have the capacity to stifle the natural progression of human life by inflicting order and organization - is also very apparent as a lot of people above have mentioned.
ReplyDelete