Honors Blog

Cannery Row; By John Steinbeck

Rather than telling one continuous story, Cannery Row is more of a collection of short vignettes that flow together to describe the lives of people living on Cannery Row. Cannery Row is a street filled with sardine fisheries in Monterrey, California. John Steinbeck uses the setting to tell short stories and develop character personalities of people living there during the Great Depression.

Doc;

1. What physical presence does the character have? Include height, weight, size, physical fitness, posture, etc. --Doc is a tall and has an athletic build. He is not overweight and stands confidently. His clothing shows that he may have more money than many others living on Cannery Row.
   
2. Describe the characters further visual details. Include hair, eyes, face, teeth, scars, tattoos, etc. --He has short, brown, and well kept hair. His face is always clean shaven. He has normal teeth, no scars, no tattoos.
   
3. What distinguishing items does the character wear? Include clothes, jewelery, shoes, and any other physical item the character keeps with him/her. --Doc is usually wearing a hat to keep the sun out of his eyes. Since he is a marine biologist, he's often out collecting samples to experiment.
   
4. What distinguishing behavior does the character have? Include habits, preferences (music, food, literature, etc.), speech (sayings, stalling words, etc), and demeanor. --When he is at home, his phonograph is almost always playing records. He is always reading a book, most about marine biology studies. He usually has a calm demeanor, except when he punched Mack for ruining his house with a party. His speech is nothing unusual.
   
5. What is the characters role in society? Include his/her job, hobbies, and uses of time. --Doc is well-known in Cannery Row. His house is filled with different animals and things that he uses to study, which everyone finds interesting. His job also allows openings for other people to have jobs. He would pay people 5 cents for every frog that they caught for him to study. People like Mack made a lot of money by helping Doc.
   
6. What is the character's religion or philosophy? What beliefs does he/she hold? How does this create or mitigate internal conflict within his/her psyche? --He's not religious. It doesn't really affect his life, as far as the book tells.
   
7. What do others in the book say about the character? --Everyone in Cannery Row loves Doc, which is why they chose to throw him a huge party as a thank you. They say he is always working hard, generous to others, and very smart.
   
8. What connections does this character have to history, established religion or the world beyond the book? --He is connected to the world of marine biology.
   
9. What does the character's name suggest? Authors rarely (if ever) name characters at random. What could the name symbolize? What evidence do you have for this? --To me, Doc is a name that evokes wisdom and knowledge, which is exactly the kind of character that Doc was. I think Steinbeck may have used similar reasoning when naming this character.
   
10. How does the character develop during the plot? How does he/she change? --He doesn't grow too much throughout the course of the book. His attitude changes a little and he becomes less of a pushover. For instance, when he punches Mack near the end of the book. I don't think he would have done that in the beginning, but it shows how his patience with him deteriorated over time.
    

Lee Chong;

1. What physical presence does the character have? Include height, weight, size, physical fitness, posture, etc. --Lee Chong is on the shorter side and not very muscular. His clothing is modest and shows niether upper nor lower class. He is not intimidating at all to others and most only see him standing behind the counter at his store.
   
2. Describe the characters further visual details. Include hair, eyes, face, teeth, scars, tattoos, etc. --He often wears glasses and has his hair combed back. He had a round face, no scars, no tattoos.
   
3. What distinguishing items does the character wear? Include clothes, jewelery, shoes, and any other physical item the character keeps with him/her. --Lee doesn't have any distinguishing items. He dresses modestly, his job doesn't require him to wear any particular clothing. One item that would come to mind when thinking about Lee would be the abacus that he always uses to calculate cost when people purchace something at his store.
   
4. What distinguishing behavior does the character have? Include habits, preferences (music, food, literature, etc.), speech (sayings, stalling words, etc.), and demeanor. --The beginning of the book describes Lee Chong's speech--"He spoke a stately English without ever using the letter R." His demeanor is not intimidating at all and he's very laid-back. His attitude is never rushed nor angry and he is calm.
   
5. What is the characters role in society? Include his/her job, hobbies, and uses of time. --Lee Chong's grocery store is the store that basically everyone in Cannery Row goes to when they need anything. The store carries everything that anyone could possibly need and his prices are always reasonable. He is almost always at the store. In small ways, he helps out everyone in the community. For instance, he gave Mack and his brothers a house to live in and he always gives people discounts or loans out food.
   
6. What is the character's religion or philosophy? What beliefs does he/she hold? How does this create or mitigate internal conflict within his/her psyche? --No religion is described in the book, but Lee's attitude is always calm and content. He seems to always be happy and okay with the way things are, even if someone cheats him on his money.
   
7. What do others in the book say about the character? --Almost everyone on Cannery Row owes Lee money. "No one is really sure whether Lee ever receives any of the money he is owed or if his wealth consisted entirely of unpaid debts, but he lives comfortably and does legitimate business in the Row." Everyone likes Lee because he is always helping them out.
8. What connections does this character have to history, established religion or the world beyond the book? --Lee Chong is connected to immigrants that came to America, especially during the Great Depression.
   
9. What does the character's name suggest? Authors rarely (if ever) name characters at random. What could the name symbolize? What evidence do you have for this? --In a way, his name describes his culture and shows that he is one of the only people living on Cannery Row that recently moved there and was not born there.
   
10. How does the character develop during the plot? How does he/she change? --Throughout the entirety of the book, Lee had always been kind, yet cautious of others. Yet this was always overruled by kindness and he gave people more than he got in return. However, near the end of the book, he became a little more self-advocating and he raised prices in the store.
    

Mack;

1. What physical presence does the character have? Include height, weight, size, physical fitness, posture, etc. --Mack is a little on the taller side, not muscular, and slender. He doesn't have great posture, and is not at all intimidating.
   
2. Describe the characters further visual details. Include hair, eyes, face, teeth, scars, tattoos, etc. --Though his hair wasn't described in the book, I don't picture it being very well kept. I see it more messy and not very well groomed. I see his face as strong bone-structure and his teeth are probably crooked since I don't think he had money for dental care. No tattoos, no noticable scars.
3. What distinguishing items does the character wear? Include clothes, jewelery, shoes, and any other physical item the character keeps with him/her. --He dressed very modestly and didn't have much money to buy nice clothes. He didn't care if they were dirty, so they were probably often torn and dirty. The only distinctive item that comes to mind would be a bottle of whiskey, since he loved to drink. He was always drinking and its what he bought the second he had money in his pocket.
4. What distinguishing behavior does the character have? Include habits, preferences (music, food, literature, etc.), speech (sayings, stalling words, etc), and demeanor. --I don't think he was educataed, at least not very extensively, so his speech and vocabulary were both limited. He was often drunk, which was usually the cause of his outlandish ideas like throwing Doc a party, which trashed his house.
5. What is the characters role in society? Include his/her job, hobbies, and uses of time. --He didn't have a job, he just helped Doc by getting frogs whenever he needed money. His hobbies consisted of lying and persuading people into helping himself. Though most of his intentions were good, his lying usually ended up getting him into deeper trouble.
6. What is the character's religion or philosophy? What beliefs does he/she hold? How does this create or mitigate internal conflict within his/her psyche? --No religion, and no beliefs described in the book.
7. What do others in the book say about the character? --His close group of friends saw him as the leader and said that he could be president if he wanted to. However, other characters like Doc and Lee Chong were always catious of Mack and saw him as slightly childish. They knew he would lie to get his way and often times, his intentions went awry and caused damage. Since he had no money, he usually got out easy and the others had to pay for it.
8. What connections does this character have to history, established religion or the world beyond the book? --His connection is shown to me by accounts of other people living during perios such as the Great Depression who didn't have much money, yet still wanted to have a good time.
9. What does the character's name suggest? Authors rarely (if ever) name characters at random. What could the name symbolize? What evidence do you have for this? --Mack was a very charismatic character and could be seen as a trouble-maker. In a way, I think the name Mack fits his personality and is a good choice.
10. How does the character develop during the plot? How does he/she change? --Mack tried so hard to throw a good party for Doc and he wanted to feel like he contributed and did something good. I saw his development in the book because he learned and realized that his actions could be seen good by him and bad by others. Near the end of the book, he told Doc about how his wife had left him and everything he tried to do for her always went wrong somehow--"I had a wife. Same thing. Ever'thing I done turned sour. She couldn't stand it any more. If I done a good thing it got poisened up some way."