1. John Steinbeck
An American voice

2. The basics Feb. 27, 1902 in Salinas California
Father was a manager at a flour mill and mom was a school teacher.
Salinas was a prosperous farm community
He used the Salinas valley as the setting in a lot of his writing

3. Early Life Young Steinbeck was an avid reader
On his ninth birthday, his aunt mollie gave him a copy of Thomas Malory’s le morte d’Arthur
The legends within had a large impact on his writing and his outlook on life

4. Early adolescence
steinbeck showed a strong interest and talent in writing
He would stay up late into the night writing or reading his writing to his friends
He is quoted as stating that he would “write little stories and little pieces and send them out to magazines under a false name and I never put a return address on them…I wonder what I was thinking of? I was scared to death to get a rejection slip, but more, to get an acceptance.”

5. College years
Steinbeck enrolled in Stanford university to develop his writing ability
In college he enrolled in a biology course and was enamored with marine biology
His interest in ecology is evident in two of his novels: The sea of cortez and the pearl
Though he attended college off and on for six years, he left Stanford in 1925 without receiving a degree.

6. Misses and hits
Steinbeck was not an overnight success; until 1935 things were pretty bleak
A number a novels were critically and commercially unsuccessful
In 1935, tortilla flat was his first successful novel it shares many similarities and parallels with le morte d’Arthur
of mice and men, the grapes of wrath

8. The grapes of wrath
Steinbeck’s most successful novel is the grapes of wrath
It is also his most controversial
The joad family
in Oklahoma (the book made the state look poverty stricken), in California (the book made farmers and growers seem greedy and selfish)
The book was banned in parts of the country; Steinbeck shunned publicity and became ill

9. The gulf of California and la paz
Because of the negative publicity of the grapes of wrath, Steinbeck joined his marine biologist friend, ed ricketts, to study marine life around the gulf of California and la paz
while studying the marine wildlife, Steinbeck was inspired to write two more novels. One is called the sea of cortez the other the pearl
The pearl is a novel that Steinbeck wrote based on a Mexican folktale about a pearl diver named kino.

12. The pearl The pearl is a parable
a short simple work with very little dialog that illustrates a lesson or a larger truth
The truths are often on the subject on good vs. evil

13. The pearl The pearl has a number of themes and topics
Money, possessions, and greed
Social oppression
Good vs. evil
Appearance vs. reality

14. The pearl continued
Pay attention to the different conflicts in the text
Man vs. nature
Man vs. man
Man vs. society
Man vs. self

15. Nobel prize acceptance speech