Monday, September 2, 2019
Cannery Row :: essays research papers
The Pearl of Cannery Row à à à à à A pearl is created when a tiny speck of intruding dust enters and irritates an oyster shell. The reaction of the oyster is to make a beautiful pearl out of the particle of dust. Some pearls are perfect and others are imperfect, but all are a unique and wondrous creation of nature. In Cannery Row, John Steinbeck imitates natureââ¬â¢s process with Cannery Row as the oyster and Mack as the speck of dust. Steinbeck shows Mack as the irritant which causes Cannery Row to veer from a precarious course and make a change for the better. In the end Mack creates a wonderful ââ¬Å"pearlâ⬠for Cannery Row ââ¬â the quality of unity ââ¬â and the reader learns that sometimes the best results come from seemingly meaningless occurrences. à à à à à Mack is in the least a large source of irritation and at the most worthless to the residents of Cannery Row. Steinbeck introduces him as ââ¬Å"... the elder, leader, mentor and to a small extent, the exploiter of a little group of men who had in common no families, no money and no ambitions beyond food, drink and contentmentâ⬠(9). His effect upon the town, while often anonymous, is clearly sensed: ââ¬Å"A hardware store supplied a can of red paint not reluctantly because it never knew about it...â⬠(12). Mack appears when he needs something and disappears when pay-up time comes around. To Cannery Row, ââ¬Å"Mack [and the boys] avoid the trap, walk around the poison, step over the noose while a generation of trapped, poisoned and trussed-up men scream at them and call them no-goods, come-to-bad-ends, blots-on-the-town, thieves, rascals, bumsâ⬠(15). Because Mack does not fit societyââ¬â¢s traditional standards of living, the town also assumes that his character does not measure up either. He isnââ¬â¢t seen for what he really is ââ¬â a man with a sweet soul who simply is not driven by worldly desires ââ¬â instead, people judge him against others and by their own expectations of a man. à à à à à Mack lacks ambition but not a good heart. His only intentions are for survival, never for the purpose of inflicting pain or problem on others: ââ¬Å"In the world ruled by tigers with ulcers, rutted by strictured bulls, scavenged by blind jackals, Mack [and the boys] dine delicately with the tigers, fondle the frantic heifers, and wrap up the crumbs to feed the sea gulls of Cannery Rowâ⬠(15).
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