The influences in John Steinbeck’s life started back when he was a young child when his mother a formal school teacher encouraged his love for writing. He spent a good part of his life in California, and he worked on some of his earlier stories. During WW2 he worked for the New York Herald Tribune. Here he got material to write “Once there was a War.”

 

            After marrying his first wife Carol Henning they moved to the Pacific Groove, and that year Steinbeck met his best friend a marine naturalist Edward F. Ricketts. While living there he wrote his material for, “Tortilla Fort” and “Cannery Row”.  In 1937 he wrote the “Grapes of Wrath” which he wrote about a family during the great depression.

 

            In 1941 Steinbeck and Ricketts collaborated on a story called, “Sea of Cartez”, which was about a study of the fauna on the Gulf of California. Steinbeck also wrote screenplays for famous director Alfred Hitchcock, “Lifeboat”.

 

            Steinbeck will always be remembered for his long life of writing wonderful stories with member able characters. A large part of Steinbeck’s success with the reading public laid in his ability to combine mythical concerns with American experiences.

 

The story we read in class by John Steinbeck was, “The Chrysanthemums”. The story was about a woman named Elisa she is an ordinary woman, she and her husband Henry live on a farm, and Elisa is very good at growing flowers especially chrysanthemums. One day a tinker man comes to their home looking for work, and he basically butters up Elisa, and makes her feel like she is more then a woman, that she can be something more, and that she is strong. When he leaves she feels something inside of her she has never felt before. When her husband gets home she asked him if he thinks that if he thinks she’s strong. He says he does, but he is utterly confused by his wife’s actions.  

 

My response to this story, I thought it was a very good story. It showed how if you give a person a good complement it can make them feel better about them, and maybe make them feel stronger. Elisa just thought of herself as a normal woman and house wife who works in the garden, but a tinker man came by, and told her how good she was at her job, and told her stories about his journey. I liked how Elisa started acting after she heard all these wonderful things, and her becoming stronger then what she already was. I liked how Steinbeck was able to get inside the mind of a woman, and her attitude, how it changes the rhythm of the story towards the end. But when she and her husband were going out on their date, and she saw the pot of chrysanthemums seeds poured out on the side of the road, and she started crying. You really got to feel her heart being broken. But the question in my mind was: Was her heart broken by the fact the tinker poured the seeds on the side of the road, or was her heart broken by the tinker himself?

 

The other story that I read by Steinbeck was, “The Leader of the People”. It’s one of the short stories that were featured in the books, “The Red Pony”. The story takes place on a small ranch in California. They are a normal down to earth family. The son Jody is 10, and he’s very normal and active 10-year-old. His dad runs the ranch, and his mom is a house wife, and there’s Billy Buck he’s the second help on the ranch. In the story Jody’s grandfather, his mom’s dad is coming for a visit. His father isn’t very happy about him coming. The reason is because his father-in-law only talks about is when he was on the Oregon Trail. (I think it’s the Oregon Trail because it started in the plains and ended at the coast, and it was all done by cover wagon, and oxen.) His wife tells him to, hush up about it, because it was the biggest thing in his life, and it seemed like he was born to do that, and when it was over he had nothing left, but the memories. He arrives and everything is going well and at dinner he talks about his times on the trail and after supper he is still talking about it. Carl the father kind of made some smart remarks at his father-in-law, and from this the grandfather realized he had been talking too much about the Oregon Trail, and decides he is going to talk less about it.

 

 

            My response to the story is a very positive one. I liked this story it had a good back bone of family morals and values. The grandfather is a good and positive character, and the story is centered on him, and his adventure, and him coming to realize that he does talk too much on his glory days and needs to give it a rest. If I were in his position I guess I would be talking about how I lead the people from the plains to the coast in oxen driven wagons. One thing I didn’t like in the story was the father, and how harsh he sounded towards his son and father-in-law. He makes a rude comment about how his son is nosey about what they got in the mail. And how he wishes his father-in-law was coming, and that all he talks about is him leading the people.  When the grandfather arrives, he is telling his same old stories, but his family really wasn’t listening, well maybe Jody was for some of it, and I think he was starting to catch on to that fact. He only realized it when Carl made his remark, and grandfather, got on that he should quite. My final response is to value family stories cause that’s where a lot of your family history comes from, and you should treasure it, but don’t always talk about it all the time, or you will drive people away.

 

My critical analysis of, “The Leader of People”. The theme of the story is family values. In the story the grandfather is coming to visit, and the father Carl is not happy because his father-in-law only talks about him leading the people from the plains to the coast in covered wagons. After a few smart remarks from his son-in-law he realizes this, and decides to cut down on his story telling of the Oregon Trail.

 

 The point of view is set in third person unlimited. In third person point of view they detailed how the mice ran out of the wet hay, and Jody running up to meet his grandfather, and how the setting is described, shows that the third person point of view is unlimited.

 

There is a problem in the story and it’s between Carl and his wife’s father. Her father really doesn’t have a problem with Carl the problem with Carl is he is so sick and tired of hearing the same stories over and over again. His wife tells him to pretty much hold his tongue, and let her father be. But Carl just can’t do that, and he makes her father realize his folly.

 

The climax and resolution to the story grandfather understands he talks to much about his old days, and that it does drive his family to boredom and it makes his son-in-law irritated. So he then decides to give it a rest, and focus on other things in life in the present instead of in the past, cause that was then and this was now.

 

1929	Cup of Gold.
1932	The Pastures of Heaven.
1933	To a God Unknown.
1935	Tortilla Flat. .
1936	In Dubious Battle.
1937	Of Mice and Men. play version
1937	Of Mice and Men. book version
1938	The Long Valley.  "The Snake," "Flight," "The Red Pony," the medieval parable "Saint Katy the Virgin," as well as "Chrysanthemums,"
1939	The Grapes of Wrath.
1941	Sea of Cortez.
1942	The Moon Is Down.
1945	Cannery Row.
1947	The Wayward Bus.
1948	The Pearl.
1948	Russian Journal.
1950	Burning Bright.
1952	Viva Zapata!  Film script for Elia Kazan's popular film on the Mexican revolutionary, starring Marlon Brando.
1952	East of Eden.
1954	Sweet Thursday.
1957	The Short Reign of Pippin IV.
1958	Once There Was a War.
1961	The Winter of Our Discontent. Steinbeck's final novel.
1962	Travels with Charley: In Search of America. Steinbeck's odyssey to "rediscover" America.
1966	America and Americans. Steinbeck's final book published during his lifetime.

  

 

 

1.                         The story, “Bliss” is about a woman named Bertha, has a good life. She is married, has a child, good friends, and money. I believe the story is support to describe a certain kind of bliss, and in this case it’s Bertha’s idea of bliss with friends and parties with her family. But as Bertha learns in the story life is not always blissful, because her husband “adores” another woman, and Bertha does not know what will happen to her now.

2.                   

I’m not very fond of this story. The reason is it does not really catch my interest, and I really don’t like stories that start in the middle of something, but I was impressed on how Mansfield described the feeling of bliss in her story. She described it as swallowing a bright piece of light, burying it inside of you. It’s hard to describe emotion, but I was impressed by this.

 

3.                        The similarities between, “Bliss” and “The Chrysanthemums” are the wives, wanting to do more, but can’t because they are house wives. Another similarity is both the wives being betrayed, and now must over come this pain, and go on with life.

 

4.                        A form of symbolism in the story was probably the pear tree. And another symbolism in the story is “Love in false Teeth”. It was a story that they were talking about. And I think the title symbolizes the false love between Bertha and Harry. The pear tree symbolizes Bertha blooming when she realizes her husband adores someone else.

 

5.                        The quote Bertha said about her being to happy is ironic because I think she was being sarcastic about her happiness, almost like she’s joking about it. But little does she know her happiness will be gone soon, and probably forever. I think she loved Harry, but I don’t think Harry loved her if he told with other woman his feelings in front of Bertha. Now Bertha is left to wonder about what she will do next.

 

6.                  My interpretation of the ending of the story was me not being very impressed, and the last line, ‘But the pear tree was as lovely as ever and as full of flower and as still’. This line I think means for Bertha to just go on and be happy and if she must, she has to pretend, and be perfect, just like the pear tree.  

 

1.      Her stories share the fine perception and sensibility of Woolf's novels but her characters are not separate from the physical world. They are engaged in it.

2.      She was known as quite the female Libertine.

3.      Nothing that Woolf and her Bloomsbury crowd didn't indulge in, mind you, but without their well-bred manners and cover of intellectualism. It’s no wonder she thought of her work to be cheap and whorish.

4.      Her work is regarded as having greatly influenced short-story writing right up to the present.

5.      The locale's of Mansfield's stories are divided among New Zealand where she was born and raised.

6.      In a German Pension came out in 1911 after her experience of pregnancy and losing the child in Bavaria.

7.      Two more books of stories, The Dove's Nest and Something Childish were published posthumously.

8.      Anthologies of her letters, journals and reviews have also been produced since her death.

9.      Mansfield died young from tuberculosis she is thought to have contracted from D.H. Lawrence.

10.  She was an originator of the modernist style, eschewing straightforward narrative to build up each story through the accumulation of finely observed and seemingly inconsequential moments.

11.  In her first wedding she wore a black dress.

12.  She had her miscarriage at 23.

13.  She died at the age of 36.

 

The character I choose was Elisa from “The Chrysanthemums”. She almost seemed to be like a normal house life from the early 1900’s. Did her work around the house, her and her husband had a well good respect for each other, and was a great garden of chrysanthemums. But I think she wanted to be more then just a house wife and a gardener. One day a tinker comes to her house, and he makes her fell important, and that she can do more things then just being a simple wife. The tinker told her of a woman he knew of that would like to see her flowers, and she would be impressed because no one grew flowers like she did. Elisa gave the tinker a pot to give to the woman. And after that Elisa goes to get ready for her date with her husband. And after she is done getting ready she started to see herself as just more then a woman or a wife, she sees herself as a person as an equal and she kinda bugged her husband about it.

 

Henry: “Why Why Elisa you look so nice!”

Elisa: “Nice? You think I look nice? What do you mean by ‘nice’?”

Henry:” I don’t know, you look different. Strong and happy.”

 Elisa: “ I am strong? Yes, strong. What do you mean ‘strong’?”

 

And on their way to dinner they pass the tinker, and Elisa saw the pot on the side of the road, and Elisa felt really let down, and I think she came to the conclusion that she was a normal house wife and can’t become anything else.

 

This is my fourth time trying to post this, but i'll try it again.

 

The story is about a family going on vaction in Florida, and there is a misfit on the loose down there. Despite of it all they go anyway. The family is made up of the grandmother who always things of better days when you could trust people. Her son Baily and his wife and 3 kids. When they get to Florida they get into a big car reck, and luckly no one was killed. The grandmother waves down a passing car, and in the car is the misfit and his 'gang'. The misfit's gang is going to fix the car while the misfit himself holds the family hostage. The grandmother tries to talk to the misfit, and she thinks that he's a good person deep down inside, but she is proven wrong when ever he opens gun fire.

 

The irony of this story is dramtic irony. The main characters don't think they'll run into any trouble but we the readers know that they will, and they did. Thought the story was really good up to the middle of it, when the misfit showed up and the irony set in.

Ah it's a brand new day! and i have to remember to wake up at 2:30 a.m to watch an all new Inu Yasha ^_^  weeeeeeee me love Inu Yasha!

Irony is where you may know something that the character does not know, like if you know in a mystery book who killed someone b4 the detectives figured it out. Or like on soap operahs you know who's cheating, before the other one find out. I guess this is how i would exslain irony. But then again i don't watch soaps ^^

The story I just got done reading was "The Chaser" It's a story about a man named Alan who meets an old man who makes potions. Alan i guess is having problems with a girlfriend or wife, or it might be a girl he's in love with.  The old man offers Alan a love potion. alan is not so sure he's going to take the potion or not.  I guess this story is suppost to be about irony, but i'm finding it hard to find the irony. I guess the irony would be, we think he's not going to buy the potion, but in the end he does. In my opinion you can't make a person love you by a potion. If the person doesn't love you then just move on and find someone who will.

An old woman is on her death bed. She is surrounded by loved ones, and members of her past. In this story we enter the mind of Granny wheatherall, and get a glimps of what it's like to die, and the last few moments of life.