What events influenced John Steinbeck's early life?
John Steinbeck had numerous experiences in his early life that had a clear impact on his career as an author. Steinbeck lived in a very rural town located in a highly fertile area of California and found early work on a series of beet farms. Here he came in close contact with many migrant workers and developed a sense of the hardships of their lives. This time spent as a farm employee directly contributed to several of his works, most notably Of Mice and Men. It is also noteworthy that he was afforded time throughout his youth to write; thus he began to develop his craft. His mother had formerly been a schoolteacher and it is likely that she was a major source of his love for reading and writing. Steinbeck himself suffered a fair deal of hardship, having failed at his attempts to make a living as a businessman,...
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and then living with little means as the Great Depression gripped the nation. His success as an author directly depended on the support that he received from his family and his wife—they enabled him to continue to write instead of toiling in a menial labor position.
What life experiences and jobs influenced John Steinbeck's novels?
Like most writers, Steinbeck has used his past experience as inspiration for his work.
He was born in Salinas in California, and most of his novels such as Of Mice and Men,Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden are at least partly set in the state. East of Eden is primary set in Salinas Valley.
Despite writing about economic hardship, however, Steinbeck did not grow up in poverty. His father was a manager at a flour mill and his mother was a school teacher. His father did lose his job at the mill when Steinbeck when he was 11, and that must have had an impact on him, but it seems that his parents had enough money to send him to Stanford.
The biggest influence on his writing from his childhood was his mother. She encouraged him to pursue an intellectual life and Steinbeck has stated he was "blooded with culture." This learning was reinforced with his time at Stanford University. He didn't graduate, but he did use his time there to hone his writing.
His one period of living in poverty was during his time in New York in the mid to late 1920s. He has talked about the "impossibility of getting a job" there and that he can't forget how scared he felt.
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