Cannery Row 1009longer work; and Henri, a painter who loves boats
but fears the sea.
Through these tales, Steinbeck comments wryly
on values such as ambition and success. He also
writes about science and technology at a time
when the United States was becoming keenly aware
of the dangers as well as the potentials in these areas.
Although it addresses difficult issues, especially pov-
erty, Cannery Row is written with detailed richness
and a pervasive sense of humor that keeps it from
slipping into pathos and imbues it with a lightness
and narrative grace that make it a delight to read.
Sarah Perrault
ambItIon in Cannery Row
Ambition in Cannery Row is similar to many of the
other admirable traits held by the book’s charac-
ters: pervasive throughout the narrative, but subtle
and sometimes hard to detect. Although people
in the book aspire to various goals, these goals are
not always obvious as such, even to the characters
themselves.
This sometimes paradoxical nature of ambition
is best illustrated by one of the book’s secondary
characters, Henri the painter, who is building a boat
that he never finishes nor wants to finish. Each time
Henri’s boat begins to approach seaworthiness, he
finds a reason to redesign it. As the wise scientist
Doc explains to another character, “Henri lives boats
but he’s afraid of the ocean”; his apparent lack of
drive to finish the boat actually reflects his desire
to have a boat without having to face the pressure
of sailing it.
Also ambitious in an unusual way is Mack, the
ne’er-do-well leader of a group that Steinbeck calls
“Virtues and graces and laziness and zest,” men
who work only as much as necessary and no more,
and whose sole impulse to exertion in the book,
prompted by a suggestion from Mack, is to have
a party for Doc. In some ways, this ambition of
Mack’s to “do something” for Doc gives the novel
its narrative arc. Mack’s desire to throw Doc a party
reflects the desire of others on Cannery Row as well:
Everyone knows Doc, and “everyone who thought of
him thought next, ‘I really must do something nice
for Doc.’ ” The planning for the two parties—one
a disaster that angers and depresses Doc, the next
a rip-roaring good time that he enjoys along with
everyone else—symbolize the two kinds of ambition
Steinbeck juxtaposes throughout the book. For the
first party, Mack and “the boys” set out to make a
party happen in the conventional way: They try to
raise money, make plans, buy goods, and script the
event. The result, as Mack admits, goes the same
way as everything else he ever tries to attain that
conforms to normal social desires. He would plan
and work for something positive, “but it never come
off that way.”
In contrast, the later party is allowed to grow
organically, to start as an idea and to happen almost
by chance, as much of the good on Cannery Row
ends up happening. Instead of creating a lofty goal,
Mack sets a date and allows the party to happen.
Even invitations are scorned: “People didn’t get the
news of the party—the knowledge of it just slowly
grew up in them,” and preparations are realistic. “^ ‘No
decorations this time,’ said Mack. “Just a good solid
party with lots of liquor”—a solid contrast with the
upper-echelon affairs that Steinbeck refers to as
“those dismal slave parties, whipped and controlled
and dominated, given by ogreish professional host-
esses. These are not parties at all but acts and dem-
onstrations, about as spontaneous as peristalsis and
as interesting as its end product.” When Mack tries
to plan a party, the result is disaster. When he lets go
of ambition and allows a party to happen, the result
is a spectacular bash that ends up including most of
Cannery Row.
Like Henri’s boat, the second party reveals a gen-
tler approach to ambition than that taken by the more
conventionally successful man who has property and
status but who ultimately will “come to this property
with a gastric ulcer, a blown prostate, and bifocals.” As
Doc says of Mack and the boys, “they survive in this
particular world better than other people. In a time
when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition
and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed.
All of our so-called successful men are sick men, with
bad stomachs and bad souls, but Mack and the boys
are healthy and curiously clean. They can do what
they want. They can satisfy their appetites without
calling them something else. . . . They just know the
nature of things too well to be caught in the wanting.”
Thus, in Steinbeck’s hands, traditional forms of ambi-