Heroes+in+Steinbeck's+Works

John Steinbeck is an accomplished and popular author. One thing that sets Steinbeck apart from other authors is his style. Readers that are studying Steinbeck’s works can note that he always has a heroic character included in them. Those characters’ actions can be seen easily or be hidden. Two of John Steinbeck’s books, //[|The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights]//and //[|Of Mice and Men,]// have heroic characters in them.

Steinbeck uses many heroes in his book //The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights//. The title describes perfectly what the book is about. Many of the knights are shown as brave, courageous, and honorable. Steinbeck uses war to show them as heroes. John Steinbeck also kind of exaggerates the heroic actions of the men in this book and uses a different style of language, since it is set in medieval times. This is shown in “Then King Arthur swung into battle, fighting so marvelously that men watched in wonder. Striking to the left and right with his sword, he killed twenty knights, raging crazily as a wounded lion” (Steinbeck 25). Their heroic acts are open and easy to spot. The different style of language can be seen when Sir Gawain says to Sir Marhalt, “Gentle knight, you are the noblest man I have ever met" (Steinbeck 134). The characters in this book try to live life honorably by the code of [|chivalry]. In Steinbeck’s other books, however, heroic characters are harder to spot.

//Of Mice and Men// may seem like it does not have heroic characters in it, but if one can look closer, it does. “//Of Mice and Men// is Steinbeck’s last novel to be directly influenced by Arthurian legends” (Swisher 131). The main character in the book, George, is a hero because of his will to survive. He had a dream of living on a nice ranch, but that dream was ruined by being burdened with the mentally ill Lennie. Occasionally, George would get his hopes up, but they would be ruined again by Lennie. “George is like a last Galahad, dismounted, armed only with a fading dream, a long way from Camelot” (Swisher 132). When Lennie killed someone by accident and was being hunted, George killed him mercifully. Readers can sense George’s pain in doing this in the following paragraph from //Of Mice and Men//:

“And George raised the gun, and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the sand, and lay without quivering" (Steinbeck 106).

“What George is actually trying to kill is not Lennie, who is only a shell and a doomed one at that, but something in himself" (Swisher 133). “I think I know’d from the very first. I think I know’d we’d never do her. He usta like to hear about it so much I got to thinking maybe we would“ (Steinbeck 80). In that quote, the language can be seen as more southern and sounds uneducated. With Lennie dead, George’s dream is also dead. George is considered a hero because of his will to survive and push on despite all of his bad experiences. “When Slim leads George up toward the highway at the end of the novel, the wonder is not that George is badly shaken by his experience, but that he is alive at all" (Swisher 135).

Steinbeck uses many heroes in his novels, some more conspicuous than others. They can be fighting honorably like the knights in Steinbeck’s King Arthur book, or quietly enduring painful experiences and internal conflicts like George in //Of Mice and Men//. Steinbeck uses different heroes in all of his classic books. Next time you read a book by Steinbeck, see if you can spot the hero in it.

By: Mariah Curcio


 * Works Cited**

"John Ernst Steinbeck." //Encyclopedia of World Biography//. 2nd ed. Vol. 14. Detroit: Gale, 2004. 416-417. //Gale Virtual Reference Library//. Web. 31 May 2010.

Steinbeck, John, Chase Horton, and Thomas Malory. //The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights: from the Winchester Mss. of Thomas Malory and Other Sources//. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976. Print.

Steinbeck, John. //Of Mice and Men//. New York: Penguin, 1993. Print.

Swisher, Clarice, ed. //Readings on John Steinbeck//. San Diego: Greenhaven, 1996. Print.