A Patchwork Quilt for Doc and Steinbeck's Gift for the rest of us - Cannery Row
A Literary Essay
The structure of Cannery Row by John Steinbeck is hard to pin down. The novel is certainly not plot driven. To some extent it is character driven, but even more so, it is about the place called Cannery Row. Interestingly, the novel opens with this description,
“Cannery Row in Monterey California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream” (CR 1)
Readers get to know the characters that inhabit Cannery Row and some small vignettes of their life on the row. The characters and the vignettes convey a sense of place, of home - a sense of whole. Connectedness among the seemingly unconnected people and episodes is the essence of the novel. The quilt crafted by Dora's girls for Doc is one major metaphor for the structure of the novel. A quilter usually collects pieces of fabric saved by the family members over the years and has meaningful associations with every colorful piece of the quilt. Like these scraps of fabric, the personal histories of the novel’s characters are also colorful. The narrator has emotional associations to each person or place of the story. Cannery Row itself is a colorful place, a landscape of kaleidoscopic images.
Early morning is a time of magic in Cannery Row. In the gray time after the light has come and before the sun has risen, the row seems to hang suspended out of time in a silvery light. The street lights go out, and the weeds are a brilliant green. The corrugated iron of the canneries glows with the pearly lucence of platinum or gold pewter (CR 81).
First, the patchwork metaphor applies to the myriad characters. It includes Young Andy and the old Chinaman. It includes the artist Henri and the literary man Josh Brillings. It includes intelligent Doc and mentally challenged Frankie. It includes naïve Hazel and the shrewd businessman Lee Chong. It includes the permanent members like Mac and the transient ones like the flagpole skater. It includes Mac and the boys, an ensemble of social misfits.
Next, the physical spaces in the novel also have the quality of a patchwork. Here is how the narrator describes Lee Chong's grocery store:
"Lee Chong's grocery, while not a model of neatness, was a miracle of supply. It was small and crowded but within a single room a man could find everything he needed or wanted to live and to be happy - clothes, food, both fresh and canned, liquor, tobacco, fishing equipment, machinery, boats, cordage, caps, pork chops. You could buy at Lee Chong's a pair of slippers, a silk kimono, a quarter pint of whiskey and a cigar" (CR 16).
The store is a convenient and familiar place offering the same convenience and utilitarian value that a quilt offers. The Palace Flophouse, the home of Mac and the boys, is also defined by randomness. Mac and the boys furnish it piece by piece, some pieces acquired from dubious sources, and some refurbished by the boys using other people's castaways. A torn canvas cot, the rusty springs, an old carpet, a bundle of cattails, a sheaf of peacock, and the huge stove with a shiny black lid, all blend together to form a comfortable home. (CR 40-41)
Finally, the objects echo the patchwork theme as well. Eddy's wine jug is a mixture of rye, beer, bourbon, scotch, wine, rum, gin, a few drops of stinger, and anisette. An interesting and surprising punch! (CR 42) This punch offers comfort and support to Mac and the boys inside the home and on the road when they go on their frog hunt.
Above all, the spectrum of human emotions such as loneliness, joy, love, isolation, and desperation, forms a patchwork quilt.
The colorful patterns of a quilt, the history of each piece, and the skillful caring nature of the quilter, are the three significant aspects of a quilt. Cannery Row embodies all three aspects, making the quilt a potent metaphor for the novel.
