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Description:
John Steinbeck wrote the stories of the outcasts––Dustbowl refugees, unemployed paisanos, cannery workers, André 3000 and Big Boi...uh, actually, that last one might be Outkast.
Transcript
- 00:01
No Hey there on the stein bro author John steinbeck's
- 00:22
number 1 fan check out my tat I know more
- 00:25
about steinback than anyone on the planet I wouldn't just
- 00:28
be able to teach a course on the guy i'd
- 00:30
be ableto found an entire college dedicated to him so
Full Transcript
- 00:34
if you're looking for a crash course in all things
- 00:37
steinback well then you're in the right place biography time
- 00:40
While john ernst steinbeck the third was born on february
- 00:44
twenty seventh nineteen o teu in salinas california he was
- 00:47
the second of four children and the on ly boy
- 00:50
His father john steinbeck sr was the treasurer of monterey
- 00:53
county his mother all of hamilton steinbeck a former teacher
- 00:57
and still then her son A deep love for reading
- 00:59
and writing Salinas was a farming town surrounded by landscapes
- 01:02
of broad yellow valleys and rich green fields There's a
- 01:06
reason why it's official nickname is the salad bowl of
- 01:09
america although young johnny enjoyed a comfortable middle class existence
- 01:14
he first encountered really hardship while working during the summers
- 01:17
at a local beet farm Well many of his co
- 01:19
workers were migrant laborers and just about all of them
- 01:22
live Difficult lives years later these experiences would form the
- 01:26
basis of his first great book tortilla flat but let's
- 01:30
not get ahead of ourselves here Well after graduating from
- 01:32
high school in nineteen nineteen steinbeck enrolled at stanford university
- 01:36
Back then the computer science building was really small Although
- 01:40
stand back thoroughly enjoyed his english glasses he found college
- 01:44
life to be pretentious and phony Well stand back would
- 01:47
study off and on at stanford for six years leaving
- 01:50
campus frequently to take odd jobs at farms factories or
- 01:53
ranches He never would end up getting that degree After
- 01:56
quitting college once and for all sandack hopped on a
- 01:59
freighter to new york city where he worked in construction
- 02:02
and had a brief stint writing for a new york
- 02:04
american magazine But all signing was always a californian at
- 02:08
hard He just had to go back By nineteen twenty
- 02:10
six he was back in the golden state living besides
- 02:12
scenic lake tahoe and working as a handyman at a
- 02:15
resort About three years later he published his first novel
- 02:19
cup of gold quays a historical account of famous pirate
- 02:23
henry morgan's exploits in panama a country steinbeck had never
- 02:27
visited In his life ready for a shocker cup of
- 02:30
gold was a total dud Steinbeck was at his best
- 02:33
when he was minding his own personal experiences which doesn't
- 02:36
apply to a pirate story set in a central american
- 02:39
country Well steinbeck married carol benning and moved into a
- 02:43
tiny cottage and coastal pacific grove california Over the following
- 02:47
decades steinbeck would write some of his most legendary work
- 02:50
in that tiny shack His next two novels were set
- 02:53
in his childhood home of the salinas valley The pastures
- 02:56
of heaven took inspiration from steinbeck's friendships with poor farm
- 03:00
workers while to a god unknown focused on man's relationship
- 03:04
with nature Then in nineteen thirty five steinbeck released his
- 03:07
fourth novel tortilla flat sounds delicious set in monterey california
- 03:12
the novel focused on a group of paisanos which are
- 03:15
men of mexican indian spanish and caucasian background according to
- 03:19
steinbeck and their exploits in the years after world war
- 03:22
tortilla flat was a massive commercial and critical success Earning
- 03:26
steinbeck is first gold medal from the california commonwealth club
- 03:30
honoring californian writers which he would win again the following
- 03:34
year for his novel in dubious battle Well steinback got
- 03:38
his Inspiration for the novel after meeting to labor organizer
- 03:41
is hiding in california after participating in a strike at
- 03:45
this point in u s history things weren't looking so
- 03:48
good for workers The great depression had hit six years
- 03:50
prior destroying banks businesses and life savings across the country
- 03:54
At the same time a fearsome weather phenomenon known as
- 03:57
the dust herbal was tearing his way across the midwest
- 04:01
causing droughts galore and kicking off monumental dust storms In
- 04:04
nineteen thirty six steinbeck spent part of the year traveling
- 04:07
with migrant workers who fled the dust bowl for san
- 04:10
francisco and wrote a newspaper siri's on them here's good
- 04:13
quote from it They are men who have worked hard
- 04:16
on their own farms and have felt the pride of
- 04:18
possessing and living incl close touch with the land In
- 04:22
nineteen thirty seven steinbeck released one of his most famous
- 04:24
works the novella of mice and men which two was
- 04:28
inspired by the plight of migrant farm workers While of
- 04:30
mice and men is one of steinbeck's most famous and
- 04:33
beloved works the book has been criticized and even banned
- 04:37
many times over sometimes due to its political message which
- 04:40
was seen as anti business orth perceived racism or vulgarity
- 04:44
or even its supposed promotion of euthanasia Well good books
- 04:48
get censored all the time for silly reasons Remember when
- 04:51
harry potter was accused of leading the world in her
- 04:54
witchcraft And then in nineteen thirty nine steinbeck published the
- 04:58
real whopper the grapes of wrath like of mice and
- 05:01
men The grapes of wrath was inspired by the struggling
- 05:03
migrants that steinbeck befriended in his younger years The novel
- 05:07
was another massive success moving half a million copies in
- 05:11
its first year and winning the pulitzer prize and national
- 05:14
book award Well not everybody loved the novel The associated
- 05:18
farmers america thought that the book was overly critical of
- 05:22
big farmers leading many to perceive steinbeck's critique of business
- 05:26
as being supportive of socialism Well steinbeck wasn't even a
- 05:29
socialist just wanted everyone to play fair but then it
- 05:32
picked up some steam and first lady eleanor roosevelt praised
- 05:35
the book and congress began having hearings over the conditions
- 05:38
of migrant camps In nineteen forty one steinbeck divorced his
- 05:42
first wife and moved back to new york city with
- 05:44
new boo gwendolyn conger couple married in nineteen forty three
- 05:48
and had two sons steinbeck's only children in nineteen forty
- 05:51
four forty six A couple divorced in nineteen forty eight
- 05:55
and in nineteen fifty steinbeck married elaine anderson scott wife
- 05:59
number three the final one sign back wasn't interested in
- 06:02
easing into retirement however with wide ranging interests like marine
- 06:06
biology history war and poodles He explored whatever topic ing
- 06:10
treat him at the moment you know like when he
- 06:13
spent six weeks in the gulf of mexico with a
- 06:15
marine biologist bro and co wrote a book about it
- 06:18
called the sea of cortez steinbeck wrote more than just
- 06:21
books He was the new york herald tribunes war correspondent
- 06:25
during the early years of world war two and wrote
- 06:28
several movies including alfred hitchcock's nineteen forty four picture lifeboat
- 06:32
well don't think he abandoned the rural california novels that
- 06:35
to find his career he wrote cannery row in nineteen
- 06:38
forty five and a wayward bus in nineteen forty seven
- 06:41
Well that same year steinbeck took his first trip to
- 06:43
the soviet union as a journalist i know people were
- 06:47
a tad suspicious about his reasons for going was he
- 06:50
really there is a journalist Or was he one of
- 06:52
them Commies so many interpreted The pro worker sentiment of
- 06:55
his novels is being pro communist which eventually got him
- 06:58
monitored by the fbi Well apparently they weren't too subtle
- 07:01
because steinbeck knew all about it Even wrote a letter
- 07:04
to the us attorney general in nineteen forty two complaining
- 07:07
about it Time for my best steinbeck impression Here we
- 07:10
go Do you suppose you could ask edgar's boys to
- 07:14
stop stepping on my heels They think i am an
- 07:17
enemy alien is getting tiresome Well the edgar he's referring
- 07:21
to his fbi director j edgar hoover by the way
- 07:24
to critics of steinback his trip to the soviet union
- 07:26
was proof that the guy was a dirty kami What
- 07:29
other reason could he have to give the russkies face
- 07:31
time Well it didn't seem to matter that sign back
- 07:33
never joined the communist or socialist parties of america despite
- 07:36
coming into contact with them frequently during his time with
- 07:39
labor activists Ironically steinbeck would later be criticized for being
- 07:43
too conservative due to his friendship with his good old
- 07:45
buddy president lyndon b johnson and his pro war reporting
- 07:50
during the vietnam war well in nineteen fifty to steinbeck
- 07:52
published east of eden an epic novel that he considered
- 07:56
his masterpiece this tale spans from the civil war the
- 07:59
world war one and follows generations of two families that
- 08:03
trask ce and the hamiltons and later of which is
- 08:05
said to be based on steinbeck's own family A young
- 08:08
steinbeck even makes a brief appearance but east of eden
- 08:11
isn't just a personal book for steinbeck It also develops
- 08:14
the themes and ideas he'd been working on his entire
- 08:17
career Well in his later years steinbeck's books became more
- 08:20
philosophical The winter of our discontent steinbeck's final novel was
- 08:24
published in nineteen sixty one and in nineteen sixty two
- 08:27
he published the travelogue travels with charlie which strange as
- 08:30
it sounds is about a road trip he took with
- 08:33
his dog That same year steinbeck won the nobel prize
- 08:36
for literature for the whole of his writing output Steinbeck
- 08:39
described his philosophy on writing in his acceptance speech saying
- 08:42
that the writer is delegated to declare in to celebrate
- 08:46
man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit for
- 08:50
gallantry in defeat for courage compassion and love Two years
- 08:54
later he received the presidential medal of freedom from lyndon
- 08:56
johnson Along with a note declaring steinbeck had helped america
- 08:59
toe understand herself by finding universal themes and the experience
- 09:03
of men and women everywhere Then on december twentieth nineteen
- 09:06
sixty eight steinbeck died of a heart attack in new
- 09:08
york city Fittingly his ashes were buried in salinas california
- 09:12
the place he had immortalized in countless boats during his
- 09:15
long and illustrious career As we'll see the grapes of
- 09:18
wrath is heavily rooted in steinbeck's personal experiences from his
- 09:21
teenage days working with exploited foreign farm workers who appear
- 09:25
several times in the novel to his time is a
- 09:27
journalist following okies whose lives were destroyed by the decibel
- 09:31
Well the grapes of wrath takes all of these deeply
- 09:33
personal experiences from steinbeck's life and uses them to give
- 09:37
us a broader understanding of america as a whole not
- 09:40
shabby at all Which brings us to the end of
- 09:42
our foray into the world of steinbeck Here are a
- 09:44
few things to remember before you go John steinbeck was
- 09:47
1 of the most important american writers of the twentieth
- 09:49
century as evidenced by his nineteen sixty two nobel prize
- 09:53
victory which honored his works commitment toward fighting injustice also
- 09:57
learning about steinbeck's Personal life will help us better understand
- 10:00
the grapes of wrath Once we start reading it it's
- 10:03
not the end All be all but it's A nice
- 10:05
headstart Alright time Start reading because there ain't no party
- 10:08
like a steinbeck party because the steinbeck party don't stop
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