Cannery Row Community Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #1

[Lee Chong] trusted his clients until further trust became ridiculous. Sometimes he made business errors, but even these he turned to advantage in good will if in no other way (1.4)

Lee Chong isn't just a guy who owns a business; he's a guy who owns a business in a community. In order to stay in business, he's got to store up as much good will with everybody as he does cold, hard cash.

Quote #2

Of [Dora's] girls some are fairly inactive due to age and infirmities, but Dora never puts them aside although, as she says, some of them don't turn three tricks a month but they go right on eating three meals a day (3.2)

It's part of Dora's job to take care of the women who can't work anymore. Like Lee Chong, she's not just a hard-nosed business woman, she also runs a kind of old age home for old prostitutes. Dora, Doc and Lee Chong all see it as their duty to take care of the people in town who need it.

Quote #3

And the loneliness—the desolate cold aloneness of the landscape made Andy whimper because there wasn't anybody at all in the world and he was left (4.4)

This is what Andy sees and feels when he looks into the eyes of the old Chinaman. Get it? One of the scariest moments in the text is about the awfulness of being all alone. That makes sense in Cannery Row, because almost no one has everything they need all by themselves. They need to other people in the community to help them get by.