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John Steinbeck: Living the Story Essay

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John Steinbeck was one of the great authors of his time. He was the winner of a Nobel Prize, and among other accomplishments. Many of his experience and knowledge are incorporated throughout his stories. Steinbeck strived to accomplish everything that he did during his lifetime. Nothing came easy and he had to work hard to earn everything in his life. This experience and hardship helped him with his writing, as he was able to write about real people and experiences. Steinbeck got his inspiration from life experiences, people he knew, and places he had visited. Steinbeck’s life experiences good and bad helped shape him as a writer. He went through many phases in his life that were not easy to deal with. In other words "Whatever does not …show more content…

Lastly, Steinbeck was a WWII transcript writer during the earlier years of his life. During this time, Steinbeck had not yet become known and one of the only ways that he could get paid for his writing was to be a war correspondent for the Herald Tribune in Europe. This took place in 1943, yet it stayed with Steinbeck for the rest of his life. This is illustrated in his most successful novel titled The Grapes of Wrath. This novel was about a family trying to survive during the second Great War. The detail put into The Grapes of Wrath proves that Steinbeck's prior knowledge of the war helped him in his writing. John Steinbeck's works all include a little piece of himself. The blatant use of his experience in his stories suggests that Steinbeck felt his experiences were so important that he could not help but incorporate them in his works. Steinbeck incorporated his many experiences into his works through events and characters. For instance, his history in marine biology snuck its way into Cannery Row as well as his ranch hand knowledge, and his writings about the war. This use of life experiences in his novels was not meant to be a secret. The use of these familiarities further proves Steinbeck’s life experiences affected his writing in many ways. During his life, Steinbeck met many people. The people he met had many character types that aided in the unique diversity of his characters. Almost all of the main characters in his novels, as well as some of the other

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