Literature Analysis #3

1) The story of Cannery Row follows the adventures of Mack and the boys, a group of unemployed men who inhabit a  fish-meal shack on the edge of a vacant lot down on the Row. Mack and the boys want to do something nice for Doc, the owner of a biological supply house on the Row. They plan to give Doc a party and spend a good deal of time getting provisions for the party while bothering Lee Chong, the local grocer. They set up in Doc's lab, and the party begins while they wait for him to return. Doc is late in getting back, and when he drives up at dawn the party is over and his place is completely trashed. A bad feeling takes over the Row for a long time after the party, and unfortunate events occur. Finally luck changes, and the citizens of the Row start doing a little better. Grateful to Doc for curing their sick puppy, Mack and the boys again decide to do something nice for him. Following the advice of Dora, the local madam, they fix on another party, this time a party that Doc can actually attend. The boys are much more careful with the planning and execution this time around. The party is a great success. The novel ends the morning after the party with Doc cleaning up his home and reflecting on life.
2) The theme of the novel is that no matter how you distract yourself with things in your life, you will always be lonely unless you have things worth living for.
3. The author's tone in this book is almost morbid. He talks about how Gay's wife beats him, so he hides at the bar away from her. Also,  how the boys threw a party for Doc, but he came late to it and had to clean everything up himself. Lastly, how Frankie is a mentally handicapped boy whose mother left him.
 4. “Nature locked up the items and only released them occasionally” (93). This is personification, because nature can't physically lock things.
 “On the bottoms lie the incredible refuse of the sea, shells broken and chipped and bits of skeleton, claws, the whole sea bottom a fantastic cemetery on which the living scamper and scramble” (100). This is imagery, because it paints a picture.
“Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses” (1). This is also imagery, because it paints a picture.
“You couldn’t say you wore a beard because you liked a beard. People didn’t like you for telling the truth. You had to say you had a scar so you couldn’t shave” (95) This is indirect characterization, because it just shows you how the people truly were like on the inside.
“He stopped trying to tell the truth. He said he was doing it on a bet - that he stood to win a hundred dollars. Everyone liked him then and believed him then” (95-96). Same as the one above.
 “Doc still loved true things” he knew that truth “could be a very dangerous mistress” (96). This is a symbol of a mistress being a dangerous thing.
"All of our so-called successful men are sick men, with bad stomachs and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean’” (129). This just explains how your inner self defines how you can be sick, or clean and free spirited.
 "Either a man emerges determined to be better, purer, and kindlier or he goes bad, challenges the world and does even worse things” (128). This explains the true idea of things.
“The wall of evil and of waiting was broken” (135) This is personification, because a wall cant be waiting.

 CHARACTERIZATION
1) “lonely and set-apart man.” (92).
“Doc had a girl with him, Mack used to get a dreadful feeling of loneliness out of it.” (92).
“kind of satiric game that covered and concealed from Mary the fact that she didn’t have very nice clothes and the Talbots didn’t have very much money.” (139). 
“to get going, just not to stop near their place if he knew what was good for him.” (95) The author uses both direct and indirect, to make you use your imagination and give you a say in how you interpret the characters. My lasting impression is very detailed, because I am able to piece together all of the information I was given.
2)  I do think the authors diction changes when he is focused on a character. He might be more excited to use one character over the other and might have better ideas flowing, using better writing.
3) The protagonist is static throughout the book, because he stays the same and never has an epiphany. Therefore he is flat for the same reasons.
4) After I read the book, I left feeling like I met new people. I was so connected in what was happening in the book, I felt like I got to know the people one on one. My examples include all the quotes I already used.