Cannery Row
...as that. Now there is one hell of a woman. No wonder she got to be a madam. There is one hell of a woman” (Cannery Row, Page 150). This shows that she is very respected and thought of as a person you could always count on if you ever need help. “What can it profit a man to gain the whole world and to come to his property with a gastric ulcer, a blown prostate, and bifocals? Mack and the boys avoid the trap, walk around the poison, step over the noose while a generation of trapped, poisoned, and trussed-up men scream at them, call them no-goods, thieves, rascals, and bums” (Page 15, Cannery Row). Mack and his friends are completely content in their accused evil, uncaring of the world outside of Cannery Row. Mack has many friends and is respected by most everyone on the row, but the darker side of his life is the drinking, stealing, and being poor. He also helps his friends; the whole plotline of Cannery Row is Mack throwing Doc a party. The first party Mack throws Doc destroys his friend’s home partially because of his thought that if people were having a good time the party is a success, the original point of the party completely forgotten because Doc never shows and the party rages on. He has his own “twisted” code of ethics as well. He would never steal from his benefactor or a man while he was down. This man is perfectly content in his own way of life. He does not care to be rich and famous and he does not care to be wealthy. All that he is concerned about is his livelihood. Is this man truly evil and rotten to the core or, as John Steinbeck says, a beauty, a saint, and a grace? Doc is the character of which all these lives seem so centered. The entire plot revolves around giving Doc a party. Everybody tries to do something for him but Mack is the first one to act upon it, even with disastrous results. “That Doc is a fine fellow; we ought to do something for him” (Cannery Row, Mack, Page 13). This man obviously drinks heavily because he goes to Lee Chong’s Grocery one or more times a day to purchase a few pints of beer. He will drink at any time of the day, regardless of the time or what he has to do that day. He is concupiscent as a rabbit because he has many different women friends overnight. We also see that he has a volatile temper when he drinks because at the mention of...