Critics' Views on the Female Characters in John Steinbeck's Works
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Critics' Views on the Female Characters
in John Steinbeck's Works
Shu fang Liang
Abstract
For many years male novelists worldwide have been criticized and censured
owing to the many faJlures in their depiction of women. Without exception John
Steinbeck has also been accused even though the number of critics focusing on
his depiction of \vomen has been few. In 1977 the Steinbeck Society held a
conference on "Steinbeck's Women!! for the first time, in which six essays
generally categorized his female characters as alienated, frustrated, lonely.strong
willed, masculine. powerful, and indestructible. One year later. Peter Lisca bluntly
probed into Carol Henning's contribution to John Steinbeck's writings. Since 1984
Steinbeck's popularity in academic circles has increased dramatically and critics
have done a series of extraordinary in-depth research projects into the writer's a
personal life as well as the influence the women close to him had on his writings. o
Critics' heated views on Steinbeck's portrayal of women. whether for or against h
the author, point to the necessity and urgency of more serious and unbiased studies L
of the progress of female characters' reticent quest for their fulfillment in Seinbeck Sl
oriented works. fil
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• 160 •For many years male novelists worldvvide have been criticized and censured
owing to the many failures in their depiction of women. One of the most general
\\ • 11
accusations is their negatl ve stereotyping of 'Nomen and girls in the male-
oriented novels and their refusal to allow full humanity to women. For example,
Charles Dickens embellished a woman as if she were '\The Angel in the House"
who is in the pure-- "asexsual" --marital status; Nathaniel Hawthorne explored
traditional female figures as creatures who were endowed with natural goodness
but did not have the intellectual capacity to understand good and evil; Ernest
Hemingway's early women were depicted as frustrated or thwarted or dead in their
relationship with men. while their symbolic or ritualistic function was nothing
but \'the service of the artist and the service of man." William Faulkner, on
the other hand, was labeled as an obsessive misogynist; though he wrote about
minority, the symbol of the southern ego of chivalry was perverted. J
Without exception, John Steinbeck has also been criticized for having a lack
of \'normal!! women and an abundance of prostitutes in his works. The women
in his novels were said to be inadequately developed. Peter Lisca pointed out that
male relationships. not women. were the focus: "[Steinbeck's] women's allure
ments are overshadowed by the more solid attraction of male companionship'!
(WWJS 206). He also contended that in all of Steinbeck's works there were only
a half dozen unmarried \\omen who were not professional whores: \\In the world
of his fiction women do have a place. but they seem compelled to choose between
home-making and whoredom" (~WJS 207). Claude-Edmonde Magny also shared
Lisca's viewpoint on the scarcity of women and abundance of prostitutes in
Steinbeck's works (147). During this period even Steinbeck's either literally or
figeratively innocent whores with a heart of gold were criticized by many critics.
Sandra Falkenberg, the very one who examined the female characters in Stein
beck's works as a whole around two decades ago, however, found another path.
By examining Steinbeck's \'noble women!! Peter Lisca's term] . Falkenberg
roughly defined the perfect wife as an intelligent person or a philosopher who
was endowed with a lot of knowledge and insights, and the perfect mother as
"family figurehead, healer, arbiter and stronghold!! (54) who help their husbands
and families with the will to go on. In addition, he also tried to explain away
Steinbeck's sweeping depiction of his female characters by relating the females'
innate insightful knowledge to their being "part of cycle of Nature itself'! (56)
and it follows that this oneness with Nature made "the need to comprehend their
implications and complexcities unnecessary" (56). In short, his traditional
housewives were, more often than not, faceless and characters whose fiscal future
prospects were always uncertain.
Throughout history women generally have not been recognized as important
• 161 •
Jor interesting because of a common belief that men's activities and accomplishments
are more valuable to society than those of women. Therefore,male writers' sweeping
depiction of females are not at all surprising. Understandably, before 1977 only
a few scholars. such as Angela Patterson and Mimi Reisel Gladstein, examined
Steinbeck's female characters in a more positive light. 2 Not until the first conference
focusing specifically on Steinbeck's women was sponsored by the Steinbeck Society
at the 1977 convention of the Modern Language Association were all of the six
essays on "Steinbeck's Women" collected and published in monograph form.3 c
Even though some critics considered Steinbeck's female characters a controversial a
and provocative topic,Tetsumaro Hayashi, the editor of the monograph, insisted tl
that "the study of Steinbeck's works from the perspectives of his female characters a
has just begun" (vi). The essays in the collection generally characterize women P
as alienated, frustrated, lonely, strong-willed, masculi ne, powerful, and indestruc B
tible. Though Steinbeck had for years labored in the shadows of other literary o
giants, critics have by and large followed Hayashi's direction of study since 1977. fe
Peter Lisca, on the other hand, bluntly probed into Carol Henning's (John's first [(
wife) contribution to Steinbeck's writings (J1>NM- 20). fr
The year 1984, above all, was a turning point. because his popularity in ct
academic circles has since then increased dramatically and there have been several
critics who have done a series of extraordinary in-depth studies into the writer's ar
personal life. Their research has shed light on the influence the women close to th
him had on his writings. To begin with, Jackson J. Benson's magnificent authorized of
biography, The True Adventures of John Steinbeck (1984),is a resource rich in St
details and interpretations. Benson showed his sensitivity to the question of WI
Steinbeck's relationships with women, a topic which had been lacking, in varying St
degrees, in previous biographical studies. Almost simultaneously, Gene Detro also FI
made public Carol's positiv~ influence on Steinbeck's writing in his t\VO articles. tic
In "Carol--The Woman behind the Man." Detro quoted Thorn Steinbeck, he
Steinbeck's son, as saying "Manuscripts would never have gotten to New York
without her [Carol " In Detro's second article, "The Truth about Steinbeck an
(Carol & John)," Ed Ricketts, Jr. remembered that his father considered Carol M
to be the "backbone" of Steinbeck's writing. T'vvo years later. Mimi Reisel or
Gladstein revised her 1973 dissertation. The Indestructible Women in the Works W
of raul and Steinbeck (1986). By studying quite a few female Il1
characters through biological fecunity of natural feminity, she concluded that most W(
of Steinbeck's female characters symbolize either Mother Earth, Lady Bountiful we
or the Demeter/Persephone myth. She pointed out that the normal women raj
outnumbered the whore types, yet the whore with a heart of gold was not the of
only category. In addition, she also made positive comments concerning Carol re~
• 162 •Steinbeck.
Later. Benson's other authorized biography, Lookillg for Steinbeck's Ghost
(1988), which appeared in the form of a collection or sketches, nonfiction stories
and essays, also contributed to the study on Steinbeck's intimate relations with
women. Benson felt pleased that he "had given Carol Steinbeck her duel! (200).
In the same year. Beth Everest and Judy Wedeles in "The Neglected Rib: Women
in East of Eden!! made a convincing argument for the centrality of the female
characters in East of Eden though they excuse Steinbeck's restricting of wom-en's
activities by explaining that "Steinbeck was limited in the roles he could assign
them!! (, ) because of "the histoncal realities of the times of both the writing
and the setting!! (23). Charlotte Hadella's dissertation W_onl_en i1]_ Qar_densin
American Short Fic!l012 ( 1989) also focused on the limitation of female characters.
By examining the female characters in the idyllic, pastoral setting in The Pastures
of Heaven and The Long Valley, the valley of the world \vhich was often guarded,
fenced, and repressed, Hadel!a stated that "Steinbeck presents the quest for a
romantically sterile Eden, where \vomen are cloistered to prevent the human race
from falling into sin, as a major factor in the disturbed lives of his valley
characters" (178). R. S. Hughes also attrihutes Steinbeck's best-knov.. n stories 10
\\'Steinbeck Country: a ruggedly beautiful stretch of central California coastline
and inland valleys" with \vhich typically conventional female characters; even
though some of them are "strong women.'! ~hey all "transcend the stereotypes
of mother, wife, and homemaker'! (118).; Besides. the strong garden-mother figures
Steinbeck created in East of Eden either committed suicide, died of consumption,
were burned to death, or were poisoned, according to Mimi R. Gladstein in "The
Strong Female Principle of Good--or Evil: The Women of East of Eden."
Furthermore, strong-willed Cathy/Kate, the dominant female and also an incarna
tion of Lilith who escaped Adam and the Garden. abandoned her husband and
her new-born twin babies as she had planned for so long.
Paul Hintz, on the other hand. took note of the power of language, both verhal
and vvTitten, and concluded. in referring to Steinbeck's Canne~y RO\\f. that "The
Vlale Voice. in Steinbeck as elsevvhere in the culture, creates a world of silent
object ci.e. female, . And the silence returns to claim its own'! (82). In "Missing
Women: The lmplicable Disparity between Women in Steinbeck's Life and Those
in His Fiction." Mimi Reisel Gladstei n compared these Iiterary and fictional
women and argued that because the proficiency and social status between them
were a \vorld of difference, Steinbeck created and controlled his female characters
rather than objectively "reflecting the society of his time. portraying the women
of his world" (85). She stated resolutely and decisively that "Steinheck was not
restricted by 'a historical reality of the times' in the 'roles he could assign' women'l
. 163 •( 85). (
Steinbeck himself, nevertheless. believed that based on the women he had d
known he could portray fictional characters more accurately as well as evidently a
than any other male writer of his generation. In a letter to his Stanford classmate. tl
Katherine Beswick. he defended his ability to discern the inner thoughts of a fi
woman: c
1
Most of our literature was written by men. and I am inclined to a
believe that they have given us other men a highly erroneous idea d
of sex .... At least Katherine. I play safe. I use only the out\vard
manifestations of some I have known. I make no attempt to enter 11
their minds except where their thoughts have been obvious to me tI
in some given experience (T AJS 125-26). q
n
c
Indeed. John Steinbeck was safe because he was brought Lip. shown \varmth. n
and civilized by women. He \vas the only boy among three sisters and he married
three times. The people \vho must encourage him in his writing were female o
schoolmates and teachers at Stanford; the agents who counseled him. represented C
him. and attended to his financial benefits were abo female. Steinbeck's dependence sl
upon women touched many facets of his Iire. o
In fact, he had good reason to be proud of his insightful understanding of
women. For one thing, his life spanned more than half a dozen decades. and his d
travels took him far beyond Califl)rnia. After the termination of his first marriage a
with Carol Henning. he and Gwendolyn Conger. who later became his second SI
wife. moved to New York. In addition. he was not a stranger to places like Mexico.
Europe, North Africa. etc. As a journalist and special correspondent during the
war. Steinbeck experienced a colorful life. He not only survived the Great
Depression and World War II. but also experienced the \varfare of progessive
women in their struggle against a patriarchial society.both publicly and privately.
Moreover, Steinbeck also struggled with depression in his own life. In view of
the fact that human beings are creatures of their environment. an author's writing
IS inevitably colored and shaped by his or her interactions with others.
In retrospect. Angela Patterson was the first person to do a comprehensive
survey of Steinbeck's works in 1974 for self-actual ized female characters: for her,
Steinbeck's women were persons of worth in their own right. Findi ng only a few.
she nevertheless contented herself with the explanation that Steinbeck could not
be held accountable for this deficiency simply because he was reflecting the society
of his time and portraying the women of his world. It was a pity that Mimi Reisel
• 164 •Gladstein, in her comparably integrated book, did not go any further into a more
detailed analysis of the exceptional types of mother and whore, Terrible Mother
and the whore with a wicked mind. And critics like Charotte Hadella dealt with
the woman-in-the-garden motif only through two of Steinbeck's eighteen published
fictional works. s Generally speaking, a single image cannot contain the female
character in any writer's work, as far as the majority of his work is concerned.
Though the two works mentioned above contain a gross of short stories, Hadel1a
appeared to be of the persuasion that they were a fair representation of Steinbeck's
depiction of women.
Historically speaking, women have been considered symbolic objects of use
in a masculine structure and linguistic tokens, rather than wielders of words in
their own right. Deleted or distorted by male-manipulated language, the female's
quest for self-respect and fulfillment has been lost from culture and even conscious
ness for centuries. I n the works of a writer like Steinbeck, who had strong
confidence in h is thorough understanding of "women's heart of hearts,!1 one
might encode indices of a forgotten language, decipherable hieroglyphs.
In addition to the criticism which has heated up because of the availability
of new information, new controversies have appeared as well because of recent
critical analyses. Reviews and reinterpretations of Steinbeck's novels and short
stories, of the phases of his career, of his personal relationships, and above all,
of his female characters in terms of the process their achievements in the patriarchial
society for many decades, are urgently needed and eagerly awaited. The above
discussion about critics' views on Steinbeck's portrayal of women, whether for or
against the author. points to the necessity and urgency of more serious and unbiased
studies of his female characters in days to come.
• 165 •Notes
lCoventry Patmore, a nineteenth centry poet, glorified the female character
as "The Angel in the House," and the twentieth century critic Alexander Welsh
named a woman in the novels of Charles Dickens as "The Bride from I-Ieaven.'!
For more details, please see: Walter E. Houghton, Th~Victorian I-'rame of Mind, I
1830-1870 (New Heaven: Tale Universitv Press, 1957); Alexander Welsh, The City I
~ ~
of Dickens (Camberidge:Harvard University Press, 1986): "Ha'vvthorne's Women: a
The Tyranny of Social \1yths" The Contennial_Revi~~v IS.3( 197 I): 250-53;
Charlotte Cook Hadella, Women in Gardens in American Short Fiction, diss.,
The University of New Mexico, 1989, 8- 13: Edmund Wilson, "Ernest Heming
July, 1939: 36-46; Edmund Wi Ison, "llemingway: Gauge
of Moral!! The Wound and the Bow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1947).
Reprinted in E:II1es!__Henl_in_g\\iay:_The Man andttis \Vork ed. John K. M.
\1cCaffery, (New York: World Publishing Company, 1950),236-57: Carlos Baker,
"The Mountain and the Plain/' in Hem_ingw~~_The Writt:'[ as ;\_rtist (Prinston
Lnlversity Press, 1956), 113; Maxwell Geismar. Writers in Crisis (New York:
Hill & Wang, 1961),168,179-80; Leslie Fiedler. l:,~)\ie al1_ciD~_a!h in the American
~~v~l, rev. ed. (New York: Stein & Day, 1966),288, 316, 319,415.
2See A ngela Patterson, The Women of J_()_hn S~ei nbec~ 's N o~els in the_Light
of Humanistic Psvchologv, diss" LInited States International University, 1974: Mimi
~ ." ~~~~. ___• '-::~_ - wi
Reisel Gladstein, 'Lh~ Inciestructible Woman intht:_\-york~ of Fa~lkner.Hemi_ngway,
and Steinbeck, dlSS" University of New Mexico, 1973.
:lSix essays on Steinbeck's women in SteI11bec:~~ \\,o[1]en: E~~(lys i~l_S-'riticism
are: Sandra Beatty, "A Study of Female CharacterizatIon in Steinbeck's Fiction,"
1-6; Sandra Beatty, "Steinbeck's Play-Women: A Study of Female Presence in
Of Mice_and Mc l1 , Buring ~Brigh!, Th~ N1Qonls_Qow~, and yiva Zap(it_(:l:" 7-16;
Mimi Reise! Gladstein, "Female Characters in Steinbeck: Minor Characters of
Major Importance'!'! 17-25; Marilyn L. Mitchell. "Steinbeck's Strong Women:
Feminine Identity in the Short Stories. '! 26-3S: Robert E.Morsherger, "Steinbeck's
Happy Hookers," 36-48: Mimi Reisel Gladstein. " Steinbeck's Juana: A Woman
of Worth," 49-5:2.
4Chapter IV of Charotte Hadella's dissertation, "Steinbeck's Cloistered
Women,!! later revised and appeared in Th_e Steinbec_~Q~t:stion: Nevv Essaysin
CIitici~~-, ed. Ronald R. ~oble. (Troy: The Whitston Puhlishing Company, 1993),
. 166 •5Eighteen of Steinbeck's fictions are: t::::up of Gold (1929), The Pastures of Heaven (1932), To~ Go~Unkil_o_~!1 (1933), Tortilla Flat (1935), The Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), Tj1~~Long_~alley (1938), Th~_~es!Yony (1938), and Th~J!~~~~s_ of_}Vrath (J 939), The ~o~_~ Down (1942), Cannel)' B:o~ (1945), !~_~ayward_Il_u~ (1947), !h~PearJ (1947), ~l.1!.:ning~right (1950), ~~~~fJ::Q~J1 (1952), ~~~~!Th~E~
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