Local Distinction: The Power of Place in Steinbeck’s Monterey Trilogy

Abstract This article examines Steinbeck’s use of setting in his Monterey Trilogy (Tortilla Flat, Cannery Row, and Sweet Thursday) from an underappreciated perspective, that of a phenomenological analysis of the interactions between place and consciousness in everyday life. The dynamics of a mutually reinforcing relationship between a subject and its place are most manifested in the characters’ ways of dwelling. Steinbeck’s colorful ne’er-do-wells, social parasites, vagabonds, despite the extreme individuality of each one, act in unison when it comes to responding with creative adaptation strategies in seeking to make a home in an inherited environment at the gritty margins of the city. Across the Monterey Trilogy, Steinbeck brings to life two evocative locations by dramatizing their transformations into a home which are themselves embedded in a larger unit, or region: a ramshackle cottage in the hills above the downtown and an abandoned warehouse situated amid the remnants of the city’s industrial infrastructure. When Steinbeck’s paisanos decide to root themselves in such environment, they adopt a mode of dwelling that merges the vernacular and the industrial. Underneath Steinbeck’s use of comical juxtaposition lies a more serious endeavor to represent people and place in reciprocal interaction with each other.