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Cannery Row – In class Essay Like the title suggests Cannery Row is another of Steinbeck’s novels that is set in that rougher areas of regional America during the Great Depression . It is described as a novella of short stories as it is a compilation of character studies and atmosphere rather than plot. Steinbeck’s real gift for characterization is evident in the gang of penniless itinerant workers known as “Mack and the Boys,” It is through these men’s masculine views of the world that enables Steinbeck to celebrate humanity and community mate ship. The absence of female characters is not to suggest that woman had no roles in society instead it is to portray that females are stereotyped to be companions. The theme of community and mate ship is explored by the men throughout Cannery Row, being most alive in Mack and the boys. This “elder, leader, mentor’ in the novel is Mack who leads the other boys away from the low to high ways of life into the sense of community by the creation of “The Palace Flophouse and Grill.” A way that ‘Mack and the boys” showed their manly affection for each other as a surrogate family was by competing in making something out of nothing for the Flophouse. Their discoveri