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Date of publication: Tortilla Flat was first Published in 1935 by MacIntosh and Otis Inc., NewYork
Plot synopsis: Danny comes home from the army and learns that his grandfather died and left him two small houses. The responsibilty weighs him down, so he first gets two gallons of wine before he takes a look at his property. While he is drunk he breaks some windows, so he has got to go to prison for thirty days.
As he is released he goes to live in his house, his friend Pilon move in the other house. Soon also Pablo and Jesus Maria Corcoran move with Pilon. As their house burns down they move in with Danny. They also ask the Pirate and his dogs to live with them as they want to steal his money, which doesn´t work. Also another of Danny´s friends comes to live with them, Big Joe Portagee. Together the friends go through various adventures and funny stories. Everybody except Danny seems to enjoy life. But he has problems as he can´t forget the responsibility he has. So he sells the house and lives like a tramp. But his friends bring him back to his home and they give a party for him. But Danny who isn´t happy at all about the party dies that night. After Danny´s funeral (the friends can´t attend it, as they have no clothes for such an event) they go to Danny´s house again and burn it, so that no stranger would own this symbol of holy friendship. The next morning all friends leave, alone.
Main characters:
Danny: He is the central figure of the story. After coming home from the army Danny finds himself the owner of two houses. When Danny hears about it, he is weighed down by the responsibility of ownership. Before he ever went to look at his property he bought a gallon of red wine and drank most of it himself. The weight of responsibility left him then, and his very worst nature came to surface. (p 11) So he is also put in prison. Danny´s great respect for the law caused him to go quietly. If he had not just been discharged from the army after the victory over Germany, he would have been sentenced to six months. As it was, the judge gave him only thirty days. (p 12) Danny is very hopitable, so he invites a friend, Pilon, to live in the other house. First they decide that Pilon should pay fiftteen dollars to live in the house but he never does. It is impossible to say whether Danny expected any rent, or whether Pilon expected to pay any.If they did, both were disappointed. Danny never asked for it, and Pilon never offered it. (p28) After Pilon and Pablo burn down Danny´s house (the one they "rented") they go to live with Danny in his house. Once Dany said: "Pilon I swear, what I have is thine.While I have a house, thou hast a house." (p 19) Also as they get to know the Pirate better Danny shows his big heart."Poor little lonely man," Danny added. "If I had known, I would have asked him long ago, even if he had no treasure."(p 86) All his friends are happy about the life they have. The friends had sunk into a routine which might have been monotonous for anyone but a paisano - up in the morning, to sit in the sun and wonder what the Pirate would bring. ... Occasionally the friends procured some wine, and then there was singing and fighting. (p 202,203) But Danny wasn´t happy about the situation at all. When Danny thought of the old lost time, he could taste again how good the stolen food was, and he longed for that old time again. Since his inheritance had lifted him, he had not fought often. He had been drunk, but not adventurously so. Always the weight of the house was upon him; always the responsibility to his friends. (p 203) To get out of this situation he runs away one night. Soon his friend are worried about what Danny is doing and search for him. Danny also sells the house to Torelli, a local shop owner. But the friends steal the paper that proves that Danny sold the house, so they can go on living there. (p 211-217)
As Danny returns he thinks about his friends again and brings them something to eat. (p 219) But something is wrong with Danny, he isn´t the way he was before. When Danny came back to his house and to his friends after his amok, he was not conscience-stricken, but he was very tired. The rough fingers of violent experience had harped upon his soul. He began to live listlessly, arising from bed only to sit on the porch, under the rose of Castile; arising from the porch only to eat; arising from the table only to go to bed. (p220)
To honour Danny and to make him feel better again the friends give a party. But Danny isn´t interested in it, he isn´t interested in anything. And Danny? He sat like a half-melted man. He moved only when the sun moved. If he realized that every inhabitant of Tortilla Flat had passed his gate that afternoon, he gave no sighn. Poor Danny! At least two dozen pairs of eyes watched his front gate. ( p 225)
It is a great party. Never had there been so many fights between two men, but roaring battles that raged through whole clots of men,each one for himself. As Danny comes to the party he is completely drunk and wants to fight somebody, as he is unable to find an enemy he leaves the house and goes out in the garden. There he falls or jumps into a gulch. They heard is last shrill cry of defiance, and then a thump. And then silence. (p 233) He is still alive as Pilon finds him at the bottom of the gulch but a few minutes later he dies.
Pilon: He likes the easy way of life. If somebody asks him to do something he will find an excuse for not doing it. "It would be nice to clean that window with soap and water," Danny said one time. Pilon´s sharp mind leaped to the problem with energy, but it was too easy for him. It did not require a decent quota of his powers. "More light would get in," he said. "We would not spend so much time out in the air if it were light in here. And at night, when the air is poisonous, we have no need for light."(p 186) But he is also grateful for what he gets and wants to show this also to Danny by searching for a tresure for him. I am digging this tresure for Danny. (p 103) He is also much more focused on money than his friends. (e.g. he is the one who wants to steal the Pirate´s treasure first, the others have seen the Pirate having money but they never cared. P 73 ->) Pilon is also interested in what is going on in Tortilla Flat. Pilon knew everybody and everything about everybody. (p74)
Pablo: There isn´t much to say about Pablo. He is also a friend of Pilon, so it comes that he lives with them together in the house. He isn´t very intelligent.
Jesus Maria Corcoran: He is described as the most positive character next to Danny. His heart was free for the use of anyone who had a use for it. His resources and wits were at the disposal of anyone who had less of either than had Jesus Maria. (p 136) It has been said that Jesus Maria Corcoran was a greathearted man. He had also that gift some humanitarians possess of being inevitably drawn toward those spheres where his instinct was needed. How many times had he not come upon young ladies when they needed comforting. (p 179)
The Pirate: He is quite lonely before he comes to live with the others. Before he goes there he has no friends at all. People think of him as just another one who is mad. Also the fact that he lives with his dogs in a chicken house doesn´t make him very poular. He has got something like a regular job: he cuts pinewood and sells it later. The friends think that he has a treasure, but once he swore that he would buy a candlestick if one of his dogs became well again and so he does, and the friends don´t get his money. (p 73 ->)
Big Joe Portagee: He is also one of Danny´s friends who comes to live with them. He was also in the army like Pilon and Danny. He isn´t very intelligent either and never stays awake very long when he is not moving. His role isn´t so important for the novel. There are only two episodes, where he takes a mayor part. Chapter 11 and as he is threeatened for stealing the Pirates money.
Interpretation: Just like in "Of Mice and Men" Steinbeck described a friendhip between men. "It is good to have friends," said Danny. "How lonely it is in the world if there are no friends to sit with one and to share one´s grappa." (p 70) And just like in "Of Mice and Men" there is no happy ending for the friendship of the men. Steinbeck used some chapters to write about ethic principles. (e.g. the episode with der corporal, or the episode as they hepl Teresina Cortez and her eight litte children by stealing food for them) Steinbeck invented "Tortilla Flat" and its citizens to describe the Mexican-Americans and their way of life.
Many people liked the vision Stenbeck had. Thousands of people, among them also Charlie Chaplin, came to Monterey to see this ideal place. It was a real fascination for the people of that time to read that there should be a place like Tortilla Flat in their country. A place where friendship is really existing and people aren´t always thinking of profit and business but from one bottle of wine to the next.
The book is not structured like a normal novel. There isn´t a story that goes through the book. First the situation is built up, and then the various episodes follow. I thought that in the end all the episodes might come together but even as they do not, the reader isn´t disapointed or confused, as Steinbeck knew what he wanted to tell his readers.
The book isn´t full of social criticism like "The Grapes of Wrath". Bt just like in the "Grapes of Wrath" he describes the country in a fascinating way. (e.g. the beginnig of chapter 5)
What confused me was when Steinbeck somehow seemed to enter the story. Oh, beware, Torelli, when Pilon moves smiling on you! ( p 215)
Personal comment: I liked reading "Tortilla Flat". The book was written in a lively and humorous way. Some of the adventures the friends went through were funny, others like the one with the caporal (p 136 ->) made you think of the situation. (Jesus Maria meets a corporal and his baby and brings them to their home. The corporal tells the friends that his wife, the one he has the baby with, is now in love with a capitan, and that this capitan made the corporal leave Mexico. While the baby is dying the corporal tells the friends that he want´s his son to become a general, so he tell´s this the baby twenty times a day. The friends think that he wants his son to become a general to take revenge. But the corporal tells the friends that he wants his son to become a general because he wants him to have more good things than he had. In the end the baby dies.)
What I also found very funny were the Spanish expressions Steinbeck used to catch the mentality of the paisanos.
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