John Steinbeck's novel Cannery Row

. . wears a beard and his grimace is half Christ and half satyr and his face tells the truth. . . . doc has the hands of a brain surgeon, and a cool inviolable mind. . . He can kill anything for need alone he could not even hurt a feeling for diversion (16).

medico is not inf all in allible, however, for Steinbeck wants us to see him as a thoroughly human being. He is subject to "passionate provoke" and a terrible fear of getting his head wet. He is a wise philosopher, a lover of the arts, a sensation to dogs and children, a man with a heavy(p) heart and judge mind. Steinbeck uses Doc to personify the view that all life is wonderful, including the many an(prenominal) differences among plenty. Steinbeck has Doc cherish the odd behavior of all sorts of people and animals and insects, including the stink bug and its habit of raising its rear closing curtain in the air:

"The remarkable thing," said Doc, "isn't that they put their tail coat up in the air---the really incredible thing is that we view it remarkable. We can only use ourselves as yardsticks. If we did something as mystical and strange we'd probably be praying---so maybe they're praying" (23).

Doc well-nigh always has an answer for a problem, and many of the people in the community are indebted to him and, more importantly, love him late for his broad mind and deep heart. However, each time that we set let out to be tempted to see Doc as a matinee idol without flaws or weakness, Steinbeck quickly reminds us that he is merely a

human being. For example, when Frankie humiliates himself in front of a young woman, Doc is shown to have limited powers after all:

Steinbeck, John. Cannery Row. New York: Bantam, l988.

For all his wisdom and knowledge of life and death, Doc's breakthrough of the dead girl on the reef overwhelms him: "He shivered and his eye were wet the way they get in the focus of great beauty" (68). When his friends throw him a party and do more than damage to his lab before he even arrives home plate from the trip on which he found the girl's body, Doc lets out his frustration and rage by hitting Mack a few times, showing once again that he is full human.

In fact, he ends up praising Mack and his friends for their unequivocal approach to life:

Doc walked quietly down the stairs and into the cellar. . . . Doc could hear [Frankie] whimpering in there. Doc waited for a sec and then he went quietly back upstairs. There wasn't a thing in the world he could do (37).

Doc loves life, but there is a sadness about him which keeps his gladness rooted in the real world. He loves human beings, but he recognizes that they are a flawed lot:

The unfermented is relatively low-key. Little of consequence occurs. We are introduced to a fistful of characters and follow their individual and interrelated lives, and thereby discover the somebody of the place they inhabit. Doc's character serves as a kind of hub for a great deal of the activity of the short young, and he himself serves as an anchor for the novel as a whole. He is clearly meant to be the philosophical center of the book, perhaps representing the author's own thoughts on life and the unconnected nature of human behavior.

It has always seemed strange to me. The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits
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