John Steinbeck was one of the best American authors of all time; however some of his books are very controversial due to the language, the derogatory names, and the treatment of mentally challenged people. Two of his most famous novels are "Of Mice and Men" and "Grapes of Wrath." He was always striving for that extra step, for example he used Pigasus, a pig with wings as a symbol of himself because it was "earthbound but aspiring" (Shillinglaw).
             John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California on February 27, 1902. He came from a family who lived a middle class life. His father worked at many different jobs, and his mother was a teacher. Most of the Steinbeck's stayed where they were born and began to establish deep roots in the neighborhood, however John was a rebel and he didn't think that he belonged in the Salinas valley. Beginning at age fourteen he stayed in his room writing stories and poems in order to escape from somewhere that he thought he did not belong (Shillinglaw). As a child Steinbeck always had a deep love of outdoors, nature, and the diverse cultures of the world. As a boy Steinbeck was very realistic and he was also very imaginative, and this is shown throughout all of his novels (Handschuh). In between the years of 1920 and 1926 Steinbeck attended Stanford sporadically. When Steinbeck first began writing he was doing manual labor in order to support himself (GradeSaver). The reason that he wrote about workers of the 1920's is primarily because he was able to relate to being a worker during the 1920's.
             Steinbeck always seemed to favor the little man, which was probably due to the fact that he worked with them when he began writing. For some reason he always wrote about the have-nots such as migrant workers, misfits, retards, and factory workers. The
             first three books that Steinbeck wrote were unsuccessful, including his first
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