The Red Pony Part 1

The Red Pony.

With an Introduction by John Seelye.

by JOHN STEINBECK.

Introduction.

When I was a student in high school, Steinbeck was one of my favorite authors. He is a writer whose simple, straightforward language and realistic even violent plots are attractive to young readers making a first encounter with serious modern literature. I read Tortilla Flat Tortilla Flat, Cannery Row Cannery Row, Grapes of Wrath Grapes of Wrath, even The Moon Is Down The Moon Is Down-the Second World War was just over and the issues were still fresh-but I did not read The Red Pony The Red Pony, which had recently been published as a single and amplified text, with color ill.u.s.trations. I think the pictures may have put me off. They suggest that the series of short stories is a children's book, which it is not-and more pertinent to my own youthful bigotries, they certified that it was a book about horses, a genre that for whatever reasons I a.s.sociated with young females in jodhpurs and boots. The Red Pony The Red Pony is most a.s.suredly not that, either. is most a.s.suredly not that, either.

So I was wrong on all scores, not the first time during my adolescent years-or afterward-and here at long last I have an opportunity to make up for that ignorant omission.

I would like to acknowledge my indebtedness to Jack Benson and Linda Wagner-Martin for their helpful and encouraging remarks concerning this introduction.

But let me begin by declaring that I have had considerable company in mistaking this book for something it is not, for in reading it the first time through I also consulted the critical literature on this text, which for the most part misconstrues what I take to be its meaning and intent, thanks to a.s.sumptions not too far different from my adolescent prejudices. I will come to that mistaken reading in due course (and proportion). What follows is not chiefly an argument with other critics. It is, however, an attempt to demonstrate that Steinbeck's cycle of stories about a boy who has a series of painful even traumatic experiences on the threshold to adolescence may be a slender book, but in this it can be compared to the pin that holds two hinges together. Not only is it a text central to Steinbeck's development as a writer but it is a transitional work in the development of literature intended for just the sort of reader I was when first encountering Steinbeck's novels and stories.

The importance, in these dual regards of The Red Pony The Red Pony was hardly a matter of authorial intention. At the time he wrote the stories about young Jody Tiflin, Steinbeck was concentrating chiefly on getting through a very difficult period in his life. True, many of Steinbeck's works were written during times of crisis, some of his own making, as if the author thrived on emotional turmoil, escaping into the much more tidy world of his own creation yet bringing along the heightened sensibilities that conflict engenders. But the author's troubles during the time he was writing the was hardly a matter of authorial intention. At the time he wrote the stories about young Jody Tiflin, Steinbeck was concentrating chiefly on getting through a very difficult period in his life. True, many of Steinbeck's works were written during times of crisis, some of his own making, as if the author thrived on emotional turmoil, escaping into the much more tidy world of his own creation yet bringing along the heightened sensibilities that conflict engenders. But the author's troubles during the time he was writing the Red Pony Red Pony stories were thrust upon him and were primal in nature. His mother lay dying from the lingering effects of a stroke and his father, bewildered by the loss of his wife's presence and support, was himself in a handicapped state, from which he would not recover. stories were thrust upon him and were primal in nature. His mother lay dying from the lingering effects of a stroke and his father, bewildered by the loss of his wife's presence and support, was himself in a handicapped state, from which he would not recover.

Although already a published writer, Steinbeck was well short of the fame that would convey (against his will) the status of "author" upon him, and his financial affairs were still uncertain. He returned home to Salinas, the place of his birth some thirty years earlier, in 1902, bringing with him his young wife, Carol. Steinbeck took on his share of the duties in caring for his mother, which included changing bedpans and soiled linen, disgusting ch.o.r.es that nauseated him. He also helped out in his father's accounting office, working up long columns of figures in ledgers, stultifying labor that dulled his creative sensibility. Between times, Steinbeck worked on the Red Pony Red Pony stories, writing in a room next to the one in which his mother lay dying. Given the personal context-the threatened loss of parents who had supported him both psychologically and financially during his long apprentices.h.i.+p as a writer-it is not surprising that the stories were autobiographical, drawing on Steinbeck's memories of his childhood. What is surprising, however, is the artistry of the stories, evincing a formal mastery that would seem to bely the circ.u.mstances of their composition. It is this combination of subjective materials and objective craftsmans.h.i.+p that helps to explain the power of these parabolic tales. stories, writing in a room next to the one in which his mother lay dying. Given the personal context-the threatened loss of parents who had supported him both psychologically and financially during his long apprentices.h.i.+p as a writer-it is not surprising that the stories were autobiographical, drawing on Steinbeck's memories of his childhood. What is surprising, however, is the artistry of the stories, evincing a formal mastery that would seem to bely the circ.u.mstances of their composition. It is this combination of subjective materials and objective craftsmans.h.i.+p that helps to explain the power of these parabolic tales.

The resemblances between Jody's parents and Steinbeck's own are not exact, and the ranch setting resembles the farm owned by his maternal uncle, not his home in the small town of Salinas, but there are sufficient points of tangency to certify an overall autobiographical presence. More important, perhaps, is the significance of the sheer presence of parents in the boy Jody's world, not only as adult figures of support and understanding but as authorities to be dealt with often subversively, to be evaded by strategies of rebellion and escape. In a certain sense, the Red Pony Red Pony stories are liminal, in that they deal with aspects of a boy's maturation, but they stop well short of carrying Jody across the threshold into maturity, much as the long-desired pony of the t.i.tle is taken from him before he has a chance to ride it. Given the conditions under which they were composed, we are not surprised to find the themes of loss and death dominating these stories. But the theme of withheld fulfillment is something else again, and has less to do with the immediate situation than with Steinbeck's long-sustained world view, which may have had psychological origins but which by 1933, the year he returned to Salinas, was integral to his emerging theory of fiction and inseparable from his scientifically derived theory of human existence. stories are liminal, in that they deal with aspects of a boy's maturation, but they stop well short of carrying Jody across the threshold into maturity, much as the long-desired pony of the t.i.tle is taken from him before he has a chance to ride it. Given the conditions under which they were composed, we are not surprised to find the themes of loss and death dominating these stories. But the theme of withheld fulfillment is something else again, and has less to do with the immediate situation than with Steinbeck's long-sustained world view, which may have had psychological origins but which by 1933, the year he returned to Salinas, was integral to his emerging theory of fiction and inseparable from his scientifically derived theory of human existence.

The device of incompletion is typical of much that Stein-beck would write, and is part-and-parcel of his biologically determined notions about animate life, but it should not be confused with what critics call indeterminacy or ambiguity. Life, observed Melville, one of our most ambiguous authors, does not organize itself into tidy periodicities; that is the role of literature. For Steinbeck, life and literature were reciprocal functions, and he regarded the duty of the author as one of devising fictions that captured the kinds of discontinuity that define life, both animal and human, which is made up of no final terminations, no neat packages of events, just a sequence of happenings productive of other happenings. Much as Jody continually contrives to escape the authority of his parents, so these stories subversively evade the traditional role of literature, which is to shape the raw, discontinuous stuff of life into orderly units chiefly defined by strategies of closure. In sum, art tames disorderly elements and puts them in harness, the fate the red pony escapes through death.

This reading, let me now state, is contradictory to the standard interpretation of these stories, which sees them as leading to Jody's maturation, as stages in a developmental progress. I will return to that interpretation-and its impossibility-but want first to address Steinbeck's life and work in general, so as to approach The Red Pony The Red Pony from that perspective. We may start with the irony that these stories, which so handily ill.u.s.trate Steinbeck's theories of life and literature, occurred within a turning point in the author's life that resembles the most convenient kind of literature. The illness and death of his mother, followed shortly by the death of his father, were followed in turn by the sudden and almost unexpected upswing of the writer's reputation and income, which were not perhaps as welcome as one might expect. from that perspective. We may start with the irony that these stories, which so handily ill.u.s.trate Steinbeck's theories of life and literature, occurred within a turning point in the author's life that resembles the most convenient kind of literature. The illness and death of his mother, followed shortly by the death of his father, were followed in turn by the sudden and almost unexpected upswing of the writer's reputation and income, which were not perhaps as welcome as one might expect.

Throughout much of his young adulthood, in college and afterward, the son had struggled to escape his parents' control, living away from home as much as possible, working at jobs unacceptable to middle-cla.s.s notions of suitable employment, and only returning to Salinas when financial necessity made homecoming inescapable. This kind of distancing is traditionally a.s.sociated with the independence essential to creativity-most writers of Steinbeck's generation insisted on it as a kind of authorial ritual-but in his case the need for independence from his parents had a number of paradoxical dimensions. First of all, he was forced to accept their financial a.s.sistance, as well as the house in which he and Carol lived after they were married, in Pacific Grove, within the orbit of both sets of parents. This in turn got the couple close to Monterey, which would provide Steinbeck with the material for his first commercial success, Tortilla Flat Tortilla Flat (1935), as well as the tutelage of the marine biologist Ed Ricketts, who would be so influential on Steinbeck's emerging philosophies of life and art. Finally, the deaths of both parents, which gave him absolute freedom from their personal control, came just as he entered that phase in his career when he no longer needed the isolation from their influence. This is precisely the kind of tidy reticulation of circ.u.mstances that Steinbeck worked very hard to avoid in his fiction. (1935), as well as the tutelage of the marine biologist Ed Ricketts, who would be so influential on Steinbeck's emerging philosophies of life and art. Finally, the deaths of both parents, which gave him absolute freedom from their personal control, came just as he entered that phase in his career when he no longer needed the isolation from their influence. This is precisely the kind of tidy reticulation of circ.u.mstances that Steinbeck worked very hard to avoid in his fiction.

But then there are a number of discontinuities between the facts of Steinbeck's life-or our perceptions of those facts-and the kinds of fiction he wrote. There is, for example, a kind of chronological neatness in the conjunction between the writing and publication of Steinbeck's most successful, even greatest, works and the first two presidential terms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The proximity makes it easy to a.s.sociate Steinbeck's fiction with the social reformations undertaken during the successive Roosevelt administrations, an a.s.sociation that colors most of the appraisals of his work, yet any such linkage is fallacious howevermuch fortuitous. This is especially true of Grapes of Wrath Grapes of Wrath (1939), which bears a close resemblance to the propaganda engendered by the Works Progress Administration, enn.o.bling the suffering poor in order to loosen congressional pursestrings. At times the text seems to cry out for ill.u.s.tration by the photographs of Walker Evans, but the coincidence is misleading: (1939), which bears a close resemblance to the propaganda engendered by the Works Progress Administration, enn.o.bling the suffering poor in order to loosen congressional pursestrings. At times the text seems to cry out for ill.u.s.tration by the photographs of Walker Evans, but the coincidence is misleading: Grapes of Wrath Grapes of Wrath was not written to promote Roosevelt's social reforms, nor was it (as it was regarded at the time) in harness with even more radical movements of the day. was not written to promote Roosevelt's social reforms, nor was it (as it was regarded at the time) in harness with even more radical movements of the day.

Of course, like many Americans, Steinbeck felt great pity for the displaced Okies and Arkies who had followed a national myth (and misleading pamphlets distributed by agribusiness agents) to California seeking work, only to find enforced idleness, persecution, and peonage. Indeed, his feelings resulted in the need to revise entirely the ma.n.u.script that became Grapes of Wrath Grapes of Wrath. The emphasis of the first version of the book was a satiric attack on the greed and vigilantism of the California farmers; the second stresses the n.o.ble sufferings of the workers, epitomized by the Joad family. But despite Steinbeck's presenting a positive case for government-sponsored work camps, and despite the celebration of humble humanity found in the book, Grapes of Wrath Grapes of Wrath is not, finally, an epic of the migrant farmhand but a tragedy centered on the breakup of a family because of bewildering changes in agricultural practices brought on by the economic forces of the Great Depression, accelerated by the manmade "natural" disaster that was the Dust Bowl. It is, moreover, a demonstration of inevitability that makes any kind of government palliative futile. And finally, by concentrating on the decline of the Joad family, Stein-beck placed himself in the company of contemporary writers who have never been a.s.sociated with the social reforms of FDR. is not, finally, an epic of the migrant farmhand but a tragedy centered on the breakup of a family because of bewildering changes in agricultural practices brought on by the economic forces of the Great Depression, accelerated by the manmade "natural" disaster that was the Dust Bowl. It is, moreover, a demonstration of inevitability that makes any kind of government palliative futile. And finally, by concentrating on the decline of the Joad family, Stein-beck placed himself in the company of contemporary writers who have never been a.s.sociated with the social reforms of FDR.

Writers of the 1930s with such disparate backgrounds and styles as Pearl Buck, William Faulkner, and Margaret Mitch.e.l.l were also concerned with family breakup, and even Erskine Caldwell (a writer who in many respects can be compared-as he is occasionally confused-with Steinbeck) used the disintegrating family as the central fact of Tobacco Road Tobacco Road and and G.o.d's Little Acre G.o.d's Little Acre. All of these writers, notably, were from the South, and their books can be regarded as reflecting the "matter" of the South, conceived as a process of decline and degeneration, dating from the disastrous effects of the Civil War and Reconstruction. But Steinbeck, a Californian, came from a region inevitably a.s.sociated (as by the Joads) with the party of Hope and Progress-that is, with the promise held out to the rest of America by the West. It was that hopeful grail that lured Steinbeck's grandfather to California after the Civil War, and which his father continued to pursue during young John's boyhood. Steinbeck regarded that quest as Quixotic and thought of his parents as victims of the false promise of the West, as having spent their lives in futile pursuit of a prosperity that was forever withheld. This is yet another facet of that complex paradox that characterized the writing of the Red Pony Red Pony stories, for Steinbeck's success which followed (not as a direct result of their publication, I should add) disrupted his certainty that his own creative life would be one of constant disappointment. stories, for Steinbeck's success which followed (not as a direct result of their publication, I should add) disrupted his certainty that his own creative life would be one of constant disappointment.

Steinbeck was not the first writer in California to regard the promise of the West as something of a delusion. Most of the Easterners-come-west who produced the first "California" literature-most notably Bret Harte, Mark Twain, and Ambrose Bierce-recorded less than hopeful parables, derived from the boom-and-bust cycles of gold-mining life. Closer to Steinbeck in time and subject matter was Chicago-born but California-raised Frank Norris, who in The Octopus The Octopus (1901) framed an epic-sized tragedy in which the dreams of wealth from raising wheat nurtured by false expectations on the part of San Joaquin farmers are blown away by the harsh realities of price manipulation by the railroad. If California was "the future," then to reverse the famous aphorism, it didn't seem to work-except for corporate capitalism. (1901) framed an epic-sized tragedy in which the dreams of wealth from raising wheat nurtured by false expectations on the part of San Joaquin farmers are blown away by the harsh realities of price manipulation by the railroad. If California was "the future," then to reverse the famous aphorism, it didn't seem to work-except for corporate capitalism.

Again, little in Steinbeck's personal experience would have suggested otherwise: Though born in relatively comfortable middle-cla.s.s circ.u.mstances, the boy's life was overshadowed by the restless dissatisfaction of a father who never, in his own estimation, seems to have succeeded. Though enjoying the steady income derived from his position as treasurer of Monterey County, the senior John Steinbeck had earlier lost his bid for much greater prosperity when the feed and grain business he started was doomed from the start by the advent of the automobile. The marginal jobs young Steinbeck held as he slowly even haltingly worked his way through Stanford University could have done nothing to affirm any belief in the American dream, and though the field and factory work brought him into contact with the workers who would populate the stories that first made him a popular writer, nothing he ever wrote suggested that some political or economic solution to the inherent instability of agricultural capitalism was just around the corner.

Quite the contrary: Even as he sustained the "social realism" of his fiction by means of mythic material abstracted from his beloved tales of King Arthur, there is an abiding sense that Arthur will not return, that the past enriches the present but only in terms of literary contexts. Jackson Benson, from whose biography of Steinbeck much of the foregoing material has been taken, tells us that the boy's mother, Olive Hamilton Steinbeck, was largely responsible for nurturing his creative drives. A schoolteacher, she filled the home with literary material, books and magazines, and read bedtime stories to her children, including tales of magic and enchantment, laying the basis for John's enthrallment by the Arthurian legends. And yet Steinbeck's are the kind of fairy stories in which no benevolent G.o.dmother shows up, no powerful prince on horseback saves the day. And if the Red Pony Red Pony stories seem to resemble the kinds of fiction written for children, if only because the protagonist is himself a child, they are not the kinds of fiction traditionally framed for young readers, which more often than not end with a hopeful, upbeat finale. stories seem to resemble the kinds of fiction written for children, if only because the protagonist is himself a child, they are not the kinds of fiction traditionally framed for young readers, which more often than not end with a hopeful, upbeat finale.

It is important to understand what many students of Steinbeck's life and works now know: that the signal influences on his early work were Donn-Byrne and James Branch Cabell, fantasists and mannerists whose writings Steinbeck himself acknowledged provided the worst possible models. But his recantation does not alter the fact, nor the likelihood that, as in all such matters, influence is a guide to predisposition. Both older writers, despite the vast differences in their personal backgrounds and materials, were products of the art-for-art's sake movement of the 1890s, which stressed style as substance, and both sustained a disillusioned view of the present by retreating into an invented past, where they could indulge their romanticism unchecked by considerations of verisimilitude.

Their influence is most clear in Cup of Gold Cup of Gold (1929), Steinbeck's first (and atypical) novel, a loosely "historical" romance about the pirate Henry Morgan that is imperfectly sustained by the Grail myth. But despite Steinbeck's abandoning the purplish prose a.s.sociated with his youthful models, something of their underlying cynicism remains in much of his subsequent fiction. Moreover, the theories that would sustain his most famous works, the nonteleological philosophy in part abstracted from the wisdom of his friend Ed Ricketts, and the "phalanx" idea that underlies his most serious works of social criticism, only reinforced the nihilism essential to his early reading even as they necessitated a more "realistic" kind of fiction. Neither idea holds out much hope for individual or even communal enterprise: those of his characters who entertain some motivating errand or purpose end as versions of Don Quixote, deluded victims of their own dreams-they are versions, in short, of the senior John Steinbeck. (1929), Steinbeck's first (and atypical) novel, a loosely "historical" romance about the pirate Henry Morgan that is imperfectly sustained by the Grail myth. But despite Steinbeck's abandoning the purplish prose a.s.sociated with his youthful models, something of their underlying cynicism remains in much of his subsequent fiction. Moreover, the theories that would sustain his most famous works, the nonteleological philosophy in part abstracted from the wisdom of his friend Ed Ricketts, and the "phalanx" idea that underlies his most serious works of social criticism, only reinforced the nihilism essential to his early reading even as they necessitated a more "realistic" kind of fiction. Neither idea holds out much hope for individual or even communal enterprise: those of his characters who entertain some motivating errand or purpose end as versions of Don Quixote, deluded victims of their own dreams-they are versions, in short, of the senior John Steinbeck.

Because The Grapes of Wrath The Grapes of Wrath looms so large in his corpus, Steinbeck is thought of as a sentimentalist, another erroneous perception. Sentimentalism had been utilized in America in reform fiction ever since Harriet Beecher Stowe used it to arouse reader sympathy for Negro slaves, hitting upon a device that Steinbeck also used effectively: stressing the loving, virtuous "family" values maintained by Uncle Tom and his wife in their humble cabin. Stowe brought her readers to tears by dramatizing the anguish of family breakup and the selling of black children out of the arms of their mothers, in every instance appealing to her white, middle-cla.s.s readers for whom the integrity of the family was sacred. But she was in her other works seldom a sentimentalist, establis.h.i.+ng rather the objective tone that would be characteristic of an emerging literary realism- explicitly antisentimental in its aims. Steinbeck, at the other end of that process, would likewise use sentimentality chiefly in works that, like Stowe's great protest romance, were constructed so as to inspire sympathy for the downtrodden. Thus in looms so large in his corpus, Steinbeck is thought of as a sentimentalist, another erroneous perception. Sentimentalism had been utilized in America in reform fiction ever since Harriet Beecher Stowe used it to arouse reader sympathy for Negro slaves, hitting upon a device that Steinbeck also used effectively: stressing the loving, virtuous "family" values maintained by Uncle Tom and his wife in their humble cabin. Stowe brought her readers to tears by dramatizing the anguish of family breakup and the selling of black children out of the arms of their mothers, in every instance appealing to her white, middle-cla.s.s readers for whom the integrity of the family was sacred. But she was in her other works seldom a sentimentalist, establis.h.i.+ng rather the objective tone that would be characteristic of an emerging literary realism- explicitly antisentimental in its aims. Steinbeck, at the other end of that process, would likewise use sentimentality chiefly in works that, like Stowe's great protest romance, were constructed so as to inspire sympathy for the downtrodden. Thus in Of Mice and Men Of Mice and Men (1937), which in its account of disadvantaged and displaced farm workers is preludic to (1937), which in its account of disadvantaged and displaced farm workers is preludic to Grapes of Wrath Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck like Stowe uses the middle-cla.s.s ideal of "home" to arouse pity in the reader, an emphasis shared by his subsequent and much more ambitious novel. But in neither work does Steinbeck propose solutions to the sufferings he has so sympathetically portrayed (the allusion in the t.i.tle of the novella to Burns's "To a Field Mouse" perfectly cues the balance between sympathy and inevitability), whereas Stowe pointedly wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin Uncle Tom's Cabin in the service of abolition and the aims of the American Colonization Society. Divorced from the specific reforms of protest literature, Steinbeck's use of sentimentality is akin to the pathos of Greek tragedy, inspiring identification with the protagonists but allowing for no remedies or relief save release through death. in the service of abolition and the aims of the American Colonization Society. Divorced from the specific reforms of protest literature, Steinbeck's use of sentimentality is akin to the pathos of Greek tragedy, inspiring identification with the protagonists but allowing for no remedies or relief save release through death.

In The Red Pony The Red Pony, where middle-cla.s.s people are the chief characters and home is an often conflicted reality, not a lost or impossible hope, Steinbeck more clearly delineates his emerging thematic and stylistic norms. Much as the writer refuses to give any of the stories a positive, teleological ending, so he avoids the sentimentality that a number of the situations allow, especially regarding the suffering and deaths of animals. We need only compare these stories with Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's The Yearling The Yearling (1938), a novel with virtually plagiaristic similarities to (1938), a novel with virtually plagiaristic similarities to The Red Pony The Red Pony, to understand Steinbeck's "differences" in dealing with the death of a beloved pet. Mary O'Hara's subsequent "colt-to-horse" cycle, My Friend Flicka My Friend Flicka (1941), pulls out all the emotional stops in a story that also resembles Steinbeck's, with the signal difference of the colt's survival. Starting with (1941), pulls out all the emotional stops in a story that also resembles Steinbeck's, with the signal difference of the colt's survival. Starting with Black Beauty Black Beauty (1877), by Anna Sewell (a novel written to further the work of the S.P.C.A.), the tradition in "animal stories" has been for the most part sentimental. Even such a ferocious realist as Jack London, whose stories of dogs and wolves generally steer clear of appeals to emotions other than anger-aimed at the brutal exploiters of dogs trained to obey the whims of their owners-ended the story of White Fang with his wolf-dog in the midst of a happy family of pups. (1877), by Anna Sewell (a novel written to further the work of the S.P.C.A.), the tradition in "animal stories" has been for the most part sentimental. Even such a ferocious realist as Jack London, whose stories of dogs and wolves generally steer clear of appeals to emotions other than anger-aimed at the brutal exploiters of dogs trained to obey the whims of their owners-ended the story of White Fang with his wolf-dog in the midst of a happy family of pups.

There is no anger, reformational or otherwise, in The Red Pony The Red Pony, except that expressed by its characters. Jody's fury over the needless death of his pony is viewed with detachment and is related not to social issues capable of reform but simple human (and therefore unremedial) failings, establis.h.i.+ng an authorial distance cla.s.sical in its austerity. Here again, Steinbeck is bucking tradition: From Hamlin Garland's Main-Traveled Roads Main-Traveled Roads (1891) to his own (1891) to his own Grapes of Wrath Grapes of Wrath, the "farm novel" in the United States usually floated a social agenda, displaying the sufferings of farmers in the grip of exploiting railroads or large land owners. In The Red Pony The Red Pony, Steinbeck perhaps most closely resembles Willa Cather, whose stories of Nebraska farmers avoid specific political and economic issues while emphasizing the hards.h.i.+ps of the farmer's life, portrayed as a grim and unrelenting struggle with natural forces, a constant test of the strengths-and weaknesses-of rural people. Yet there is an underlying optimism in Cather's stories, while Steinbeck, once again, seems of the party of despair. "A Leader of the People," the final story in The Red Pony The Red Pony, sums up that prevailing sense of loss by placing an old man's boastfully sad recollections of a "heroic" West against the cruel indifference of his son-in-law, Jody's hard-working but insensitive father, Carl Tiflin.

Though younger than Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner, Steinbeck shared with them an abiding sense of decline and fall, and like the writers of the Lost Generation, he used myths to emphasize his themes of loss. First received as a photographic realist in the tradition of social protest, Steinbeck has been shown in the studies of Peter Lisca and Joseph Fontenrose to be a sophisticated manipulator of themes and situations that establish a parable-like depth to his fictions. Like Mark Twain, whose vernacular tradition he continued, Steinbeck is more "literary" than he appears at first reading. As Jackson Benson affirms and reaffirms, from the start Steinbeck's fiction tended toward symbolic and even allegorical configurations of meaning, of which the Arthurian materials are only one aspect. It was a self-conscious quality that, during his last, post-World War II phase, became only more obvious, not more the rule. The contemporary events of the 1930s, along with Steinbeck's experiences as a laborer in the fields of California agribusinesses, provided sufficient "realistic" flesh to cover the bare bones of symbolic meaning, but with his removal to New York and the East Coast, along with the feared enc.u.mbrances of wealth and prestige, Steinbeck lost both the ability and the materials to give his allegories sufficient heft of experience.

Here again, the Red Pony Red Pony stories evince the marvelous balance of Steinbeck's best work. Critical comment frequently refers to the symbolic implication of the otherwise realistically described landscape, the balance between the range of "jolly" mountains to the East-the Gabilans, for which Jody names his pony-and the dark, foreboding "Great Ones" in the West, into which the aging Mexican farmhand Gitano disappears. The grim mountains are matched by the black cypress a.s.sociated by Jody with hog-butchering and death, while another positive feature of the landscape is the "old green tub" filled with spring water, a sacramental vessel to which the boy retreats when he needs to be alone. But these symbolic features do not resolve themselves into any kind of articulated allegory, and they provide instead a "natural" set of contraries, suggesting the eternal balance of light and dark, hope and despair, centered around the tub of pure water, polarities that enhance Jody's several encounters with birth and death but "resolve" nothing. Again, it is this restraint on Steinbeck's part that especially recommends stories evince the marvelous balance of Steinbeck's best work. Critical comment frequently refers to the symbolic implication of the otherwise realistically described landscape, the balance between the range of "jolly" mountains to the East-the Gabilans, for which Jody names his pony-and the dark, foreboding "Great Ones" in the West, into which the aging Mexican farmhand Gitano disappears. The grim mountains are matched by the black cypress a.s.sociated by Jody with hog-butchering and death, while another positive feature of the landscape is the "old green tub" filled with spring water, a sacramental vessel to which the boy retreats when he needs to be alone. But these symbolic features do not resolve themselves into any kind of articulated allegory, and they provide instead a "natural" set of contraries, suggesting the eternal balance of light and dark, hope and despair, centered around the tub of pure water, polarities that enhance Jody's several encounters with birth and death but "resolve" nothing. Again, it is this restraint on Steinbeck's part that especially recommends The Red Pony The Red Pony, inspiring critical accord concerning its literary excellence-in Warren French's words, its perfect integration of form and content. Distilled from events of the author's boyhood-including the gift of a "chestnut" pony-and recollected during a time of great personal stress, the stories derive considerable power from the fact of engagement yet avoid throughout a descent into bathos.

It is helpful to recall that the Red Pony Red Pony stories were written over a three-year period, 19331936, and that they make up one of several story cycles composed by Steinbeck at about the same time. These include stories were written over a three-year period, 19331936, and that they make up one of several story cycles composed by Steinbeck at about the same time. These include The Pastures of Heaven The Pastures of Heaven (1932) and (1932) and Tortilla Flat Tortilla Flat (1935), the last being the book that brought him sudden fame and that encouraged the publication of Steinbeck's short stories in (1935), the last being the book that brought him sudden fame and that encouraged the publication of Steinbeck's short stories in The Long Valley The Long Valley (1938), including "A Leader of the People," which was not included in the first book publication of (1938), including "A Leader of the People," which was not included in the first book publication of The Red Pony The Red Pony in 1937. It was not until 1945 that the four stories were collected together under that t.i.tle. As Jackson Benson tells us, at one point Steinbeck had yet another story about the Tiflin family in mind, and he'd even projected a number of other stories, concentrating on Billy Buck, as well as each of Jody's parents, in turn. I want to consider the implication of what is essentially a fragmentary text to our understanding of the in 1937. It was not until 1945 that the four stories were collected together under that t.i.tle. As Jackson Benson tells us, at one point Steinbeck had yet another story about the Tiflin family in mind, and he'd even projected a number of other stories, concentrating on Billy Buck, as well as each of Jody's parents, in turn. I want to consider the implication of what is essentially a fragmentary text to our understanding of the Red Pony Red Pony stories as a unit, but first we need to put those stories in the context of Steinbeck's other work of the period. stories as a unit, but first we need to put those stories in the context of Steinbeck's other work of the period.

As in Steinbeck's projected plan for the Tiflins, the stories in Pasture of Heaven Pasture of Heaven take their unity from a family, but in this case a "bad luck" family whose often well-meant actions serve to destroy the lives of those around them. take their unity from a family, but in this case a "bad luck" family whose often well-meant actions serve to destroy the lives of those around them. Tortilla Flat Tortilla Flat, by contrast, features a picaresque community-an ad-hoc ad-hoc "family"-of low-life characters whose humorous misadventures successfully obscure their mythic underpinnings and helped earn the book its popularity. A third and related work is the novel "family"-of low-life characters whose humorous misadventures successfully obscure their mythic underpinnings and helped earn the book its popularity. A third and related work is the novel To a G.o.d Unknown To a G.o.d Unknown, published in 1935 but written much earlier, a heavily symbolic even fantastic parable in which a California farmer engages in pagan fertility rites, rituals that eventually consume him as a self-sacrificial victim. Besides sharing the common California setting, and deriving much of their detail from Steinbeck's own experience, all of these books (and we may here include The Long Valley The Long Valley ) are versions of antipastoral, and in this they are reminiscent of Sherwood Anderson's ) are versions of antipastoral, and in this they are reminiscent of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio Winesburg, Ohio (1919), as well as resembling Erskine Caldwell's contemporaneous (1919), as well as resembling Erskine Caldwell's contemporaneous Tobacco Road Tobacco Road (1932) and (1932) and G.o.d's Little Acre G.o.d's Little Acre (1933). (1933).

If we consider the first three of the stories in The Red Pony The Red Pony as a unit, then the book as it was first published is of a piece with Steinbeck's other story cycles of the period, which present farm life as a sequence of grim, even fatal events, for the story ends with the tragic birth of the black colt, which has brought no joy to young Jody. "A Leader of the People," in the context of the other stories in as a unit, then the book as it was first published is of a piece with Steinbeck's other story cycles of the period, which present farm life as a sequence of grim, even fatal events, for the story ends with the tragic birth of the black colt, which has brought no joy to young Jody. "A Leader of the People," in the context of the other stories in The Long Valley The Long Valley, is one more account of hards.h.i.+p and disillusionment with a California setting, but when added to the first three of the Red Pony Red Pony stories, it provides what is essentially a false note of hope-a mistake, however, not attributable to authorial intention but critical interpretation. I am speaking here of the gla.s.s of lemonade that Jody, at the end of the story, is about to bring to his grandfather, a charitable gesture that would seem to put an affirmative seal to the end of the story cycle. Jody, it would seem, can now see past his own immediate concerns and recognize the needs of others. stories, it provides what is essentially a false note of hope-a mistake, however, not attributable to authorial intention but critical interpretation. I am speaking here of the gla.s.s of lemonade that Jody, at the end of the story, is about to bring to his grandfather, a charitable gesture that would seem to put an affirmative seal to the end of the story cycle. Jody, it would seem, can now see past his own immediate concerns and recognize the needs of others.

There is a Bildungsroman Bildungsroman tradition in American literature that dates from Cooper's tradition in American literature that dates from Cooper's The Deerslayer The Deerslayer (1841), in which a young man or boy is brought to maturity by means of initiatory incidents. Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are perhaps the best-known examples of these literary initiates, who have their female counterparts in Alcott's Jo March and Wiggins's Rebecca Randall. But these liminal fictions by and large are concerned with young people in their teens, the postp.u.b.escent age when entrance to adulthood is antic.i.p.ated. Notably, Tom and Huck, Jo and Rebecca, all evince some romantic interest in members of the opposite s.e.x. Huck excluded, they are obviously being prepared for marriage and the responsibilities of maturity, and such stories, with their linear, "progressive" plots, by means of which the educational aspects of experience bring the young protagonists to a more realistic, "mature" point of view-shedding youthful illusions and bigotries-are precisely the kinds of teleological allegories from which Steinbeck rather noisily distanced himself. (1841), in which a young man or boy is brought to maturity by means of initiatory incidents. Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are perhaps the best-known examples of these literary initiates, who have their female counterparts in Alcott's Jo March and Wiggins's Rebecca Randall. But these liminal fictions by and large are concerned with young people in their teens, the postp.u.b.escent age when entrance to adulthood is antic.i.p.ated. Notably, Tom and Huck, Jo and Rebecca, all evince some romantic interest in members of the opposite s.e.x. Huck excluded, they are obviously being prepared for marriage and the responsibilities of maturity, and such stories, with their linear, "progressive" plots, by means of which the educational aspects of experience bring the young protagonists to a more realistic, "mature" point of view-shedding youthful illusions and bigotries-are precisely the kinds of teleological allegories from which Steinbeck rather noisily distanced himself.

Approaching the four Red Pony Red Pony stories from the established canon of initiatory fiction, critics have made a.s.sumptions that the text does not bear out. As I have already mentioned, much is made of Jody's fetching a gla.s.s of lemonade for his grandfather in the last story of the cycle, a charitable gesture that displaces his earlier juvenile plans for exterminating a colony of fat mice exposed by removing their sheltering haystack. But the gesture, inspired by sympathy for his grandfather because of his father's callous treatment of the old man, is as much an act of defiance against the father himself as a response to the grandfather's humiliation. At ten years of age, Jody differs from Huck and Tom in being poised on the threshold to adolescence- with its alternating cycles of rebellion and yearning for acceptance by society-not on the threshold of maturity, with its patterns of accepting responsibility and achieving compromise between expressing one's individuality and acceding to the needs of others. Jody's is a situational world, in which impulsive actions are the rule and parental, adult authority a wall to be circ.u.mvented. Significantly, Jody is called "a little boy" throughout the four stories, placing him well beyond expectations of maturation. stories from the established canon of initiatory fiction, critics have made a.s.sumptions that the text does not bear out. As I have already mentioned, much is made of Jody's fetching a gla.s.s of lemonade for his grandfather in the last story of the cycle, a charitable gesture that displaces his earlier juvenile plans for exterminating a colony of fat mice exposed by removing their sheltering haystack. But the gesture, inspired by sympathy for his grandfather because of his father's callous treatment of the old man, is as much an act of defiance against the father himself as a response to the grandfather's humiliation. At ten years of age, Jody differs from Huck and Tom in being poised on the threshold to adolescence- with its alternating cycles of rebellion and yearning for acceptance by society-not on the threshold of maturity, with its patterns of accepting responsibility and achieving compromise between expressing one's individuality and acceding to the needs of others. Jody's is a situational world, in which impulsive actions are the rule and parental, adult authority a wall to be circ.u.mvented. Significantly, Jody is called "a little boy" throughout the four stories, placing him well beyond expectations of maturation.

Here again, it is useful to refer to The Yearling The Yearling and and My Friend Flicka My Friend Flicka, episodic novels clearly in debt to Steinbeck's Red Pony Red Pony but that operate well within the initiatory tradition of American literature. In the first, a sensitive poor white youth is brought to the threshold of maturity through the death of his favorite pet, a "yearling" deer who is sacrificed to the rural necessity of producing sufficient provender to survive on the barest of subsistence crops for another year. In the second, a pioneering instance of "young adult" fiction in which the boy hero gains maturity through raising-and nearly losing-a colt, we have what amounts to a strategic revision of Steinbeck's parable. The definitive tension between father and son remains, but it is brought to a resolution by the younger McLaughlin's success in putting aside his childish ways and shouldering the responsibilities of raising and training a young horse. This is also Carl Tiflin's intention regarding his son, but it comes, literally, to grief. Nothing that Steinbeck wrote, before or afterward, suggests that he was interested in promoting convenient resolutions of social or family problems. Again, if we return to the original but that operate well within the initiatory tradition of American literature. In the first, a sensitive poor white youth is brought to the threshold of maturity through the death of his favorite pet, a "yearling" deer who is sacrificed to the rural necessity of producing sufficient provender to survive on the barest of subsistence crops for another year. In the second, a pioneering instance of "young adult" fiction in which the boy hero gains maturity through raising-and nearly losing-a colt, we have what amounts to a strategic revision of Steinbeck's parable. The definitive tension between father and son remains, but it is brought to a resolution by the younger McLaughlin's success in putting aside his childish ways and shouldering the responsibilities of raising and training a young horse. This is also Carl Tiflin's intention regarding his son, but it comes, literally, to grief. Nothing that Steinbeck wrote, before or afterward, suggests that he was interested in promoting convenient resolutions of social or family problems. Again, if we return to the original Red Pony Red Pony volume, volume, sans sans "A Leader of the People," we are given no note of hope, false or otherwise, at the end of the grim round of events. "A Leader of the People," we are given no note of hope, false or otherwise, at the end of the grim round of events.

Such a return helps to remove the literary and critical veils of contextuality and conventional expectation that have been placed between us and Steinbeck's Red Pony Red Pony stories-accretions, ironically enough, that include the novels of Rawlings and O'Hara. Indeed, even the t.i.tle of the book is a red herring of sorts that lines a trail toward stories-accretions, ironically enough, that include the novels of Rawlings and O'Hara. Indeed, even the t.i.tle of the book is a red herring of sorts that lines a trail toward The Yearling The Yearling and and My Friend Flicka My Friend Flicka. The t.i.tle, which is taken from the first story in the cycle, falsely implies that the rest of the stories have a common connection with Jody's "gift" of a colt, when, as we have already seen, Steinbeck seems to have thought of them as a cycle centering on the Tiflin family-including the farmhand, Billy Buck. Moreover, the horses that do figure in the stories are innocent, even pa.s.sive partic.i.p.ants in a kind of ongoing family politics, especially the power play between the father and son. Family politics most certainly figure in the novels by Rawlings and O'Hara, but these result, finally, in resolutions intimate with the presence and function of pets. By contrast, in Steinbeck's parables, the several horses do not resolve but point up familial discontents, and their use, finally, is discontinuous. What, we might ask, happens to the colt born in the third story, the one whose birth is so terribly costly and who is intended to replace Gabilan, the t.i.tular red pony? No mention is made of that presumably important animal in the final story, and if "A Leader of the People" is summary, as it has been read, then the colt named Black Satan should somehow be part of the tale, much as Gabilan's death overshadows the story of the second colt's birth. Instead, the last story acts to turn events back on themselves, not move them forward to some kind of c.u.mulative conclusion. We might even a.s.sume that the events occurred before the first colt arrived on the farm.

The first story, likewise, "The Gift," has an element of self-deconstructiveness, starting with its ironic t.i.tle. The red pony colt is the kind of "gift" called "Greek," in that it comes hearing special conditions. Jody must earn his "gift" by attending to its training. Like many middle-cla.s.s parents (as in Flicka Flicka ), Carl Tiflin hopes to use the experience as a step in an enforced process of teaching "responsibility." But it is Billy Buck who serves as the tutor when it comes to actually caring for the pony, and his tragic failure in that regard results in the emotional explosion with which the story ends-not only Jody's grief but Billy Buck's turning on the unseeing father, a multiple instance of unresolved anger. The t.i.tle of the third story (the last in the original cycle), "The Promise," is again ironic. The terms of the second "gift" are such that Jody can take no pleasure in it, having required the death of Nellie, the gentle old mare: "He tried to be glad because of the colt, but the b.l.o.o.d.y face, and the haunted, tired eyes of Billy Buck hung in the air ahead of him." Here again it is Billy Buck who is the parental figure, carrying the guilt over his omissions that caused the death of the red pony into the b.l.o.o.d.y horror of delivering the second colt. Though the death of the mare is inevitable, the position of the colt in her womb being beyond human intervention, Billy turns it into an act of retaliation against Jody: "There's your colt, the way I promised," he says implying that the death of the mare was somehow the boy's fault, much as the name of the colt (given before it is born), Black Demon, carries with it a kind of foreboding or tragic necessity, linking it to the dark range of mountains much as the red pony was named for the Gabilans. ), Carl Tiflin hopes to use the experience as a step in an enforced process of teaching "responsibility." But it is Billy Buck who serves as the tutor when it comes to actually caring for the pony, and his tragic failure in that regard results in the emotional explosion with which the story ends-not only Jody's grief but Billy Buck's turning on the unseeing father, a multiple instance of unresolved anger. The t.i.tle of the third story (the last in the original cycle), "The Promise," is again ironic. The terms of the second "gift" are such that Jody can take no pleasure in it, having required the death of Nellie, the gentle old mare: "He tried to be glad because of the colt, but the b.l.o.o.d.y face, and the haunted, tired eyes of Billy Buck hung in the air ahead of him." Here again it is Billy Buck who is the parental figure, carrying the guilt over his omissions that caused the death of the red pony into the b.l.o.o.d.y horror of delivering the second colt. Though the death of the mare is inevitable, the position of the colt in her womb being beyond human intervention, Billy turns it into an act of retaliation against Jody: "There's your colt, the way I promised," he says implying that the death of the mare was somehow the boy's fault, much as the name of the colt (given before it is born), Black Demon, carries with it a kind of foreboding or tragic necessity, linking it to the dark range of mountains much as the red pony was named for the Gabilans.

Symbols of death and loss loom over these stories, but they do not point toward any c.u.mulative pattern of resolution. The most explicit of the parables in this regard is the second, which, like the fourth and last, exists outside the "pony" sequence. The sight of the old Mexican riding an ancient horse off into "The Great Mountains" never to return is a powerful, even archetypal image, which fills Jody with "a nameless sorrow" but no real understanding of what he has witnessed. Death may be the dominant theme of these stories, but although we can read the signs and signals, Jody cannot, and he serves chiefly as a kind of symbol himself, of boyish innocence against which the cycles of birth and death are played. Again, the c.u.mulative result is not progressive but promotes a kind of stasis, a symbolic map of contraries and correspondences: the two ranges of mountains, the two colts, the two old men, the two "fathers," an arrangement centered by the "round tub at the brush line" and the sad boy lying next to it "with his crossed arms and... nameless sorrow."

Like many innocents in American fiction, Jody is something of a Christ figure, burdened with sorrows occasioned by other men. But in many telling ways, also, he is not a particularly sympathetic little boy-again in contrast to the youths in Yearling Yearling and and Flicka Flicka. He is given to bullying Doubletree Mutt, the family dog, and pestering the cat in Tom Sawyer fas.h.i.+on-but without Tom's saving grace of mischievous humor. He revenges himself upon his nagging parents by killing a songbird against their specific proscriptions, and we can hardly be sympathetic toward his cold-blooded plans to kill a community of unsuspecting mice-whose chief crime seems to be their plumpness. Christ does not come to mind but rather Twain's Young Satan. This is clearly not Wordsworth's or even Rousseau's Natural Child but rather a kid by way of Calvin and Hobbes. Again, all of these gestures are integral to the power play that makes up the chief substance of the stories, ending with Jody's bearing a gla.s.s of lemonade to his grandfather, a tart sacrament of rebellion against his father. "He didn't care about the bird, or its life, but he knew what older people would say if they had seen him kill it; he was ashamed because of their potential opinion."

The Red Pony is undoubtedly the most unconventional story about the adventures of a boy in rural America that can be found in our national canon, lacking as it does both a developmental sequence and a strong moral overlay of didacticism. I have been told that it has become a particular favorite among younger readers-teenagers, not children-perhaps for the same reasons I was drawn to Steinbeck's fiction during my own high-school years. Adolescents are attracted to stories that seem to present a realistic account of life-including death-nor are they made particularly uncomfortable by scenes of cruel, even unwarranted suffering. Neither is undoubtedly the most unconventional story about the adventures of a boy in rural America that can be found in our national canon, lacking as it does both a developmental sequence and a strong moral overlay of didacticism. I have been told that it has become a particular favorite among younger readers-teenagers, not children-perhaps for the same reasons I was drawn to Steinbeck's fiction during my own high-school years. Adolescents are attracted to stories that seem to present a realistic account of life-including death-nor are they made particularly uncomfortable by scenes of cruel, even unwarranted suffering. Neither Catcher in the Rye Catcher in the Rye nor nor Lord of the Flies Lord of the Flies were taken up by young readers because of any positive moral at the end, and recent examples of fiction specifically written for adolescents likewise approach the balance of situational ethics, not the loaded situations of proscriptive, adult-legislated morality. were taken up by young readers because of any positive moral at the end, and recent examples of fiction specifically written for adolescents likewise approach the balance of situational ethics, not the loaded situations of proscriptive, adult-legislated morality.

If I have drawn extended comparisons between The RedPony The RedPony and equivalent stories by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and Mary O'Hara, it was not merely to emphasize differences. Both of these subsequent, very popular novels bear clear debts to Steinbeck, despite their contrasting emphases, and though more clearly written for adolescent readers, they also avoid the easy resolutions and faultless adult tutors of so much earlier literature aimed at that young audience. True, problems are introduced in those two novels in order to achieve resolutions, and the deaths and near deaths of pets are integrated to the social necessity of maturation. But both stories share Steinbeck's interest in psychological and familial realism, presenting parents and other adults who can be as misguided and self-interested as children. And both portray the rural scene as something less than the locus of a pastoral idyll, but rather as a place in the American landscape as p.r.o.ne to economic complications and deadly accident as the urban scene. These emphases, I would suggest, can be traced to Steinbeck's influence. and equivalent stories by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and Mary O'Hara, it was not merely to emphasize differences. Both of these subsequent, very popular novels bear clear debts to Steinbeck, despite their contrasting emphases, and though more clearly written for adolescent readers, they also avoid the easy resolutions and faultless adult tutors of so much earlier literature aimed at that young audience. True, problems are introduced in those two novels in order to achieve resolutions, and the deaths and near deaths of pets are integrated to the social necessity of maturation. But both stories share Steinbeck's interest in psychological and familial realism, presenting parents and other adults who can be as misguided and self-interested as children. And both portray the rural scene as something less than the locus of a pastoral idyll, but rather as a place in the American landscape as p.r.o.ne to economic complications and deadly accident as the urban scene. These emphases, I would suggest, can be traced to Steinbeck's influence.

Steinbeck, once again, was only forwarding, with his own revisions, the lessons of agrarian fiction found in the works of Hamlin Garland and Willa Cather, and he was a.s.sisted in this regard by his fellow writers Erskine Caldwell and William Faulkner as well. But in Steinbeck's The Red Pony The Red Pony we find a singular instance of the daily rounds of the farmer's life as it impinges on the felt need of a small boy to force some s.p.a.ce for himself in the neighboring world. It is also, notably, a story in which anger in open and indirect manifestations is the chief emotion expressed, rage against the necessity of death that encircles all events. Such anger is cla.s.sically an aspect of grieving, reminding us once again that Steinbeck wrote these stories in the shadow of his mother's mortality and the matched prospect of his father's decline. But if we find a singular instance of the daily rounds of the farmer's life as it impinges on the felt need of a small boy to force some s.p.a.ce for himself in the neighboring world. It is also, notably, a story in which anger in open and indirect manifestations is the chief emotion expressed, rage against the necessity of death that encircles all events. Such anger is cla.s.sically an aspect of grieving, reminding us once again that Steinbeck wrote these stories in the shadow of his mother's mortality and the matched prospect of his father's decline. But if The Red Pony The Red Pony served as a channel for Steinbeck's grief, the parables the book contains testify also to the supremacy of craft over emotion, as well as signaling a move away from the stylistically luxuriant early prose toward the matter-of-fact manner, the perfect detachment of irony that characterizes his greatest work. They attest to the author's arrival at artistic maturity, one sign of which is his refusal to allow Jody an equivalent crossing-over. served as a channel for Steinbeck's grief, the parables the book contains testify also to the supremacy of craft over emotion, as well as signaling a move away from the stylistically luxuriant early prose toward the matter-of-fact manner, the perfect detachment of irony that characterizes his greatest work. They attest to the author's arrival at artistic maturity, one sign of which is his refusal to allow Jody an equivalent crossing-over.

The Red Pony is not, as I stated in the beginning, a book for children, but it is preeminently a book about a child. Perhaps the present edition will lead readers to an unimpeded recognition of the true nature and enduring importance of a story cycle that was central not only to the author's emergence as a major American novelist but to the development of a distinctly midtwentieth-century genre, opening up as it did a whole new range of possibilities about the fictional presentation of a child's world. For whatever else this book may be, it is most a.s.suredly a book about a boy, a caterpillar kid moreover, not a fragile adolescent b.u.t.terfly, in whom we may easily recognize that embryonic barbarian who once stood in the way of our path from home. is not, as I stated in the beginning, a book for children, but it is preeminently a book about a child. Perhaps the present edition will lead readers to an unimpeded recognition of the true nature and enduring importance of a story cycle that was central not only to the author's emergence as a major American novelist but to the development of a distinctly midtwentieth-century genre, opening up as it did a whole new range of possibilities about the fictional presentation of a child's world. For whatever else this book may be, it is most a.s.suredly a book about a boy, a caterpillar kid moreover, not a fragile adolescent b.u.t.terfly, in whom we may easily recognize that embryonic barbarian who once stood in the way of our path from home.

Suggestions for Further Reading.

Astro, Richard. John Steinbeck and Edward F. Ricketts: The Shaping of a Novelist John Steinbeck and Edward F. Ricketts: The Shaping of a Novelist. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1973.

Benson, Jackson J. The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer. New York: Viking Penguin, 1984.

Fontenrose, Joseph. John Steinbeck: An Introduction and Interpretation John Steinbeck: An Introduction and Interpretation. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1963.

French, Warren. John Steinbeck John Steinbeck (second edition, revised). Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1975. (second edition, revised). Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1975.

Hughes, R. S. Beyond the Red Pony: A Reader's Companion to Steinbeck's Complete Short Stories Beyond the Red Pony: A Reader's Companion to Steinbeck's Complete Short Stories. Metuchen and London: The Scarecrow Press, 1987.

Lisca, Peter. The Wide World of John Steinbeck The Wide World of John Steinbeck. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1958.

Timmerman, John H. The Dramatic Landscape of Steinbeck's Short Stories The Dramatic Landscape of Steinbeck's Short Stories. Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990.

The Red Pony

1.

The Gift.

At daybreak Billy Buck emerged from the bunkhouse and stood for a momen