On Implications Of Taoism In John Steinbeck’s Novels

John Steinbeck,the winner of the Nobel Prize in literature,is a significant novelist and dramatist in the United States of the 20 th century.Cannery Row and East of Eden are later novels of Steinbeck,which directly involve the Chinese people and culture.Some scholars have already analyzed Chinese culture and images in these two novels,and some have studied Taoist thoughts of the two novels respectively.But the two novels have yet been studied as an interrelated from Taoism,which leaves explorable room for further analysis and interpretation.Chapter One mainly introduces the research background,significance,method,and framework design of this paper.The second chapter concentrates on reviewing the research findings on Steinbeck’s works and Taoism at home and abroad.The important theories of “desire,selflessness,contentment,non-contention” in Taoism are introduced as theoretical framework.The third chapter chiefly analyzes the influence of people’s desire expansion in East of Eden and Cannery Row.On one hand,the excessive desire expansion makes people plunder nature excessively,resulting in the imbalance of natural ecology.On the other hand,people suffer from material servitude to the fullest extent in the endless pursuit of desire,and desire expansion damages mankind’s nature and morality.The fourth chapter further discusses Steinbeck’s solution to this problem considering the consequences of the excessive desire’s expansion in the Western world.Through the above analysis,this paper finds out that Taoist life attitudes of “few desires,reducing selfishness,contentment and non-contention” and the like are well reflected in the characters of the two novels.Steinbeck may propose that under the guidance of Lao Tzu’s philosophy of life,men can get rid of the control and repression of excessive desires,and regain the real freedom of life;men can reduce selfishness and do things without claiming credits,finally achieving the harmonious state where men can selflessly help each other.Cannery Row and East of Eden are impregnated with the wisdom and light of Taoist ideas,which endows his works with great and immortal vitality.These two novels are models of coalition of Eastern and Western civilizations,indicating that different civilizations can learn from and communicate with each other through mutual understanding and appreciation.