Jacob B

John Steinbeck interweaves a variety of complex commentary throughout the book, offering an insight into the world of the character. Having read this in 9th grade, we picked apart this commentary without looking at the novella as a whole. When considering its placement in a standard curriculum, it is highly out of place. This story lacks any plot throughout the novel, simply following a somewhat thrown together idea of character growth. The ending is technically foreshadowed, but the first 4 chapters lack any form of inciting incident, the fifth offering the incident and the sixth chapter climaxing and ending the novella. It does have good layers, but again, in the standard curriculum, the novella falls short of representing the ideas of writing and would be a better fit for a social studies class surrounding the Great Depression. Furthermore, the writing style may fail to entice readers due to the jarring switch of perfect grammar to slang words, equally so, the descriptions really only take place at the beginning, making this novella a play script more than a story to be read. To summarize, this content is very low and bland, only being of use for commentary; though easily picked apart, it's missing the key elements that should be required for standard education as it lacks the plot elements that need to be included for a proper case study for American Literature.