Breakfast

Breakfast
John Steinbeck




Question # 1
Describe the setting of the story?

John Ernest stein beck is an articulate and socially conscious artist. He perfectly understands human feelings and aestheticises them as a consummate artist. “
Breakfast” is a short story in which purity of living is described. It has been written in the background of rural ways of life. The venue of the event is a beautiful valley. The time is early in the morning before the sunrise. The wind is very raw and cold. The mountains at the eastern side look black- blue but there is a faint tinge of orange light behind them. The sky is dark but slightly turning in to gray and then white. The earth is gray like lavender. The writer is walking on a country road when he sees a dark gray tent ahead of him… Near the tent a rusty old stove is burning with orange flame flickering out and making a dancing reflection on the tent. Beside the stove a young girl is working with a baby in her lap. This is a beautiful pure and refreshing scene away from the polluted and corrupted environment of the cities. The air and landscape present a sense of unblemished nature with its true structure and worth. The purity of this scene makes an everlasting impression on the writer’s mind and it does not fail to make an impression on the reader either.

Question # 2
What were the ways of the people?

Once, early in the morning, the writer happened to come across a gypsy family. He was walking on a country road when he saw a tent erected on a distance. A stove was burning beside the tent. The air was too cold and the writer went closer to the stove to warm his hands. It was an old rusty stove with many cracks in it. The young women working on the stove was dressed in a faded cotton skirt and waist. She was carrying a baby who was nursing without interfering with her graceful movements. She had long hair plaited at the back that swung here and there when she moved about.
A little later two men came out of the tent. They looked much alike except for their age. The older had a gray stubble beard while the younger had a dark one. Their hands and faces were wet and they stood facing the east… looking towards the lightening eastern horizon. They greeted the writer and invited him to have breakfast with them. Meanwhile the girl had set a packing box as a table and had placed tin cups, plates, and spoons on it. She served them with hot coffee, fried bacon, bacon gravy and high big biscuits. The writer said that it was the warmest, pleasantest odor he had ever known.
Before starting the breakfast, both men thanked Christ and God for the blessing of good food. They ate with delight and were thanking God and Christ again and again. They told the writer that they had been working for twelve days in cotton fields and that’s why they had been eating well. They proudly told him that they had bought new dungarees even. They offered the writer to get him employed at the same fields but the writer politely thanked them. It was unexpected for the writer because in urban life, people are acquainted with a tough, cutthroat competition and they never offer anything to any one. But these were simple people who not only entertained him with a splendid food but also offered him an employment. This was the time of 1930’s trade depression when people had been unemployed, poor and hungry on a massive scale. Many people were reported to be murdered on question of only a little piece of bread. In all these conditions, the attitude of these nomads was shocking to the writer because they had behaved in an unusually simple, straightforward and sincere way. They were aliens to the calculated and cunning attitude of the urban folk. They lived in nature and they shared its purity and sincerity. They did not have any grudge or complaints against anyone. They were contented on what ever they had though they knew that cotton picking was a seasonal work. They were in sheer poverty before. Eating well for twelve days mattered a lot to them. This explicated John Steinbeck’s notion of “self sufficiency of every human being”. He is of the view that man does not need money or material advancement to be happy and contented. It is something that springs out of the soul and urges a man to realize and enjoy even the single grain of comfort in life. The characters of the story were simple God-fearing people who possessed the treasure of contentment and satisfaction in spite of their acute poverty.

Question # 3
Bring out the elements of universality from the story?

The experience of the writer with a family of daily labourers was very exhilarating and elevating. He had come face to face with a new dimension of life that is exotic to the urban folk living in dark congested industrial cities.

The writer happened to come across a gypsy family who lived in tents and moved around in search of work. He did not name the area where they were present neither he mentioned the names of any of the characters. Thus making them universal in implications. The purity of living has been asserted through this short story and the writer narrates this event to appeal the whole world. People living in any area of the world are confronted with the problem of mad rush after the material gains. The urge to get more and more has hardened the hearts of people, making them apathetic and heartless. The human sympathy and compassion are the most alien words today. Every individual has focused on mounting up the ladder of social and economic development as soon as possible. The truth and simplicity have been trampled in this “marathon” of becoming wealthy. But… still there are some quarters of society that are away from these corrupted and sick practices. Still there are some people who have a cocoon of contentment and satisfaction around them. The poor family of the story was so badly off that they were so proud at having good food and new clothes for just twelve days. This attitude contrasts strikingly with the attitude of the modern societies…. and here lies the thesis of the writer who wants to assert that satisfaction does not lie in material advancement rather it is an attitude that springs out of a contented soul. So he urges the whole world to recognize the truth of living and stop running behind the mere shadows of development and prosperity.

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