Tortilla Flat

A work dedicated to the colorful world of the slums of the Californian city of Monterey in the 1930s. The reader will meet very unusual characters, descendants of Indians, Mexicans, and Americans. They mainly engage in petty theft, illegal schemes, and often find themselves behind bars. However, despite this, the reader somehow feels sympathy for them. Their rough manners are combined with lofty aspirations, a tendency towards hypocrisy turns into touching innocence, and cunning and trickery are suddenly replaced by selflessness and altruism. Steinbeck himself wrote in the preface to Tortilla Flat about his heroes: All of these are people I know and love; people who adapt wonderfully to their surroundings. This trait of human nature is called a truly philosophical attitude toward life, and it is a wonderful thing.