Personal Narrative: My Trip To The National Steinbeck Center

My Trip to the National Steinbeck Center It was a gloomy, wintry Tuesday morning, and the rain seemed to be striking the ground like a hail of arrows. Unfortunately, this was the day my mom and I had decided to visit the National Steinbeck Center, a museum in Old Town Salinas dedicated to the Nobel Prize winning American author, John Steinbeck. Steinbeck grew up in Salinas, and wrote powerful, enthralling books, such as East of Eden, based on his experiences there. He is known for his meaningful stories with universal themes that describe his true perspective of the world and its people. Personally, I was not too excited on the trip to the museum, because I had not read too many of Steinbeck’s works and felt unsuited to visit the center all about him. However, after I was able to thoroughly tour the museum, I realized for myself how captivating Steinbeck’s life and books are through the unforgettable exhibits.

The exhibits at the National Steinbeck Center were very interesting and informational. They mainly detailed Steinbeck’s personal life, achievements, novels, and motivations to
Fortunately, by touring the National Steinbeck Center, I was able to learn how Steinbeck came to write The Pearl and his original plans for the work. After befriending Ed Ricketts, Steinbeck frequently took small trips with him along the California coast as a break from his writing. On one trip, Steinbeck financed a scientific collecting trip to Baja California with Ed, in which he visited La Paz, Mexico, and learned about the folk tale of the pearl. Enthralled, he completed the manuscript for The Pearl in 1945 originally as a movie script, and in 1947, The Pearl was turned into a film, which became the first Mexican movie to be widely distributed in America. It feels so special being able to have read a book with such an interesting history behind