The Pastures of Heaven

The Pastures of Heaven is a novella written by John Steinbeck. Released in 1932, it tells of the Corral de Tiera (or the titular Pastures).

Characters[]

T.B. Allen - propiretor of a local general store.
Miss Morgan - an optimistic schoolteacher within the Pastures of Heaven
Bert Munroe - owner of the Battle farm.
Mae Munroe - teenage daughter of Burt Munroe.
Jimmie Munroe - teenage son of Burt Munroe. Obsessed with inventions.
Manfred "Manny" Munroe - the youngest child of the Munroe family. Stricken with brain damage by adenoids.
Mrs. Munroe - wife of Bert Munroe.
George Battle - the hardworking original owner of the Battle farm.
John Battle - son of George Battle. Stricken with manic religious fervour which (partially) causes his death.
Edward "Shark" Wicks - a supposed financial guru whom is actually extremely poor
Alice Wicks - daughter of Shark, an extremely beautiful but not very bright girl
Katherine Wicks - the wife of Shark
Franklin Gomez - a local rancher
Tularecito - a young boy whom is adopted by Franklin Gomez
Pancho - the deeply-religious "hired man" of Franklin Gomez
Helen van Dentever - a woman who revels in misery
Hilda van Dentever - Helen's deeply mentally ill daughter
Junius Maltby - a clerk who becomes extremely lazy after moving to the Pastures of Heaven
Robbie Maltby - Junius' son
Jakob Stutz - Junius' German servant

Publisher's summary[]

Each of these delightful interconnected tales is devoted to a family living in a fertile valley on the outskirts of Monterey, California, and the effects that one particular family has on them all.

Steinbeck tackles two important literary traditions here; American naturalism, with its focus on the conflict between natural instincts and the demand to conform to society's norms, and the short story cycle. Set in the heart of 'Steinbeck land', the lush Californian valleys.

Plot summary[]

Chapter One[]

In Spanish-owned California, an extremely savage and rapacious Spanish corporal captures several escaped Native Americans. While bringing them back to their Catholic mission, he finds an extremely beautiful patch of land and declares that it is "the green pastures to which our Lord leads us". Though he dies before he can lay claim to the land, the land is settled by various disparate farmers.

Chapter Two[]

One of these farmers, George Battle, builds his farm while still young. The first signs that things may go wrong on the farmstead rear their ugly heads almost immediately - George's mother dies while travelling to California and his wife (stricken with what the text calls epilepsy) tries to burn down the house several times before being institutionalized for the rest of her life. George dies in his sixties (largely from hard work). His son shares the "epilepsy" and religious fervour of his mother and dies from a snakebite.

The farm lays abandoned for several years before it is claimed by an odd family of immigrants. The family lives in the house for several years before suddenly vanishing without a single trace or clue to the cause of their sudden vanishing.

Due to the odd circumstances surrounding it, the Battle farm gains a reputation as a "haunted house". Local children heavily vandalize it. This changes once a man who believes he is stuck with a curse (Bert Munroe) moves into the farmstead with his family. He is able to turn the farm's fortunes around, making it into an opulent farm. When talking with locals, he says that his curse and the curse of the farm might have cancelled each other out.

Chapter Three[]

One of the many people living in the valley is a man named Edward Wicks. Due to his claims of great wealth and seemingly great financial advice, the people of the valley dub him "Shark". In actuality, Shark is extremely poor and never actually makes any investments - only writing his "investments" into a ledger book.

One day, Shark's wife Katherine gives birth to a beautiful baby girl named Alice. While her mother fears that Alice's beauty as a baby is a sign that she will become an ugly person as she grows up, Shark begins to view his daughter as a beautiful thing rather than a human being. As Alice grows, it becomes apparent that she is not very bright. Once his daughter turns fourteen, Shark becomes extremely worried about her being "deflowered" and becomes even more possessive over Alice - nagging his wife over every little detail. Katherine holds her tongue until he asks to have Alice examined by a doctor, which makes her blow up at her husband.

Around the same time, the Munroe family move into the valley. Shark becomes extremely suspicious of one of their members - the teenaged Jimmy who frequently brags about his misadventures. He forbids his daughter to even look at the young boy. After his aunt dies, Shark has to leave to visit the funeral (and to investigate a company he plans to "invest" in). While her husband is away, Katherine brings Alice to a dance where she and Jimmy kiss before they are found by Katherine. On returning, Shark finds out about this from a shopkeeper and steals a gun from his store before stalking out to the Munroe house. While there, Shark contemplates shooting Jimmy but finds that he is unable to do so. Shark is then arrested and forced to reveal that he never made an investment at his bond hearing. This briefly makes Shark absolutely despondent but his wife tells him that he can simply leave the valley and turn his life around.

Chapter Four[]

One day, Pancho - the "hired man" of a local rancher named Franklin Gomez who frequently ventures into Monterrey to get drunk - returns from one of his voyages in a frightened state revealing that he found a baby in the road that told him that it had "very sharp teeth". Despite his servant's extreme fright over the mysterious infant, Franklin finds the baby and adopts it - naming it Tularecito (or Little Frog). Though Tularecito's "brain [does] not grow any more" after he turns five, he shows great artistic skill. Pancho sees this as a sign of devilry in the boy's heart - something which is backed up by Tularecito's near-inhuman rage if his creations are destroyed. Ignoring this, Franklin puts Tularecito to work on his ranch due to the young boy being extremely strong yet exceedingly precise at farmwork.

Several years later, once Tularecito is eleven and after several other failed attempts to place "Little Frog" into a school, the state government demands that Franklin put his young ranchhand into a school. Though Franklin attempts to avoid this due to Tularecito's mental defects, he is forced to enroll the boy in school. On his first day in school, Tularecito covers the chalkboard with drawings of every single animal he has ever seen. Though the teacher is impressed with these drawings she tries to erase the drawings - leading to a battle which Tularecito wins with the entire school fleeing in terror. The teacher tries to get Franklin to whip Tularecito but the boy gives no reaction to being whipped. The next day, the teacher quits.

The next teacher is a young woman named Miss Morgan with a great passion for teaching. She gives Tularecito his own drawing pad and recites stories, starting out with novels such as Ivanhoe and The Call of the Wild (which Tularecito ignores) before changing to reading more fantastic stories. Tularecito becomes extremely interested in these tales - most notably in gnomes. One night, Miss Morgan finds her student wandering outside and encourages him to look for gnomes (whom Tularecito believes he is related to). As such, Tularecito digs holes in the orchard of the Munroe family. Bert Munroe notices one of the holes and fills it in - which Tularecito takes as a sign that he has found a group of gnomes. He then hides outside one of his holes and savagely attacks Bert while the farmer tries to fill one of the holes. Due to this attack and his mental disabilities, Tularecito is placed into an asylum for the rest of his life.

Chapter Five[]

Nearby the Corral del Tierra lived a woman named Helen Van Deventer. She is described as wallowing in grief - which seemingly follows her around. As a child, her father dies. Several years later, she marries a hunter named Herbert and falls pregnant with his kid. Only a few months after the marriage, Herbert dies in a hunting accident. Helen is left to raise her daughter (named Hilda) on her own. As Hilda grows, it is revealed that she is severely mentally ill. Despite this, Helen refuses to even consider sending her daughter to an asylum and decides to take care of Hilda all on her own.

As Hilda's mental illness worsens (causing her to frequently run away from home) and she becomes a teenager, Helen decides to move to the Corral de Tierra - building a log cabin at the edge of town with a room (more of a jail cell) for her daughter. Though Helen finds her new surroundings extremely peaceful, Hilda absolutely despises her surroundings. While Bert Munroe visits his new neighbours, Hilda tries to convince him that she has been kidnapped. Bert realizes that Hilda is deeply mentally ill and refuses to believe her. He instead visits the house - where Helen's Filipino servant turns Bert away.

Shortly after this, Helen begins exploring the nature around her new home. During this, she finds that the memory of her dead husband - originally a somewhat comforting memory - has turned into a depressing one. At dinner, Hilda talks about running away with Bert Munroe and marrying him. Later that night, after trying to remember her husband and finding that his figure has vanished, Helen hears her daughter escaping from her room. Helen takes out a shotgun and follows her daughter - shooting and killing her after finding her. She is able to convince the authorities that her daughter's death was a suicide and gets away with the murder.

Chapter Six[]

A man named Junius Maltby worked as a clerk - due to being "inextricably entangled" in the position after his father died bankrupt - in San Francisco. Shortly after his thirty-fifth birthday, Junius faints. His doctor recommends leaving San Francisco for a warm, dry climate. Due to this, Junius moves into the house of the "widow Quaker" in the Pastures of Heaven. While in the Pastures of Heaven, Junius becomes extremely lazy - spending most of his days reading and sitting by the side of a stream. His wife gives him two children but his children and pregnant wife are struck down by the Spanish influenza epidemic. During this, seemingly out of shock and not knowing what to do, Junius tried to impart knowledge onto his dying family. Though his wife dies, his son survives.

To help him around his land, Junius hires a German farmworker named Jakob Stutz - whom also succumbs to the same laziness. The two men name Junius' son "Robbie" (in honour of Robert Louis Stevenson, Junius' favorite author) and begin teaching the boy "nonsense" until, on his fifth birthday, they are made to enroll the boy in a school.

Due to Robbie's peaceable nature and natural leadership skills, other children flock to him despite his raggedy clothes and refusal to wear shoes - in fact, they begin emulating his style of clothing. Robbie begins inventing new elaborate games for his fellow schoolchildren to play. Meanwhile, Miss Morgan notices the young Robbie and, despite his terrible handwriting, finds that the boy is extremely bright. She visits the Maltby farm right in time to see Junius (portraying "three hundred Indians") preparing to burn Jakob (portraying "the President") at the stake as part of one of Robbie's games. Before Jakob can even be touched by the flames, he is rescued by Robbie and his fellow boys. Miss Morgan finds Robbie's life (along with the Maltby farm) to be idyllic despite their poverty.

One day in December, the schoolboard visits Miss Morgan's school. They find the school in disarray due to Robbie's influence though they decide not to close the school as they believe that "the children were not doing their best". They also decide to gift Robbie clothes, something Miss Morgan believes will only harm Robbie. When they try to give Robbie his new clothes, the boy flees as he finally realizes that he lives in poverty. As the holidays near, Miss Morgan decides to visit San Francisco. While walking up to the bus to the city, she sees Junius and his son (wearing new clothes). Junius reveals that he is leaving the Pastures to resume his job as a clerk, wishing for his son to not live like "an animal" any longer. Though Miss Morgan is dissapointed that the two are leaving their idyllic life, she decides to let them be.

Chapter Seven[]

After their father dies, the Lopez sisters (Maria and Rosa) are left alone on an extremely barren tract of land in the Pastures. To survive, the sisters decide to make their house into a restaurant and sell their tortillas (which they declare are some of the best in California, if not the world). Unfortunately, very few customers visit their restaurant.

One day, while Maria is away shopping, Rosa agrees to "encourage" a customer to buy more food with her body. Once Maria returns, the two agree to continue "encouraging" their customers while fervently praying to the Virgin Mary. Due to this, their business begins to flourish but they gain a reputation as "bad women". One day, while Maria is riding to and from Monterey, the sheriff visits the restaurant and shuts it down - claiming that he has gotten various complaints that the restaurant is actually a brothel. When Maria returns, she learns of this and decides to become a "bad woman" in San Francisco to keep their somewhat lavish lifestyle. Rosa decides to follow her sister.

Chapter Eight[]

After the previous teacher leaves due to Tularecito's battle, one Molly Morgan moves into the house of Pat Humbert in the Pastures of Heaven so that she can get the job. Mr. Humbert interviews Morgan on her past. Flashbacks to her childhood reveal that the Morgan family lived in poverty. Molly's father was a travelling salesman who visited various far-off locations and brought back gifts for his children along with various other children in the neighbourhood. One day, Molly's father doesn't return from one of his visits. Though Molly's mother believes her husband has died, her children refuse to give up hope. While her brothers joined the navy, Molly went to college to get a teaching degree.

Soon, Molly is hired and becomes a figure of learned authority within the Pastures. Shortly after being hired, she visits an old house which was used by a bandit named Vasquez where she has a vision of her father. She is soon invited into the school board. During one of these meetings, Bert Munroe begins talking about his new farmhand - a drunk who frequently talks about visiting fantastical locations. Assuming that this is her father, Molly becomes extremely nervous with the prospect of meeting her father and decides to flee the Pastures for Salinas.

Chapter Nine[]

In the Pastures of Heaven lived a farmer named Raymond Banks. A somewhat successful chicken farmer, Raymond entertains local children by slaughtering chickens in front of them (but never letting them kill a chicken as he worries they would mess up the job and bring needless suffering to the chickens) and (due to being friends with the warden) watches over hangings at the San Quentin Prison.

Shortly after moving to the Valley, Bert Munroe meets Raymond and befriends him. He is fascinated yet perturbed by the concept of watching over a hanging and plans on accompanying Raymond while he visits a hanging. Before he can actually join on the expedition, Bert thinks it over and finds himself more disturbed than intrigued by the concept of watching a hanging. He fears that the execution might go wrong and that he would witness a needlessly gruesome death. When Bert voices this to Raymond, his "friend" curses him out (calling him a coward). While eating dinner, Raymond decides to invite the warden to his home instead of visiting another execution.

Chapter Ten[]

As a child, Pat Humbert was raised by his somewhat elderly and extremely controlling parents. They resented him due to his vivacity and attempted to stifle any joy that he could have gotten from it. Despite this, Pat dutifully cared for them. After his parents died (mere weeks from each other) while Pat was thirty, Pat continued to hear their thoughts in his mind. During his father's funeral, the sitting room (considered a sacred room by Pat due to his parents keeping it as neat as possible) is disturbed. At first, Pat wishes to rectify this but decides to simply lock up the room as an act of rebellion.

To keep himself from thinking of his parents and his loneliness, Pat toils on his farm by day and begins to somewhat ingratiate himself within the society of the Pastures. Though he joins many groups within the Pastures (such as the Stonemasons and the Odd Fellows), he remains something of an outsider to them - seeking companionship but not seeking to join their member fully. Ten years pass and in this time, a large rose bush grows on the side of Pat's essentially abandoned house.

One day, Mae Munroe spots this rose bush and says that it should be beautiful on the inside - like a "Vermont house". On hearing this, Pat becomes obsessed with the idea of having a Vermont house. He leaves basically all of his social connections and begins work on renovating the sitting room. First, he burns everything in the room in a massive fire before beginning work on the renovation. During this work, Pat begins to think up a scenario in which he brings Mae to the room and begins a relationship with her.

After finishing the room, Pat slowly builds up the courage to ask Mae out and perfect his scenario. He visits the Munroe house only to discover that the Munroes are celebrating Mae's engagement to Bill Whiteside. Broken by this news, Pat returns to working on his farm and avoids his "beautiful Vermont home" as much as possible.

Chapter Eleven[]

As a farmer named Richard Whiteside moves into the Pastures, he sees a gust of wind blowing through the Valley. He takes this as a sign that this is the place he should settle in and build a sprawling mansion in the Pastures. Richard's main goal is to fill this mansion with a large family and he has visions of this family while building his mansion. He soon marries a young woman named Alicia with whom he plans to make a large family. While his son grows in his wife's belly, Richard has her look at a picture of Michelangelo's David in the hopes that their son will resemble the statue. The birth is an arduous process and Alicia's doctor warns Richard that she might die if she gives birth to another child. Five years later, Richard and Alicia decide to try for another child. Six months into this pregnancy, Alicia's baby dies and she is made an invalid.

Seeing that he cannot produce a large family, Richard decides to pass this desire alongside his (and his father's) love for the works of Herodotus, Xenophon, and Thucyclides onto his son John. John grows into a man and marries a young woman named Willa shortly after his father dies from an illness. John becomes something of a calming local figure - hosting political events in his home while using his love of the Classic historians to smooth over any aggressions and befriending Bert Munroe. Though John thinks of making a large family, he only sires one son with his wife. He attempts to pass on the virtues of the historians onto his son Bill but finds him unreceptive. Though he fears that this is because his son is stupid, he finds that his son is an extremely gifted businessman even as a child.

Some time later, Bill marries Mae Munroe. He reveals that he plans to move to Monterey with his wife. Though John attempts to stop this, he gradualy begins to accept it and returns to farmwork - finding his farm overrun with brush. He decides to burn down the brush with Bert's help. While doing this, a breeze catches the fire and sets the house alight. Once his wife leaves the house, John watches the house burn. His only regret is that an old Meerschaum pipe was destroyed in the fire.

Chapter Twelve[]

During a bus tour of California, the bus winds through the Salinas Valley. During this time, its various occupants see it as an extremely beautiful and nigh-heavenly place that they wish to live in. Even the bus driver thinks of moving to the Valley as he drives through it.

Title	Author	Release date	Significance
Cannery Row	John Steinbeck	1945	A novel by the same author with similar themes
Texas	James A. Michener	1985	A novel with somewhat similar themes
Of Mice and Men	John Steinbeck	1937	A novella with similar themes