How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
[Lee Chong] trusted his clients until further trust became ridiculous. Sometimes he made business errors, but even these he turned to advantage in good will if in no other way (1.4)
Lee Chong isn't just a guy who owns a business; he's a guy who owns a business in a community. In order to stay in business, he's got to store up as much good will with everybody as he does cold, hard cash.
Quote #2
Of [Dora's] girls some are fairly inactive due to age and infirmities, but Dora never puts them aside although, as she says, some of them don't turn three tricks a month but they go right on eating three meals a day (3.2)
It's part of Dora's job to take care of the women who can't work anymore. Like Lee Chong, she's not just a hard-nosed business woman, she also runs a kind of old age home for old prostitutes. Dora, Doc and Lee Chong all see it as their duty to take care of the people in town who need it.
Quote #3
And the loneliness—the desolate cold aloneness of the landscape made Andy whimper because there wasn't anybody at all in the world and he was left (4.4)
This is what Andy sees and feels when he looks into the eyes of the old Chinaman. Get it? One of the scariest moments in the text is about the awfulness of being all alone. That makes sense in Cannery Row, because almost no one has everything they need all by themselves. They need to other people in the community to help them get by.
Quote #4
But Mack knew that some kind of organization was necessary particularly among such a group of ravening individualists. [ . . . ] Each man had property rights inviolable in his space. He could legally fight a man who encroached on his square. The rest of the room was property common to all (7.1-7.3)
Mack and the boys are a community within the community of Cannery Row, and, like any community, they need rules and regulations. Mack even sets up laws in his little city—and it seems like people obey him. Do rules help keep a community strong?
Quote #5
It was a bad time for [Dora] but she did it. The Greek cook made a ten-gallon cauldron of strong soup and kept it full and kept it strong. The girls tried to keep up their business but they went in shifts to sit with the families, and they carried pots of soup when they went (16.11)
When things get tough, the tough girls of the Bear Flag Restaurant head out with their soup. This is community, Shmoopers. Prostitutes bringing you chicken soup. Remember that for the next election cycle.
Quote #6
In spite of his friendliness and his friends Doc was a lonely and set-apart man. Mack probably noticed it more than anybody. In a group, Doc seemed always alone (17.1)
Is Doc a part of the Cannery Row community at all? Well, on the one hand, he's friends with everyone. On the other hand, he really seems to stand apart from everyone and he never asks anyone for favors. You can't be a community of one.
Quote #7
Mack and the boys were under a cloud and they knew it and they knew they deserved it. They had become social outcasts.
A community isn't just about who's in it, it's also about who's out of it. You know, like Mean Girls.
Quote #8
Perhaps some electrical finder could have been developed so delicate that it could have located the source of all this spreading joy and fortune. And triangulation might possibly have located it in the Palace Flophouse and Grill (25.5)
So, things go badly for everybody in Cannery Row when things are going badly for Mack and the boys. And when things turn around, it somehow all comes from their pad. Without Mack and the boys, would they even have a community?
Quote #9
Mack and the boys—the Virtues, the Beatitudes, the Beauties. They sat in the Palace Flophouse and they were the stone dropped in the pool, the impulse which sent out ripples to all of Cannery Row and beyond, to Pacific Grove, to Monterey, even over the hill to Carmel (27.1)
In Cannery Row, community has some mystical, woo-woo aspects. Mack and the boys aren't just some bums who live in the center of town, they are the center of town. Hmm. Maybe community is the true religion of Cannery Row.
Quote #10
People didn't get the news of the party—the knowledge of it just slowly grew up in them. And no one was invited. Everyone was going.
We're starting to get the feeling that this isn't the community throwing a party for Doc; it's Doc throwing a party for the community. Makes sense. He brings them together, but he can't ever really be a part of it. No wonder he wipes away a single tear.