Tortilla Flat Themes

The whole plot of Tortilla Flat revolves around a group of pals who live in their buddy Danny's house. In fact, Steinbeck refers to the gang as a whole as "Danny's House" (yes, that's a capital H)...

In Tortilla Flat, the theme of dissatisfaction comes up in some peculiar ways. This isn't just the story of poor people who want to get ahead, or rich people who can never have enough. It's really...

Danny's House in Tortilla Flat is so much more than just a house. It's a symbol of the band of friends who live in it; the friends are even collectively known as "Danny's House." There's a differen...

What's the one thing motivating most the characters in Tortilla Flat? That's right: wine.Danny and his friends live from one gallon to the next. They often work a whole day or spend a whole day ste...

Bad boys, whatcha gonna do?In Tortilla Flat, pretty much anything, actually.The characters in this novel pretty much live their lives outside of the law, but somehow, it's not really that big of a...

If the title Tortilla Flat tells us anything, it's that the novel is about a community. Steinbeck goes into painstaking detail to define the people who live in Tortilla Flat, and what interests him...

Even though we usually get a nice, shiny picture of life in Tortilla Flat, full of shenanigans and funny goings-on, the area is actually the poor part of Monterey, and the people who live there hav...

In case there's any doubt in your mind, for the paisanos populating John Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat, religion means one thing: the Catholic Church. The poor folks pray to the Virgin Mary, to Saint C...