Cannery Row...?

Question

I need help on Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck. I'm looking for examples of optimism throughout the novel. I currently have:

Mack and the boys about their optimism with the Palace Flophouse and Grill and Lee Chong with his business transactions, but I need a third. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Perhaps you can get something from one of the following scenarios.

Frankie comes to the lab and befriends Doc. He loves Doc better than his mother and the uncles at home. He tries to repeat his success offering a beer to a lady and drops the tray.

Mack medicates Nola and is offered the pick of her litter. The captain opens a keg of corn liquor and they all have several short ones. Mack's new method of hunting frogs yields six or seven hundred. After more short ones they douse the burning curtains and leave the happy captain asleep on the floor.

Mack convinces Lee to treat the frogs as money. Lee winds up with all the frogs. The boys decorate the laboratory. Eddie bakes a cake which Darling (the spoiled pup) gets sick in. They drink all the Old Tennis Shoes and eat the steaks and break the phonograph records, and a drunk crashes into the frog box (they escape).

All of Cannery Row begins to prepare for the party. Even Doc finally gets wind of it, from a drunk, and makes his own preparations (putting away valuables, putting in food).