The Snakes: Steinbeck, Himes, and the Development of American Noir

Abstract John Steinbeck’s 1935 short story “The Snake” is notable primarily for introducing the character Doc—an analogue of Steinbeck’s friend and colleague Ed Ricketts—who would go on to appear in Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday. “The Snake” should also be considered an innovation, as it is an early example of noir fiction, an American literary and cultural style which rose to prominence only later in the century. Noir has not previously been tied to Steinbeck or “The Snake” in the scholarship, and so the questions are posed: what, exactly, is literary noir fiction and why does “The Snake” qualify? Literary noir has certain markers that “The Snake” demonstrates, most notably a pervasive sense of disorientation, cynicism, and death. Viewing “The Snake” as an early innovation can be used to help track the rapid development of literary noir in mid-century by comparing it to another short story released just two decades later: Chester Himes’s “The Snake,” published in 1959. Considering Steinbeck’s “The Snake” alongside Himes’s piece of the same name also sheds light on what the scholarship has recognized as a notable gap in Steinbeck’s otherwise egalitarian sociopolitical perspective—that of Black Americans.