When discussing “Tortilla Flat” by John Steinbeck in my book group today, we noticed something about the book: all the characters address each other with “thou”, “thine”, and “thee”. At first it sounded kind of shakespearean, but as the book went on, it was clear that it was not a very shakespearean story. No, the tone didn’t resemble shakespeare, but it did resemble a more medieval sort of story: one with knights, and kings.  Also, the story revolves around Danny, who owns a house, and all his friends, who live in his house, and constantly get drunk. Indeed, the whole story thus far could be summarized pretty accurately: [character(s) name(s) here] aquire(s) some small amount of money, and then thinks of giving it to [other character], who they owe money. Instead, they justify their shortcomings and go buy a gallon of wine, and get really drunk. It is a story where the heros are drunken parasites, and the drunken parasites are heros. This is a new thing in the thirties,  when this book was written. Widespread extreme poverty was a new thing (in the white community at least, but that is a different post), and people hadn’t quite figured out how to cope with it. For much of the depression, america was vaguely ashamed of itself. The hobo (tramp, beggar, call them what you want) had never been so omnipresent, and people didn’t like them, because they would look and think “that could be me!”, or, if they were a hobo “damn! that is me!” Anyway, society suddenly had to find a way to deal with hundreds of thousands of hobo’s. And by “deal with” i don’t mean “rehabilitate and integrate into the work force”, i mean “try and rationalize so you don’t go crazy with shame and depression.” around this time there started to be hobo clowns, with their cute bindles and big shoes, painted with exaggerated frowns and tear stains.  This book might have been another way of tackling the hobo issue: beggar as hero!  Portray the extreme ingenuity and courage it takes to get by with no resources!  That is what this book does, drawing a parallel to the knights of the round table.                                       Another interesting theme the book brings up is Feudalism, which is the system Danny seems to have with his friends. Technically, he is the one who owns the house, but they all use it.  But in return, he holds most of the power in their relationship, and they have sworn loyalty to him, to be in his service. I don’t know if Steinbeck was trying to make a point with this comparison, or if our book group made it up. Anyway, i encourage anyone who wants to learn more about hobo’s to watch this video on youtube.  It is by John Hodgeman, the preeminent hobo scholar.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1JIa5r5nkE