Tortilla Flat

Steinbeck's first success retells the Arthurian legends with wine-stained paisanos instead of armored knights, finding nobility in men who own nothing. It is warm, funny, and quietly sad about friendship, poverty, and possession. Read it if you love Cannery Row, want early Steinbeck before the heavy masterpieces, or enjoy comic novels with a melancholy undertow.

1. 1

   Act 1

   The Heir and His Knights

   Danny comes home from the war, where he drove mules, and learns from Alvarado the jailer that his grandfather has died leaving him two houses in Tortilla Flat. He gets drunk immediately, lands in jail, and shares wine with the jailer at Torelli's before escaping. Under a cypress tree he finds his friend Pilon and offers him brandy and a place to live. Pilon accepts the brandy and says he will rent the house, though both men understand he will never pay a cent. Pilon kills Mrs. Morales's rooster with a rock, trades the dead bird to Señora Torelli for a gallon of wine and a bunch of paper roses, and hands the roses to Danny as rent. He then sublets half his house to Pablo, and Pablo and Pilon sublet a corner to Jesus Maria Corcoran. Then Pablo lights a candle to Saint Francis, leaves to drink wine with Pilon, and the candle burns the rented house down while Danny, next door with Mrs. Morales, pays no attention. Homeless, Pilon, Pablo, and Jesus Maria sleep in the pine forest, wake to smell a family cooking a picnic lunch, steal the entire meal, and carry it to Danny's remaining house. The four share the food and swear to live together.

2. 2

   Act 2

   The Pirate's Treasure

   Into the household comes the Pirate, a mentally disabled man who lives with five dogs in a chicken coop. Pilon invites him to stay at Danny's house. The Pirate once promised God he would buy a golden candlestick for Saint Francis if his sick dog recovered; the dog recovered, then got run over by a truck, but the vow stands. The Pirate earns twenty-five cents a day selling kindling, lives on food scraps, and saves every quarter. When he reveals a canvas bag holding one thousand quarters, two hundred and fifty dollars, the friends are shamed into helping him keep the promise. On Saint Andrew's Eve, Pilon and Joe Portagee hunt buried treasure in the woods and see a faint light marking a spot. The next night they dig and unearth a brass plate reading 'United States Geodetic Survey + 1915 + Elevation 600 Feet.' Taking it would be a crime, so they abandon it and get drunk on the Seaside beach instead. Joe Portagee steals a blanket from Danny to trade for wine, and Pilon punishes him for robbing their host: he recovers the blanket and trades Joe's serge pants for more wine, leaving Joe naked and unconscious on the beach. Danny trades stolen copper nails to Mr. Simon for a vacuum cleaner and gives it to Sweets Ramirez, who has no electricity. She pushes the machine across her floor humming, pretending it works, and Danny wins her affection, spending every evening there until Pilon trades the vacuum to Torelli for wine. Torelli then discovers the motor is pretend too, just a piece of wood inside, and complains he was cheated.

3. 3

   Act 3

   Love, Death, and a Bag of Quarters

   The Pirate's bag of quarters disappears from Danny's house, and the friends beat Big Joe Portagee unconscious, believing he stole it. They carry the thousand quarters to Father Ramon, who buys the golden candlestick for Saint Francis and spends the remainder on a feast. In San Carlos Church the Pirate sees his candlestick placed before the statue of Saint Francis, and his five dogs rush in and must be removed. Later he tells the dogs stories about Saint Francis, and they suddenly stare at something behind him that he cannot see. He believes it is a holy vision. Jesus Maria brings a young corporal and his sick baby to the house; a captain stole the corporal's wife, and the man wanted his baby to become a general because 'if a mere captain can take your wife, think what a general could take.' The baby dies, and the friends sit with the moral. Big Joe finds love in a downpour: he drinks Tia Ignacia's wine and falls asleep, and she beats him in the muddy street for drinking her wine and not making advances toward her. Mid-beating, Joe is stricken with lust, and a policeman tells them to stop what they are doing in the middle of the road. When rain ruins the bean crop, Teresina Cortez's nine children, who eat only tortillas and beans yet are found remarkably healthy by the school doctor, go hungry. Danny's friends steal food all over Monterey, and the rich diet makes the children sick, until four stolen sacks of beans appear at the door. Teresina calls it a miracle, the children recover, and she discovers she is pregnant again, wondering which of Danny's friends is responsible.

4. 4

   Act 4

   Danny's Fall and the Burning House

   Jesus Maria tells of Petey Ravanno, who won Gracie Montez's love by hanging himself from a tree outside her window and being rescued at exactly the right moment, convincing her of his devotion. Petey's father, the viejo Ravanno, tried the same trick to win a woman's love, but the door blew shut at the wrong moment, nobody saw him, and he died. Danny begins to brood. He disappears into the forest, and his friends cannot find him. Torelli arrives with a bill of sale showing Danny sold his house for twenty-five dollars, and the friends steal the paper and burn it. Danny's friends work a full day cutting squid for Chin Kee to earn money for a party. All of Tortilla Flat gathers at Danny's house. He drinks heavily, enjoys many women, and challenges every man to fight, swinging a broken table leg. Then he falls forty feet into a gulch and dies; his friends find him at the bottom with a broken neck. Danny's friends cannot dress properly for his military funeral, so they watch from the gulch and tell stories about him. Afterward, Pilon steals wine from Torelli's, and they drink together. Pablo sings 'Tuli Pan' as a small fire accidentally starts in Danny's house. The friends watch it burn in approval, doing nothing to save it. When the house is in ashes, they walk away, no two together.

• DDannyA mule-driver home from the war who inherits two houses and becomes the reluctant lord of Tortilla Flat. Ownership slowly crushes him; he goes mad, sells his house, and dies in a fall at his own farewell party.
• PPilonThe cleverest of the friends, a schemer who trades roosters, blankets, and pants for wine while insisting on his own honor. He punishes theft from the host, guards the Pirate's vow, and steals the wine for Danny's wake.
• PPabloPilon's subtenant and drinking companion, whose candle to Saint Francis burns down the house and whose song 'Tuli Pan' soundtracks its final burning.
• JJesus Maria CorcoranA good man and hopeless romantic who keeps taking in strays, from a corporal with a dying baby to stories of hanged lovers. He is the group's soft heart.
• TThe PirateA mentally disabled man with five dogs who sells kindling for twenty-five cents a day and saves every quarter to buy Saint Francis a golden candlestick. The only paisano who works, and the only one who keeps a vow.
• BBig Joe PortageeA thief and drunk who steals from his own host, gets beaten unconscious twice, and finds love while being beaten by Tia Ignacia in a muddy road.
• TTeresina CortezAn unmarried mother of nine who feeds her children nothing but tortillas and beans, gleans the fields, and keeps producing babies with seemingly no particular help.
• TTorelliThe local shopkeeper, cheated on a vacuum cleaner with a wooden motor, who holds Danny's bill of sale and loses the wine Pilon steals. The book's devil in an apron.

Danny's House

The Round Table itself, the talisman that binds the knights. It shelters the Pirate's treasure, the corporal's dying baby, and every stolen feast. When Danny dies, the friends let it burn and watch in approval, because the house only had meaning while the king lived.

The Golden Candlestick

The Pirate's thousand quarters melted into a gift for Saint Francis, the one treasure in the book that is honestly earned and freely given. It stands before the statue in San Carlos Church, proof that a vow kept is worth more than anything the friends ever stole.

The Vacuum Cleaner

A machine with a pretend motor, a piece of wood inside, run on imagination and humming. It stands for the whole paisano economy: value exists because everyone agrees to pretend, and Torelli, the one man who keeps real accounts, is the one who feels cheated.

The Bag of Quarters

A thousand two-bitses hidden in the woods, the Pirate's slow miracle of patience. Its disappearance and return drive the book's central test of the friends' honor, and its conversion into a candlestick turns hoarded money into grace.

The ending refuses both tragedy and consolation. The friends watch Danny's house burn with approval, doing nothing to save it, because the fire completes something: the Round Table cannot outlive its king, and preserving the building would be a kind of lie. Then they walk away, no two together, which is the book's coldest and most honest gesture. One reading is that the fellowship was never an institution, only a halo around Danny, and it dies with him. Another is that each man carries the Round Table inside himself now, and walking alone is how knights mourn. The comic novel lands as an elegy: the same fire that destroyed the talisman proves the friends understood exactly what Danny's house meant. They do not save it; they honor it by letting it go.

1. 1.Is the Arthurian frame affectionate parody or a serious claim that the poor live by a real chivalric code? Test it against the Pirate's vow and Pilon's punishment of Joe for stealing from Danny.
2. 2.Danny is the only character who owns property, and he is the one who goes mad and dies. What is the book arguing about ownership, and does the Pirate's candlestick complicate it?
3. 3.The ending has the friends watch the house burn and then separate. Does this destroy the fellowship the novel celebrated, or complete it?

Readers who loved Cannery Row and want to meet its rowdier ancestor, and anyone who likes comic novels with an elegiac undertow. Also ideal for Steinbeck fans curious about the book that made his career.

FAQ