Coyote

The coyote is a persistent presence in the natural world of the Salinas Valley, a creature that embodies the region's wildness and its capacity for both survival and predation. Steinbeck uses the coyote not merely as a piece of local color but as a recurring motif that deepens the novel's exploration of marginality, hunger, and the ambiguous nature of wildness itself. From the earliest descriptions of the valley's history to the nocturnal movements of its predators, the coyote marks the boundary between the settled human world and the untamed landscape that presses against it.

Role in the Valley's Ecology and History

The coyote is introduced as part of the valley's original fauna, a creature that lived alongside the first human inhabitants. In the early history of the Salinas Valley, the Spanish ranchers periodically killed cattle for their hides and tallow, leaving the meat to the vultures and coyotes, establishing the coyote as a scavenger that thrives on human waste and death. This pattern of subsistence on the leftovers of a more prosperous economy continues into the modern era of the novel. The coyote is also described as a brother to the wandering tramps of the 1890s, living close to man and his chicken yards, near towns but not in them. This parallel positions the coyote as a symbol of the rootless, the desperate, and those who live on the fringes of settled society, surviving by cunning and adaptability rather than by strength or ownership.

Predator and Prey: The Nocturnal World

The coyote is a creature of the night, a predator that works the slopes under the moonlight. In a vivid passage describing the nocturnal life of the valley, the coyotes are shown nuzzling along the slopes and, torn with sorrow-joy, raising their heads and shouting their feeling, half keen, half laughter, at their goddess moon. This description captures the coyote's dual nature: it is a predator, but its cry is not purely aggressive; it is an expression of a complex emotion that blends pain and mirth. This duality mirrors the novel's own treatment of its human characters, who are often torn between opposing impulses. The coyote's howl is a sound of the wild, a reminder of the untamed forces that exist just beyond the reach of human civilization.

Symbol of Marginality and Cunning

The coyote is explicitly linked to the poorest and most desperate human inhabitants of the valley. The ragged families scattered through the barren hills, trying to scratch a living from the thin flinty soil, are said to live clever, despairing, submarginal lives alongside the coyotes. This association reinforces the coyote as a symbol of those who are forced to live by their wits on the edge of survival. The creature's cunning is also noted in a folkloric context: a fox dips his paws in a stream to fool dogs, but a coyote's methods are implied to be similarly instinctive and clever. The coyote is not a noble beast but a survivor, and its presence in the novel serves as a constant reminder of the harsh realities of the natural world and the human world that mirrors it.

The Coyote as a Figure of Ambiguity

Beyond its ecological and symbolic roles, the coyote also appears in the novel as a figure of ambiguous moral weight. When Samuel Hamilton, in a moment of frustration, accuses Adam Trask of nosing over his life like a coyote sniffing around a dead cow, the comparison is insulting, suggesting a scavenger's interest in decay. Yet the coyote's howl, described as a blend of sorrow and joy, also carries a kind of wild beauty. This ambiguity is central to the novel's vision: the coyote is neither purely good nor purely evil, but a creature that simply is what it is, acting according to its nature. In this, it serves as a counterpoint to the human characters who struggle with questions of morality, choice, and identity. The coyote does not question its own nature; it simply lives it, a fact that both contrasts with and illuminates the human condition as depicted in the novel.