William Saroyan - (1908-1981)
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San Pedro High School, San Pedro, California
I. Biography
William Saroyan was born on August 31, 1908. He was the fourth child two Armenian immigrants, Armenak and Takoohi Saroyan. Armenak died of a ruptured appendix before William was three years old. Takoohi was forced to put her four children in an orphanage. The kids were to stay in the orphanage until Takoohi could make ends meet. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months and months turned into years. Saroyan missed his mother very badly even though she visited every weekend. However, Saroyan missed no one more than his dead father. As time passed, Takoohi could feel that she was growing farther and farther apart from Saroyan. In attempt to form a closer relationship with Saroyan, Takoohi took Saroyan to her home in San Francisco to live with her for a while. Takoohi even enrolled Saroyan into a school in San Francisco. The orphanage didn't approve of this and Saroyan was returned to the home in his disappointment.
Takoohi sent Saroyan gifts but this wasn't enough for Saroyan. He still missed her. However, Saroyan became a favorite of the workers at the home. William would do a lot of things to get attention. He would whistle in the chapel and even run away from the orphanage.
Finally, after staying at the home for five long years, Saroyan, his brother, and two sisters got the best news they'd had in a long time. They would be reunited with their mother. This news pleased Saroyan tremendously. That's the news he'd been waiting to hear for five years.
When the kids arrived in Fresno to meet their mother, they were greeted by an uncle they had never met before. After arriving at the house, the kids saw their mother along with unfamiliar aunts, uncles, and cousins. Saroyan found himself surrounded by people who spoke a foreign language and ate foreign food. Fortunately, Saroyan would become familiar with everything and everyone. Saroyan decided to go to a public high school. However, in 1925, Saroyan dropped out of school without a diploma because of repeated disciplinary expulsions. Saroyan worked for many places after school. Saroyan moved to Los Angeles to have a brief stint as a California National Guard, then moved to San Francisco, after a short reconciliation with the family, to work as a clerk-typist for the Southern Pacific, and finally worked as a manager for Postal Telegraph.
After a year of moving from job to job, Saroyan brought Takoohi, Henry, Zabel, and Cosette to San Francisco to live with him. Saroyan spent a year in San Francisco with his family before he moved to New York because of the success of a story he submitted to the Overland Monthly publishing company. Saroyan spent a year in New York when he became homesick and moved back to San Francisco with his family. There, Saroyan began moving from job to job once again and spent much of his time in the library writing stories and poems.
While plays were being created for Saroyan's stories, he met a beautiful woman who went by the name of Carol Marcus. They got married one year later. Saroyan continued to write stories and his fame grew. However, he still spent time with his wife. The same year they got married, William and Carol had their first son, Aram Saroyan. A year after their son's birth, Saroyan was shipped off to Europe as a result of Army duty. However, it was only a year before Saroyan was hospitalized due to lower back problems. The injury would require surgery. The back injury was an old injury that Saroyan suffered after falling off his bike when he worked for the Postal Telegraph. After spending a year recuperating from his injury, Saroyan was blessed with another child. His daughter, Lucy was born January 17, 1946.
After the birth of his second child, Saroyan began to suffer from heavy gambling losses. Saroyan lost $50,000 in gambling money. Carol didn't approve of Saroyan's poor decisions and attempted to leave Saroyan. Carol abandoned Saroyan and he moved to a farm near Fresno. Saroyan then decided to move to New York with his family.
Only after two years of being divorced, Saroyan asked Carol to marry him once again. Carol agreed to remarry her former husband only to bring divorce proceedings against William again seven months later. Carol and Saroyan are once again divorced. Carol moves to a house somewhere in Pacific Palisades while Saroyan moves to a house in Malibu.
Saroyan spent nine years working on his writing and play production. In 1961, Saroyan tried out a new occupation. He tried teaching at Purdue University in Indiana. In 1966, Saroyan forms the William Saroyan Foundation.
Fifteen years later, Saroyan gets the worst news in his life. Saroyan was diagnosed with cancer. At first, the press was told that William suffered from a stroke. However, this was soon corrected. Saroyan had to explain his situation to all of his colleagues. Before Saroyan could die, his son, Aram, introduced William to his granddaughter, Cream. Saroyan's eyes lighted up brighter than a hundred-watt light bulb. All disease was flushed out of his face and Saroyan stared at his granddaughter. When it came time for visitors to leave, Saroyan exchanged good-byes with everyone except his niece, Jackie. Jackie wanted to spend the night with her uncle.
The next morning, Jackie had woken up before Saroyan. She sat beside him until he awakened. When Saroyan finally woke up, Jackie said she loved him and went to tell the nurse that Saroyan was awake. When the two ladies returned, they found Saroyan dead. Saroyan died on May 18, 1981. He was 72 years old.
II. Professional Life
Saroyan didn't start his writing career right away. In 1928, Overland Monthly bought William's first published sketch. In 1932, Hairenik, an Armenian journal accepted some of Saroyan's poems. Two years later, Random House published The Daring Young Man on A Flying Trapeze. Saroyan soon broke away from Random House because his story Inhale and Exhale wasn't in the form he wanted it to be. So, he changed over to Conference Press who published his next book Three Times Three. After Three Times Three was published, Saroyan worked as a Hollywood writer for B.P. Schulberg and Columbia Pictures. In 1937, Little Children came out followed by Love, Here Is My Hat a year later. In April 1939, My Hearts in the Highland's came out as a Group Theater production. In the same year, Saroyan writes one of his greatest books in only six days. Saroyan spent just six days to write The Time of Your Life. This book won Saroyan the Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. However, Saroyan refused to accept the Pulitzer Prize because he felt that he had put the same amount of work into every one of his stories. If one story deserves a prize, then they all do.
Saroyan continued to write but he also tried out play writing. As a result of big gambling losses, Saroyan agreed to playwright for MGM. After Saroyan married Carol Marcus, Saroyan did a play that made fun of Hollywood. The play failed on Broadway. In 1944, even though Saroyan was in the military, he still continued to write. For the next twelve years, Saroyan didn't really have all that much success with his writing. In 1957, Saroyan had his first New York production since 1943. Saroyan published many books between 1957 and 1979. Many of his books had success with the public. Saroyan was nominated for the American Book Award for his book Obituaries.
III. Influences
Saroyan was influenced by different events in his life. Saroyan would write about things like his marriage, experience in the military, and childhood. Saroyan would express his feelings on these events through his writing. Saroyan won awards for such a style. When Saroyan was dying of cancer, he wrote about his numerous feelings during this time. Saroyan wrote a book satirizing Hollywood. Many of Saroyan's stories were reflections of his life and experiences.
IV. Literary Works
A Fist Fight for Armenia - published 1933
The Broken Wheel - published 1933
The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze - published 1934
Inhale and Exhale - published 1936
Three Times Three - published 1936
Little Children -
published 1937
Love, Here Is My Hat - published 1938
Trouble With Tigers - published 1938
My Heart's in the Highlands - published 1939
The Time of Your Life - published 1939
Love's Old Sweet Song - published 1940
Sweeney in the Trees - published 1940
Something about a Soldier - published 1940
The Hero of the World - published 1940
My Name Is Aram - published 1940
Across The Board on Tomorrow Morning - published 1941
The Beautiful People - published 1941
The Good Job - published 1942
Razzle Dazzle - published 1942
Talking to You - published 1942
Hello, Out There - published 1942
The Human Comedy - published 1943
Get Away, Old Man - published 1943
The Adventures of Wesley Jackson - published 1943
The Adventures of William Saroyan -
published 1944
Dear Baby - published 1944
Sam Ego's House - published 1947
The Saroyan Special - published 1948
Assyrian and Other Stories - published 1950
Tracy's Tiger -
published 1950
Rock Wagram - published 1950
The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills - published 1952
The Laughing Matter - published 1953
A Lost Child's Fireflies - published 1953
Omnibus - published 1955
Mama, I Love You - published 1956
Papa, You're Crazy - published 1957
The Cave Dwellers - published 1957
Fifty-fifty - published 1958
The London Comedy -
published 1959
Settled Out of Court - published 1959
High Time Along The Wabash - published 1961
Here Comes, There Goes, You Know Who - published 1962
The General Electric Theater - published 1962
Boys and Girls Together - published 1963
One Day in the Afternoon of the World - published 1964
Short Drive, Sweet Chariot - published 1966
I Used to Believe I Had Forever, Now I'm Not So Sure - published 1968
Don't Go, But If You Must, Say Hello To Everybody - published 1971
Places Where I've Done Time - published 1972
Days of Life and Death and Escape to the Moon - published 1973
Sons Come And Go, Mothers Hang in Forever - published 1976
Chance Meetings - published 1978
Obituaries - published 1979
Births - published 1983
My Name Is Saroyan - published 1983
The New Saroyan Reader - published 1984
V. Bibliography
Sloan, Howard R. William Saroyan. New York: Twayne publishers, 1966
Lee Lawrence and Barry Gifford. Saroyan.
New York: Harper & Row, publishers, 1984
Saroyan, Aram. William Saroyan. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, publishers, 1983
This essay was submitted by a student of Kathy Honda Stein, a teacher at San Pedro High School in California.