The chapter starts with introducing the setting which is Cannery Row, in Monterey, California. The writer had portrayed the place very realistically as somehow nostalgic and sort of poetic with a tone. There is a lot happening explained in very detail and descriptively. It feels like the narrator knows this place well.
As it states in the text the narrator sees splintered wood and how the place is all covered with tin, iron, rust and chipped pavement implying that the place might be very old and uncared for after time. There