Cannery Row

In order to secure the funds to throw Doc his party, the boys catch a large order of frogs to sell to Doc, planning to use the money they get from him to organize the event. The irony of the situation is that the frogs Doc needs never actually make it to him, as the boys use the frogs as currency at Lee Chong's to buy liquor and decorations (Lee Chong accepts this, knowing he can simply sell the frogs back to Doc). Instead of simply giving Doc the frogs in the first place, the boys deprive Doc of what he actually needs in order to show him "kindness" in a way that will directly benefit them. To make matters worse, they destroy Doc's lab in the process. The image of the frogs hopping away across the wreckage of discarded decorations underscores the humor and absurdity of the scene. In trying to do something nice for Doc, they interfered with his ability to actually get what he needed and ultimately made his life harder.

The story of Doc's party-gone-wrong serves as a kind of allegory about good deeds. The situation teaches the boys an important lesson about "goodness"—that what seems kind and giving at first can actually be self-serving and destructive. 

Clearly, this passage is full of contradictions. The narrator asserts that it is just as unwise to believe in luck and omens as it is not to believe in them, and the narrator also reveals that Cannery Row residents are not superstitious but nonetheless partake in many famous superstitions (in this case, avoiding walking under a ladder or opening an umbrella inside). 

But Cannery Row is a book about human contradiction. Steinbeck's goal with this ironic passage is to demonstrate that humans are essentially contradictory beings that defy the logic and order we love to ascribe to our lives. It is entirely possible and reasonable, Steinbeck argues, for a person to be both superstitious and not, just as it's reasonable for a person to be both kind and evil, both selfish and giving, both perceptive and obtuse. All of the characters in Cannery Row embody this ethos.

The irony of this situation is that, while the point of a sheriff's job should be to enforce order and ensure that the community is shielded from all manner of harm and chicanery, this sheriff is instead letting Gay bribe him into setting him free. This instance challenges common and stereotypical assumptions about vice and virtue—a project of Cannery Row in general.

It's also important to note that Gay himself complicates the dichotomy of vice and virtue consistently throughout the story, including here. He is a complex character that does both a lot of right and a lot of wrong—sometimes the right thing for the wrong reasons, or vice versa.