The stories take place on the Tiflin ranch in the Salinas Valley, California.

Steinbeck's evocation of the vital beauty of the ranch setting matches his work in Of Mice and Men (1937), and his symbols grow naturally out of this setting. The setting stresses the end of the frontier and of the American drea m; in a sense Jody's maturation matches that of modern America. In its depiction of an American variation of a universal experience, The Red Pony deserves comparison with the finest of American fiction, especially initiation tales such as William Faulkner's The Bear (1942) or Ernest Hemingway's Nick Adams stories.