John Steinbeck and Of Mice and Men

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John Steinbeck and Of Mice and Men
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Steinbeck and His Books

• John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California in
  1902 and died in NYC in 1968.
• His most famous books were written in the 1930s
  and 1940s, and are set in California.
• First achieved literary success with his book
  Tortilla Flats in 1935.
• Novels deal with the lives and problems of
  working people.
• Many of the characters in his books are
  immigrants who went to California looking for
  work or a better life.

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Steinbecks Dust Bowl Stories

• Steinbeck wrote 3 books that chronicled the
  trials encountered by migrant workers.
• Of Mice and Men The Grapes of Wrath are two
  famous dust bowl novels.
• In these novels, Steinbeck glorified the unity of
  migrant workers while portraying the struggles
  they faced in a realistic light.

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Of Mice And Men

• The title of the novel comes from a poem titled
  Of A Mouse by Robert Burns.
• This stanza is included in the poem
• The best laid schemes o mice and men
• Often go wrong
• And leave us nought but grief and pain
• For promised joy!
• What predictions about the story can you make
  based on the poem?
• OMAM is a novella a work of fiction of
  intermediate length shorter than a novel, yet
  longer than a short story. It was also written
  as a play by Steinbeck.

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Setting of OMaM

• Set in the farmland of the Salinas valley, where
  John Steinbeck was born
• Steinbeck's father owned land in the area, and as
  a young man Steinbeck had worked as a farm hand.
• The ranch in the story is near Soledad, which is
  south-east of Salinas on the Salinas river.
• The countryside described at the beginning of the
  book, and the ranch itself, would have been very
  familiar to John Steinbeck.

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Migrant Workers

• Main characters are George and Lennie,two migrant
  farm workers who are chasing The American Dream
• Lennie is mentally disabled George looks after
  Lennie
• Huge numbers of men traveled the countryside
  between the 1880s and the early 1930s harvesting
  wheat.
• They earned 2.50 or 3.00 a day, plus food and
  very basic accommodation.

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The American Dream

• Since beginning of America, families and
  individuals have come here to find a new life.
• The horrors of slavery, of the American Civil
  War, the growth of towns with slums as bad as
  those in Europe, and the corruption of the
  American political system led to many shattered
  hopes.
• In OMAM, we will see how despite these issues,
  the characters still hope for a better life.

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Possible themes

• Friendship
• The (Im)Possibility of the American Dream
• Loneliness versus Loyalty
• Oppression
• Nature
• Violence

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Important Literary Elements

• Plot
• Characters
• Theme
• Foreshadowing
• Symbols
• Setting

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