Background Information

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Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

• Background Information
• Biographical Information
• Historical Context

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John Steinbeck

• Born in Salinas, California in 1902.
• His most famous books were written in the 1930s
  and 1940s.
• Most of his novels are set in California
• His novels deal with the lives and problems of
  working people
• Many of the characters he created are immigrants
  from Mexico or other parts of the US who went to
  CA looking for work or a better life

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John Steinbeck Continued

• John Ernest Steinbeck was the third of four
  children.
• Though poor, he had a normal childhood and
  attended public school.
• His mother was a school teacher and encouraged
  his writing.
• He attended Stanford University 1920-1925 and
  intended to be a marine biologist.
• He received the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and the
  Nobel Prize for literature in 1962.
• He died on December 20, 1968 and is buried in
  Salinas, California.

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Of Mice and Men

• Of Mice and Men is set in the farmland of the
  Salinas valley where Steinbeck was born and which
  he knew all his life.
• Steinbecks father owned land in the area and as
  a young man Steinbeck worked as a farm hand
• The ranch in the story is near Soledad, which is
  southeast of Salinas and the Salinas river.

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Of Mice and Men

• Started with a tentative title of Something that
  Happened, the book, OMM, took the form of an
  extended short story
• Steinbeck rejected the initial version of the
  story, for he felt that he had been unable to
  keep his own voice and viewpoint out of its
  narration.
• He reworked and expanded the story, adding more
  characters and dialogue (taking particular care
  to reflect the accent and dialect of uneducated
  farm workers)
• It is said that a large section of the book was
  rewritten by Steinbeck again, for his original
  manuscript was chewed up by his dog
• The title changed when his best friend suggested
  the present title and introduced him to Robert
  Burns poem To a Mouse

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Migrant Farm Workers

• By the time that Of Mice and Men was published
  almost half of Americas grain was harvested by
  huge combine harvesters.
• Five men could do what would have taken 350 men a
  few years earlier.
• George and Lennie are some of the last of the
  migrant farm workers.
• Huge numbers of men traveled the countryside
  between the 1880s and 1930s harvesting wheat.
• They earned 2.50-3.00 a day, plus food and basic
  accommodation

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The American Dream

• From the 17th century, when the first settlers
  arrived, immigrants dreamed of a better life in
  America.
• People went there to escape from persecution or
  poverty, and to make a new life for themselves or
  their families.
• The dreamed of making their fortunes in the gold
  fields.
• For many, the dream became a nightmarethe
  horrors of slavery, the 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.
• For the American society as a whole the dream
  ended with the Wall Street crash of 1929. This
  was the start of the Great Depression that would
  affect the whole world during the 1930s.
• The dream survived for individuals and thousands
  made their way west to California to escape from
  their farmlands in the mid-West.
• George and Lennie dream of their little house
  and a couple of acres.
• The growing popularity of cinema was the last
  American Dream for many, Curleys wife was one,
  Coulda been in the movies, an had nice clothes.

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Of Mice and Men Characters

• Slim
• Carlson
• Curleys wife
• Whit
• Bill Tenner
• Susy
• Clara
• Al Wilts
• Aunt Clara

• George Milton
• Lennie Small
• Candy
• Whitey
• The Boss
• Crooks
• Smitty
• Curley

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Themes in Of Mice and Men

• Idealism vs. Reality
• Alienation and Loneliness
• Race and Racism
• Class Conflict
• Mental Disability
• Loyalty
• Friendship

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Structure

• OMM is the first of Steinbecks experiments with
  the novel-play form
• The story is essentially comprised of three acts
  of two chapters each
• Action is usually restricted to the bunkhouse
• The span of time is limited to three days
  sunset Thursday to sunset Sunday, which
  intensifies the sense of suspense and drama

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OMM Point of View

• The point of view of the novel is generally
  objectivenot identifying with a single
  characterand limited to exterior descriptions
• The third person narrative point of view creates
  a sense of the impersonal
• With few exceptions, the story focuses of what
  can be readily perceived by an outside observer
  a river bank, a bunkhouse, a characters
  appearance, card players at a table
• The focus on time is limited to the present
  there are no flashbacks to events in the past and
  the reader only learns about what has happened to
  Lennie and George before the novels beginning
  through dialogue between the characters

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OMM Setting

• Set in Californias Salinas Valley, the story
  takes place on a large ranch during the Great
  Depression
• The agricultural scene in California in the 1930s
  was dominated by large collective farms, or farm
  factories owned by big landowners and banks
• Small farms of a few hundred acres, such as the
  one Lennie and George dream about, were
  relatively scarce

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OMM Symbolism

• The most important symbol in the novel is the
  bank of the Salinas River, where the novel begins
  and ends.
• Rabbits symbolize the safe place that George and
  Lennie desire and dream about
• The dream itself a little house and a couple of
  acres and a cow and some pigs.
• The bunkhouse and the farm

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Foreshadowing in OMM

• Foreshadowing, where events subtly hint at things
  to come, serves to heighten suspense in the novel
• Lennies rough handling of the mice and the puppy
• The shooting of Candys old dog
• The crushing of Curleys hand
• Frequent appearances of Curleys wife
• Also, at the beginning of the book, the reader
  learns that George and Lennie had to leave Weed
  because Lennie got into trouble when he tried to
  touch a girls dress

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Realism and Naturalism

• Realism refers to the specific technique and
  subject matter a writer uses. In theory, a
  realist writes life as it is, with no
  preconceived notions
• A realist wants to capture real life
• He wants the story to tell itself because he
  feels that truth lies in life and its events, not
  in imagination
• The realist movement has its origins in the
  mid-nineteenth century
• Naturalism is a literary movement related to and
  sometimes described as an extreme form of realism
• An easy way to understand the idea behind
  naturalism is that the novelist should be removed
  from the novel in a sense
• Naturalistic writers usually depict the sordid
  side of life and show characters who are
  severely, if not hopelessly limited by their
  environment

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