Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

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Of Mice and Menby John Steinbeck

• Background Notes

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About the Author John Steinbeck

• 1902 1968
• Born in Salinas, California which is the main
  setting/locale of his writings
• Took a series of jobs to find out how working
  people actually lived
• Liked to experiment with writing forms OMM is a
  novel written within the structure of a play

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About the Author John Steinbeck

• Favorite theme the struggle of ordinary people
• Does not romanticize limitations and defects of
  people
• Emphasized the courage and dignity of people who
  often faced impossible odds
• Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 in
  recognition of his accomplishments with The
  Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and others

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About the Characters

• George - a farmhand who accepts temporary labor
  who takes care of his friend Lennie the main
  protagonist of the story
• Lennie - large, strong man who has the mind of a
  child the other major protagonist
• Candy - an old, crippled farmhand who wants to
  partner George and Lennie when they buy their own
  place

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About the Characters

• Curley - the ranch boss small, arrogant son
• Curleys wife (no name) - she tries to make
  friends with Lennie
• Slim - a master skinner or mule driver
• Carlson - a ranch worker
• Crooks - an African-American farmhand who keeps
  to himself

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Setting

• Set in Salinas Valley near the town of Soledad,
  about 80 miles south of San Francisco
• Salinas Valley contains many farms and ranches
  famous for lettuce and vegetables has an annual
  rodeo

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Literary Style

• Steinbeck uses two styles alternates between
  lyrical (flowery) and naturalistic (down to
  earth)
• Presents a slice of life, and is an allegory (a
  story with an underlying moral or message and a
  character who is usually plain and representative
  of some abstract idea or force)

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Literary Elements to Watch

• Conflict the struggle between opposing forces or
  characters in a story
• Internal within the character Man vs.
  Himself
• External between two forces Man vs. Man,
  vs. Nature, etc.
• Contrast person, place, event, etc. that shows
  sharp differences when compared with another
• Foreshadowing the use of hints and clues to
  suggest what will happen later in the plot

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Literary Elements to Watch

• Symbolism a person, place, thing, or event that
  has meaning in itself, but that also stands for
  something more than itself
• Theme the insight about human life that is
  revealed in a literary work American Dream

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Symbols

• Rabbits
• Old dog
• Dead mouse/ dead puppy
• Curley/ Curleys wife

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Themes Topics to Consider

• Loneliness
• Hopes and Dreams
• Dignity and Pride
• The American Dream
• Sense of Morality

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Allusion

• Reference to Robert Burns poem To a Mouse which
  includes the line The best laid schemes o mice
  an men/ Gang aft agley.
• Translated into modern English, the verse reads
  The best laid plans of mice and men often go
  awry.

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Tragedy

• The impossibility of triumph for the main
  characters, George and Lennie

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The Depression

• The Great Depression is complicated
• Longest and most severe economic downturn in
  American history
• Began the stock market crash of 1929
• Ended with the American involvement in World War
  II

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The Depression

• High unemployment (up to 1/3 of the population)
• Nearly half of the commercial banks of the United
  States failed during the Depression.
• Crop prices fell by over fifty percent.
• People went hungry because so much food was
  produced that production became unprofitable.
• Others were unemployed because they had produced
  more than could be sold.

Photograph of an 18-Year Old Mother from Oklahoma
During the Great Depression
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The Depression

• Tens of thousands of migrant farm workers
  traveled the nation looking for employment.
• Homelessness, poverty and general despair
  characterized much of the nation.

Photograph of a Mother of Seven Children During
the Great Depression
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Migrant Workers

• Growers couldn't sell their fruit they left
  their orchards.
• People were pulled out of high school and sent to
  work picking apples for three and a half cents a
  box.
• Despite the hard times and the low wages, there
  was no trouble finding plenty of hands at harvest
  time.
• A combination of factors, from mechanization to
  drought, dust storms, and a depressed economy,
  had driven families westward to seek employment.

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Photograph of a Migrant Worker on a California
Highway During the Great Depression