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Of Mice and Men

• Social Injustice Essay

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You will be

• Learning how to deconstruct an exam question.
• How to plan an answer for an exam question, in
  this case on theme in Of Mice and Men.

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Question

• Choose a prose work of fiction or non-fiction,
  which deals with an important human issue for
  example injustice, or poverty, or scientific
  discovery, or religious belief, or any other
  issue which you regard as important.
• Identify and explain what the issue is and go on
  to describe the ways in which the writer has made
  the work thought provoking.

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Important issue - Social Injustice

• What does this mean?
• Social injustice is when groups or individuals in
  society are excluded or victimised due to
  something about them that others either ignore or
  refuse to accept. For example you may argue that
  a society where people are victimised because
  they are asylum seekers is unjust. Likewise, you
  may feel that a society where people sleep
  outside in winter while others have several
  houses is unjust. This is an extreme example but
  it illustrates the point.

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Social Injustice in Of Mice and Men.

• Setting during Great Depression -!930s America.
• Machines taking over work of men
• Itinerant workers their conditions

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Why is it thought provoking?What has it made us
think about?
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• This social exclusion, being on the margins of
  society leads to these people being lonely and it
  fuels their need to have a dream of a different
  life.

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• Lennie
• Candy
• Crooks
• Curleys wife.

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(No Transcript)
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Lennie
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Candy
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Crooks
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Curleys Wife.
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We are

• Revising the format of introductions
• Revising how to plan sections of an essay.

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Previous Targets

• Read over the essay you wrote on The Merchant of
  Venice
• Do this carefully you want to learn from this.
• What are your strengths?
• What are your targets for this time?

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Introductions

• You will be shown four introductions to the essay
  on social injustice.
• Discuss which introduction is the most successful
  and explain why.
• 8 minutes

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Intro. 1 Of Mice and Men is a book about
loneliness set in 1930s America. It is about two
itinerant workers, George and Lennie, who travel
together. George looks after Lennie because
Lennie has learning disabilities. Lennie is very
strong and likes to touch soft things. Lennie and
George have to leave Weed because Lennie is
falsely accused of attacking a young girl. When
they get to the farm, Lennie is given a puppy and
kills it. He then accidentally kills Curleys
wife. In the end George has to shoot Lennie so as
to prevent Curley shooting Lennie and making him
suffer. In this short novel, Steinbeck, use
setting and theme to deal with the theme of
loneliness.
Intro. 2 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is a
story about two ranch workers, George and Lennie
who go to a new ranch to work. Steinbeck raises
the issue of loneliness in his book through the
description of setting and the dialogue between
characters.
Intro. 3 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is a
book that focuses on loneliness and the need for
a dream. It is set over three days and is about
two ranch workers, George and Lennie, who move to
a new ranch. Many of the characters face social
injustice and are lonely for a number of reasons.
Crooks, who is a black stable buck is the victim
of harsh racism Candy, an old worker, is
victimised because of his age and the fact that
he has a hand disability. Curleys wife is a
woman living in a male dominated society and
Lennie, one of the main characters, has learning
disabilities. Steinbeck has made his work thought
provoking and shown loneliness through setting
and characterisation.
Intro. 4 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is a
novel in which the theme of loneliness is very
important. The novel follows two itinerant
workers starting at a new ranch, George and
Lennie. There they meet the other main characters
in the book, Curleys wife, Candy and Crooks.
Lennie kills Curleys wife by mistake and is shot
by his friend George at the end. The writer
illustrates the different cases of loneliness
effectively through characterisation and setting.
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Main Section of an Essay
Point topic sentence, using linking word and
referring to question Evidence - Context
of quotation/quotation/paraphrase Analysis an
explanation of how your evidnce helps you to
understand the charcters or themes more fully (in
relation to the question) Response ensuring
that there is a connection between what you have
written and what you have been asked.
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Comment on the following example

• Choose a prose work of fiction or
  non-fiction, which deals with an important human
  issue for example injustice, or poverty, or
  scientific discovery, or religious belief, or any
  other issue which you regard as important.
• Identify and explain what the issue is
  and go on to describe the ways in which the
  writer has made the work thought provoking.

To continue the idea of loneliness, we see the
effects of being lonely on the main characters.
This is shown with one of the main characters in
the book, Lennie. He does not understand the
things that the other workers do and this is
shown when he hurts Curley
the next minute, Curley was flopped like
a fish on a line. This shows us how
being lonely can anger some men and start fights.
Lennie doesnt understand his own strength and
only hurts Curley when his companion George tells
him to. This tells us that he relies so much on
George and wouldnt know what to do without him.
Secondly, Lennies strength again gets the better
of him when he kills the puppy
Whyd you gotta get killed? Lennie is clearly
distraught and again doesnt understand how much
he can hurt people or animals when he is angry.
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Think about the following Use of linking
words Topic sentence referring to
question Context Displaying quotations Knowledge
of quotations Relevance of quotations to the
question asked.
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Developing an Answer. This is the part of the
essay which can be difficult this is when you
explain how the quotation you have chosen
answers the question. Comment on eachof the
examples below.
Thirdly, Curleys wife is another character who
is very lonely in the novel. This is demonstrated
when she says Think I dont
like to talk to someone ever once in a
while? This shows that Curleys wife is lonely
and has no one to talk to but her husband Curley.
This makes me feel sorry for her, as she has
nobody to talk to.
Thirdly, Curleys wife is another character who
is very lonely in the novel. Curleys wife is not
even given a name by Steinbeck this shows how
unimportant she is in the very macho setting of
the farm. The men regard Curleys wife as
jail-bait and a tramp , simply because she
wears make up and tries to talk to them. We can
see that Curleys wife might be very lonely in a
place like this and feel sympathetic towards her.
Furthermore, Curleys wife is left alone with
Candy, Lennie and Crooks while all the men go
into town. When she talks to them, they try to
ignore her Think I dont like
to talk to someone ever once
in a while? We can
understand from this what her life is like she
has no one at all to talk to her husband ignores
her and there are no other women on the ranch.
Curleys wife is a very young woman who likes
dancing, clothes and dreams of being in films.
Living on the ranch must be a very lonely for her
and I feel very sympathetic, as she is so
isolated. Curleys wifes loneliness causes her
death because she talks to Lennie and invites him
to stroke her hair, not realising Lennies
strength. Just before she dies she speaks to
Lennie and Steinbeck writes
And then her words came out in a passion of
communication, as though she
hurried before her listener
could be taken away. The word passion shows
how desperate she is to talk to someone and the
fact that she is scared her listener will leave
shows that she never gets to speak to anyone. I
felt very sad at this point in the novel, as
Curleys wife is clearly desperately lonely.
Steinbeck very effectively demonstrates the
destructiveness of loneliness through the
character of Curleys wife.