Essay Question: The following notes are from an essay that achieved with excellence.

1. Essay Question: The following notes are from an essay that achieved with excellence. “Many writers set out to explore the nature of human experiences, such as love, grief, revenge, or racism. Analyse how a text you have studied explores an aspect of human experience.”

2. Things to consider: • Plot and setting = depicting hostile world • Text opens with an idyllic setting = safe haven. Huge contrast here to later events in book. • What is the ranch like? Dreamlike or harsh reality? • Link it to “real world”. • Lennie victim of own strength so there is no longer a place for him or his and George’s dream in cruel world. • When we return to the idyllic setting by the river it is no longer safe and hopeful. • We are powerless to prevent Lennie’s death… no place for hope in the society Steinbeck presents?

3. Things to consider: • Steinbeck’s description of characters is believable… yet predictable? • What are Lenny and George physically and mentally like? • We are carried along with George’s hope… when George eventually realises there is no place for hope in this society, we realise it along with him.

4. Things to consider: • Authorial description indicates how inevitable the outcome of the story was, (looking back, it was obvious these events were going to happen) so why did we believe in the dream in the first place? • Lennie continuously compared to animals… highlighting his place in society and lack of control. • Lennie’s lack of control and Curley’s wife’s loneliness and desire for attention make the story’s outcome inevitable. • This shows George’s loss of hope in Lennie, himself, and their dream.

5. Things to consider: • Dialogue shows the rise and fall of hope and the realisation that the weak have no power over their future. (Farm dream) • Repetition of telling Lennie the story = creates sense of security for Lennie, convinces George it is possible. • George subconsciously knows dream will fail which is why he always threatens Lennie with the rabbits. • Curley’s wife’s death = loss of hope. • Crook’s pessimistic words (in the barn with Lennie) = voice of truth. • Society = pessimistic in age of Great Depression?

6. Things to consider: • Character’s relationships throughout show Steinbeck’s own hope in friendship = saving grace of society. • Fraternity can defeat a hostile world. • Difficult to care about someone else as well as yourself. • The Boss challenges George’s relationship with Lennie (“You takin’ his stake?”) because a relationship like theirs is rare in that environment. • World is too harsh for such a relationship to exist. • Carlson doesn’t understand their relationship (his reaction to Lennie’s death is confusion as to what is wrong with George). • Slim is an ideal character = he represents the humanity and honourability in society that Steinbeck has placed his hopes in for the future of man.

7. Things to consider: • Symbolism is mainly through animals to show nature of environment. • A reflection that we should treat each other better. • Title ‘Of Mice and Men’ was taken from poem ‘To A Mouse’ – “even the best laid plans of mice and men go often astray” = despite circumstances and intentions, the weak have little control over future. • The mouse Lennie pets links back to the poem but also to the migrant workers. Like the mouse they are powerless against those “bigger” than them. • Candy’s dog being shot represents how Lennie is killed. Both are “no good” to society. = Cruel society. • Ranch = microcosm (little world) of society.

8. Today: • 20 Questions Quiz (chocolate for those who answer all correctly!) • Begin work on essay.