Of Mice and Men By John Steinbeck 1937

1. Of Mice and Men By John Steinbeck 1937

2. John Steinbeck1902-1968

3. John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, CA in 1902. His most famous books were written in the 1930s and 1940s and are set in California. They deal with the lives and problems of working class people. Many of his characters struggle as they search for a better life. • Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, and his very famous novel, The Grapes of Wrath, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940. • His voice is that of a proletariat and humanitarian. In most of his works, Steinbeck highlights compassion as the ultimate human ability.

4. The Setting: Of Mice and Men • Of Mice and Men is set in the farmland of the Salinas Valley (where Steinbeck was born). Steinbeck’s father owned land in that area, and as a young man Steinbeck worked as a farmhand. As such, he is very familiar with the region and its lifestyle. The ranch in the novel is near Soledad, which is south-east of Salinas on the Salinas River.

5. Themes to Look Out For • UNITY versus ISOLATION: A theme at the heart of this novel is the contrast between unity (friendship) and isolation (the social forces that promote division). George is alternately loving and demeaning in his treatment towards Lennie.

6. FRIENDSHIP (UNITY): George and Lennie share such a strong bond that when one is destroyed, the other is inevitably destroyed as well. Steinbeck often stresses how ranchers are loners, and George and Lennie are the only ones who travel in a pair. They seem to be two halves of the same person, and they know how special they are as a duo: “Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place…With us, it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us.” Candy’s need of the companionship of his dog also stresses the importance of true friendship.

7. - Isolation and Loneliness: Candy’s dog is his only companion. When his dog is killed, he has no one left and he attaches himself to the dreams and hopes that George and Lennie share. Crooks feels “…A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. Don’t make no difference who the guy is, long’s he with you…” Crooks would work for free as long as he could communicate with others. Curley’s wife is so overwhelmed by her loneliness that she constantly seeks attention from other men. She seeks out Lennie’s friendship since all the other men fear her husband, Curley, and will have nothing to do with her. She says, “Think I don’t like to talk to somebody ever’ once in a while?”

8. RACISM & SEXISM: Steinbeck uses politically charged, degrading terms to refer to the minorities in the novel. He calls Curley’s wife (who is not even given an actual name in the novel) “jailbait, “rat trap,” and “poison.” Crooks is called the “Stable N-word” throughout the novel and has to live in a room all alone (bringing us back to the theme of isolation!). Notice how particularly lonely these minorities are throughout the whole novel – despite their efforts and desire to do so, they cannot seem to develop any kind of companionship.

9. THE AMERICAN DREAM: Since the 17th century, when the first settlers arrived, immigrants dreamed of a better life in America. People came here to escape from persecution or poverty, and to make a new life for themselves and their families. For many, however, the dream became a nightmare. The horrors of slavery, the American Civil War, and the growth of towns with slums in which living conditions were unbearable led to many shattered hopes. For the American society as a whole, the American Dream ended with the Wall Street crash of 1929 (10/29/29), which started the Great Depression. Despite the awful consequences of this crash, the ideas behind the American Dream survived for certain individuals. Thousands made their way westward to California to escape from their farmlands in the mid-west. George and Lennie (in Of Mice and Men) dreamt of their “little house and a couple of acres” and of being their own bosses. George and Lennie share a very modest utopian vision. We have to realize as we read that the economic realities of the Great Depression changed people’s visions of what they could expect from life.

10. The Characters’ Dreams • Everyone in the novel has a dream for which they strive. The poor ranch hands want to be their own bosses and actually achieve some financial stability. George and Lennie have a dream, even before they arrive at their new job on the ranch, which is to make enough money to “live off the fat of the land” and to be their own bosses. Lennie will be permitted to tend the rabbits (his dream is by far the simplest, since he has a very simple mind). Candy wants to join them in their dream, especially after his dog is killed, so that he won’t be lonely. Crooks, the African American outcast, wanted to join them also so he wouldn’t be alone. We will need to pay close attention to these dreams and what happens to them. The ending of the novel shows us very clearly how Steinbeck felt about the reality of achieving the American Dream. • Remember when reading – why do you think Steinbeck chose to title this book Of Mice and Men? What does that signify? What does relating mice and men to each other connote?