Of Mice and Men By John Steinbeck

Background – John Steinbeck Born 27th February 1902 in Salinas, California Father worked for local government. Mother was a school teacher Wrote articles for the school magazine During school holidays he worked on local ranches as a hired hand – and gained first hand experience of ranch life similar to George and Lennie He went to Stanford University and studied English, but did not complete his degree Kept writing (short stories & poems), and working on ranches, paying attention to how people speak and the topic of conversation

Background When he was 23 he went to New York to try and make it as a writer He found it difficult and had to take on labouring jobs to earn money to live Disappointed, he worked his way back to California as a deck-hand on a ship He wrote his first novel – about a pirate - and managed to get it published, but it did not sell many copies He married in 1930 and continued to write without success Tortilla Flat, published in 1935 brought him his first success, and he managed to sell the story to Hollywood Of Mice and Men was published in 1937 The Grapes of Wrath, 1939 is regarded as his masterpiece

Background The Grapes of Wrath tells the story “of the suffering and yet the determination of ordinary people caught up in the Great Depression” The novel made him famous, yet it was attacked in some areas as “giving a bad image of the United States to the outside world” In 1962, at the age of 60, Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature, particularly in recognition for The Grapes of Wrath He died on 20th December 1968

The Great Depression The Great Depression is the period of time lasting roughly from 1930 to the start of WWII (1939) Mass unemployment – 12 to 15 million workers unemployed Unemployment = poverty, hunger, and homelessness People’s savings disappeared when banks closed; it was hard to buy food or pay rent If you had a job, it was difficult to complain about poor conditions or low pay, as there were dozens, maybe hundreds of other men waiting to take the job No unemployment relief Loss of self respect

The Great Depression Many continued to struggle to find work, often travelling across America, leaving homes and family behind

The Great Depression Others travelled with family.

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 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 Thousands made their way west to California to escape from their farmlands in the mid-West George and Lennie dreamt of their 'little house and a couple of acres'

California or Bust Farmers were being driven off their land. A series of droughts ruined the crops and dried up the soil meant farmers could not repay the bank loans. Thousands made their way west to California to escape from their farmlands in the mid-West where the soil was good and there was supposed to be plenty of room. George and Lennie dreamt of their 'little house and a couple of acres'

California … In the words of historian Frederick Lewis Allen – ‘they came in decrepit, square shouldered 1925 Dodges and 1927 LaSalles; in battered 1923 Model T Fords that looked like relics of some antique culture… piled high with mattresses and cooking utensils and children, with suitcases, jugs and sacks strapped to the running boards.’

Migrant Farm workers By the time that Of Mice and Men was published almost half of America's grain was harvested by huge combine harvesters Five men could do what would have taken 350 men a few years earlier

Migrant Farm workers George and Lennie are some of the last of the migrant farm workers Huge numbers of men travelled the countryside between the 1880s and the early 1930s harvesting wheat They earned $2.50 or $3.00 a day, plus food and very basic accommodation During the 1930s agencies were set up under the New Deal to send farm workers to where they were needed

Prejudice In the Depression African-American people suffered as badly as Caucasian people, and in most cases a great deal worse.

Prejudice After moving north to industrial cities they found no work, and that racism was just as common, although perhaps not so obvious as in the south. They could not live in ‘white’ areas; there was no law against it, but it just wasn’t allowed. In this way large ‘ghettoes’ of poor housing came to be occupied exclusively of black people.

Setting Of Mice and Men is set in the farmland of the Salinas Valley of California, where John Steinbeck was born and which he knew all his life

Setting The ranch in the story is near Soledad, which is south-east of Salinas on the Salinas river The countryside described at the beginning of the book, and the ranch itself, would have been very familiar to John Steinbeck

Novel Blurb “Two [Of Mice and Men and Cannery Row] evocative, beautifully rendered portraits of ‘outsiders’ struggling to understand their own unique places in the world.” Clinging to each other in their loneliness and alienation, George and his simple-minded friend Lennie dream, as drifters will, of a place to call their own. But after they come to work on a ranch in the Salinas Valley their hopes, like “the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men”, begin to go awry. “A thriller, a gripping tale … that you will not set down until it is finished.Steinbeck has touched the quick.” - The New York Times

Novel Structure and Style The novel was deliberately written so that it could be converted into a play. Each of the six chapters is confined to one scene, and starts off with a description of the scene. Characters come in, speak, and then go off, as in a stage-play. The novel’s six parts are set chronologically, beginning with a hot Thursday afternoon and climaxing on late Sunday afternoon, three days later. The novel is written using an invisible third person narrator. The speech of the characters is realistic – colloquial, and contrasts with Steinbeck’s descriptive prose.

Novel Robert Burns - poet In 1785 Robert Burns wrote a poem called ‘To a mouse’. Burns was also a farmer and when ploughing a field one day he ran over the nest of a field mouse. The mouse would have survived, but now it would die from the cold as it it was too late to make a new nest. Burns wrote the poem as an apology to the mouse: ‘But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane In proving foresight may be vain: The best-laid schemes o’ mice and men Gang aft agley, And lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain For promis’d joy [you are not alone] [often go wrong]

From Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck How are the descriptions developed in each paragraph? How does the author convey a sense of atmosphere? Are there any unusual or particularly effective words or phrases? How important are adjectives to the sense of atmosphere?   How do we gain an impression of the people who arrive? What sort of people are they? What are they doing in their new surroundings?

From Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas river drops in close to the hill-side bank and runs deep and green. The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool. On one side of the river the golden foothill slopes curve up the strong and rocky Gabilan mountains, but on the valley side the water is lined with trees- willows fresh and green with every spring, carrying in their lower leaf junctures the debris of the winter’s flooding; and sycamores with mottled, white, recumbent limbs and branches that arch over the pool. On the sandy bank under the trees the leaves lie deep and so crisp that a lizard makes a great skittering if he runs among them. Rabbits come out of the brush to sit on the sand in the evening, and the damp flats are covered with the night tracks of ‘coons, and with the spread pads of dogs from the ranches, and with the split-wedge tracks of deer that come to drink in the dark.

From Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck There is a path through the willows and among the sycamores, a path beaten hard by boys coming down from the ranches to swim in the deep pool and beaten hard by tramps who come wearily down from the highway in the evening to jungle-up near water. In front of the low horizontal limb of a giant sycamore there is an ash-pile made by many fires; the limb is worn smooth by men who have sat on it.

From Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Evening of a hot day started the little wind to moving among the leaves. The shade climbed up the hills toward the top. On the sand-banks the rabbits sat as quietly as little grey, sculptured stones. And then from the direction of the state highway came the sound of sycamore leaves. The rabbits hurried noiselessly for cover. A stilted heron laboured up into the air and pounded down river. For a moment the place was lifeless, and then two men emerged from the path and came into the opening by the green pool. They had walked in single file down the path, and even in the open one stayed behind the other. Both were dressed in denim trousers and in denim coats with brass buttons. Both wore black, shapeless hats and both carried tight blanket rolls slung over their shoulders. The first man was small and quick, dark of face, with restless eyes and sharp, strong features. Every part of him was defined: small, strong hands, slender arms, a thin and bony nose. Behind him walked his opposite, a huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders; and he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws. His arms did not swing at his sides, but hung loosely and only moved because the heavy hands were pendula.