1. Theme Honors Eng. 9 Theme Unit / Application of Novel Author Background Lecture Notes

2. John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men 1902-1968 Born in California Wrote 17 novels + stories, plays, and screenplays including: ▫Of Mice and Men (1937), The Grapes of Wrath (1939), and Travels with Charley (1962). Reputation centers around the earlier novels that portray California as the land of American promise.

3. Steinbeck’s Characters Steinbeck’s characters are not the rich men and women of California’s thriving days, but are the homeless, migrant workers, poor fishermen, and farmers. ▫However, each of these people has a misleadingly simple, but important story to tell…a story that is filled with both love and pain. ▫The stories tell us not only of the lives of the poor who seek to live off the land and sea, but of the struggles of all people.

4. Of Mice and Men’s impacting elements The setting: the farm country of California’s Salinas valley ▫…where farmers, even today, employ temporary laborers to harvest the crop The book was written in the days following the Great Depression. ▫unemployment rate was near 30% ▫California entrepreneurs were spreading rumors of a better life out west. ▫300,000 to 500,000 migrants came to California during the 1930s

5. Of Mice and Men’s impacting elements The Characters: migrant workers ▫describes someone who migrates within a country, possibly their own, in order to pursue work such as seasonal work.  The individuals literally move (migrate) from one seasonal job to another.  Typically, migrant workers are low-wage workers that perform manual labor in the agriculture field.  During the Great Depression, the use of internal migrant workers (workers from within the U.S.) inclined because they were emerging from the Dust Bowl states (Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, Missouri) Relationships: Two main characters (George and Lennie) ▫Lennie is mentally disabled, and George has assumed responsibility of taking care of him.

6. Of Mice and Men’s Reading Assignments: ▫Read Ch. 1-3 by Tuesday (13 th ) ▫Finish novel (Ch. 4-6) by Friday (16 th ) You will have a project over Christmas break regarding this novel.