Emily Barrett

English

Of Mice and Men Revision Handout

Steinbeck y y y There were many influences that made Steinbeck write his famous novella Of Mice and Men In his youth, he worked on a ranch where of which he experienced the occurrences he wrote about in novella. Steinbeck also witnessed racism which also takes a role in his novella through the character Crooks the negro stable buck which he is commonly known as by the other characters in the novella. Crooks is commonly referred to as a nigger, back in those days, it was acceptable to refer a black person to the offensive, racist name which it is known for today. Whilst Steinbeck was working on the ranch, he saw a man accidently kill and rabbit. Lennie was then created as the vulnerable but massive man in the novella. This is significant of Lennie being clueless to his own strength and what he is capable of without knowing it. The fact that Steinbeck worked on a ranch was suggestive of the poverty that they were experiencing at the time due to the great depression in order to make some money to achieve their own personal American Dream

The Title y y Steinbeck called his novella Of Mice of Men after a poem about a mouse that watched his home being destroyed before him by a plough. This relates to the idea of the American Dream.

The American Dream y The American Dream was the dream many that all Americans fantasised about. It was the idea of freedom, liberty, having lots of money and consuming lots of resources. Steinbeck has very much based his novella on this theme as George and Lennie throughout the novella speak about buying their own house and land with rabbits. However, the American Dream was only ever a dream as all Americans faced the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

The Wall Street Crash 1929 y y y The Wall Street Crash was when many people lost their homes, people lost their jobs as well as the closure of banks and suicide rates were on a high. The causation of this was said to of been the poor farming technique of farmers, lack of food, living on credit and poor investment in the stock market. The entire of America become depressed and unmotivated, also known as the Great Depression.

Steinbeck has encapsulated this in Of Mice and Men by giving all of the characters a dream but knowing that in reality, it will never happen and there will always be something that takes their dream away from them (Lennie always causes trouble which means always takes them a step back from their dream)