Of Mice and Men

1. Of Mice and Men Year 11 Exam Revision Mrs Counter

2. What you need to know You need to know about: • The Social + Historical Context of the story • The main characters • The main themes – loneliness + dreams You need to learn lots of quotes to back up your writing.

3. Of Mice and Men • The Social and Historical Context of the novel. • The American Depression of the 1930s

4. THE GREAT DEPRESSION OF THE 1930’S “Brother can you spare a dime?”

5. STOCK MARKET CRASH OF 1929 • “Black Thursday”, October 24, 1929 • “Black Tuesday”, October 29, 1929

6. STRUCTURE OF AMERICAN SOCIETY DISINTEGRATES • Factories and mines close • Money is worthless • Consumer buying comes to a standstill

7. 1932 – AMERICAN DREAMS ARE SHATTERED • 14 million Americans are jobless (almost 1/3 the workforce) • Banks foreclose on houses and farms • No food, no clothes, no jobs • Recycled lifestyle

8. DUST BOWL (DUST STORMS) OF THE SOUTHERN PLAINS 1934-1935

9. Black SundayApril 14, 1935 • 24 hours of a blinding dust storm • Dreaded black-blizzard covers entire disaster area • Drought adds further devastation

10. Colorado Kansas Oklahoma New Mexico Texas Devastation of their cropland Respiratory health issues Unsanitary living Rampant crime Debt-ridden families THE VICTIMS OF THE DUST BOWL

11. DUST BOWL ORPHANS • Mass exodus to California • Opportunities in Russia • Migrant workers become source of cheap labor

15. Of Mice and Men • The Social and Historical Context of the novel. • The American Depression of the 1930s

16. What comes next? The characters you need to know about are: • George • Lennie • Candy • Crooks • Curley’s Wife • Curley

17. Pg 4 – “ Behind him walked his opposite, a huge man, shapeless of face….he walked heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws.” Lennie

18. What other creatures does Steinbeck compare Lennie to? • A horse • A terrier • A cuckoo Find the quotes

19. George’s relationship with Lennie • Why does George travel with Lennie? • How does George feel about Lennie? • How do we know that sometimes George gets frustrated with Lennie? • What is the dream they share?

20. Some useful Lennie quotes • Pg 6 – “Jesus Christ you’re a crazy bastard” • Pg 15 – “ Guys like us that work on ranches, are the lonliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place……we ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us.” (George to Lennie) • Pg 16- “Someday we’re going to get the jack together and we’re going to have a little house and a couple of acres an a cow and some pigs and ….we’ll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens.” • Pg 42 “Dumb bastard like he is, he wants to touch ever’thing he likes.”

21. George Pg 4 – “The first man was small and quick, dark of face with restless eyes and sharp strong features”

22. Some useful George quotes • Pg 16- “Someday we’re going to get the jack together and we’re going to have a little house and a couple of acres an a cow and some pigs and ….we’ll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens.” • Pg 33 – “Listen to me you crazy bastard, he said fiercely. Don’t you even look at that bitch….You leave her be.” • Pg 100 – “All the time he coulda had such a good time if it wasn’t for you.” (Aunt Clara in Lennie’s imagination) • Pg 106 – “You hadda George. I swear you hadda.” (Slim to George)

23. Curley • Pg 28 – “Well..tell you what. Curley’s like a lot of little guys. He hates big guys……Kinda like he’s mad at em because he ain’t a big guy”

24. Curley’s Wife • Pg 32 - “ She had full rouged lips and wide spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters like sausages” • Pg 85 – “ I get lonely..You can talk to people but I can’t talk to nobody but Curley. Else he gets mad.” (.. to Lennie) • Pg 86 – “ I tell you I ain’t used to living like this. I coulda made something of myself…Maybe I will yet”

25. Pg 66 – “Crooks could leave his things about and being a stable buck and a cripple, he was more permanent than the other men and he had accumulated more possessions than he could carry on his back.” Pg 68 – “Why ain’t you wanted? “Cause I’m black. They play cards in there, but I can’t play because I’m black. They say I stink.” Pg 72 – “I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick.” (Crooks) Pg 80 – “Listen nigger she said. You know what I can do if you open your trap?” (Curley’s wife to Crooks) Crooks

26. Candy • Pg 19/20 – “…a tall stoop-shouldered man came in. He was dressed in blue jeans and he carried a big push broom in his left hand” • Pg 61 – “I ought to of shot that dog myself, George, I shouldn’t ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog.”

27. Now you need to know about the themes The main themes are: • Loneliness • Dreams

28. First Theme coming up Loneliness

29. Loneliness and Isolation in “Of Mice and Men” • John Steinbeck's novel, Of Mice and Men, is a story in which a dominating idea of inescapable loneliness prevails. "A guy needs somebody to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya, a guy gets lonely an' he gets sick."

30. Of Mice and Men is filled with characters such as this, who are unable to find a way out of their lonely lives. The loneliness in this story builds and builds and never is allowed to escape. By never allowing its escape, Steinbeck effectively forms a solid backing for the characters and events in his novel.

31. Lennie Lennie's loneliness chiefly stems from the fact that he is both mentally retarded and very big and strong. His difficulties sometimes cause others at the ranch to shun him, even to the point of thinking he is "cuckoo." Since Lennie cannot think as quickly as the other men, he is often set aside and isolated from them. He is unable to take an active part in conversations because George, Lennie's best friend and travelling companion, is the only one who can understand him.

32. Lennie is frequently off in his own dream world and is constantly preoccupied with dreams of the farm which he and George someday hope to buy. As a result, Lennie is unable to face reality at times, a fact which puts him even more out of touch with the real world and with other workers. • Lennie is just like a big baby. He refuses to defend himself and often cannot be held responsible for his actions. This irresponsibility, combined with Lennie's abnormal size and strength, causes many of the other ranch hands to shy away and fear him.

33. The men are afraid of Lennie because they know that if his great strength were ever to go uncontrolled, it could easily overwhelm any one of them. • This constant rejection by others increases the depth of Lennie's loneliness and adds to the theme of loneliness running through the novel.

34. Crooks, the stable-hand • Crooks, stable-hand, is another lonely character at the ranch. The chief cause of Crook's loneliness centres on the fact that he is black. • Most of the men constantly put down Crooks and use him as a scapegoat, even to the point of calling him the “nigger” – a racist name.

35. Because of his colour, Crooks must live by himself in a small room in the barn. Crooks becomes so accustomed to this constant isolation, that he is suspicious of any man who suddenly tries to make friends with him. • When Lennie accidentally stumbles onto Crooks' room one night in the barn and tries to sit down and talk, Crooks becomes so suspicious that he actually tries to drive Lennie away before giving up and allowing Lennie to come in.

36. Crooks' deformed back deprives him of working with the other men, thereby denying him his last opportunity for personal contact with them. While the other men work together in the fields "bucking" grain sacks or harvesting crops, Crooks must sit all alone in his little room in the barn mending harnesses and doing other menial labour. • Crooks is perhaps the only man on the ranch who does a substantial amount of reading, vainly hoping it will help him pass his lonely hours. Unlike Lennie, Crooks has no dreams for the future, which gives him the feeling that he is trapped on this lonely ranch for the rest of his life.

37. Curley’s Wife • Curley's wife is perhaps the loneliest person of all on the ranch. Since she is the only woman on the ranch, she is set apart from the others. Curley, her own husband, ignores her. He does not regard his wife as a person needing love and companionship, but rather as an object which can be put aside, pushed around.

38. Instead of being attentive to his wife, Curley is frequently going out with "the boys" instead of with his wife. • Curley's wife has no love for her husband and wishes to leave him, but her final escape route is blocked since her father is dead and her mother doesn't want her.

39. Curley's wife tries to find companionship with the other men on the ranch but they ignore her or try to brush her off fearing that if they are caught associating with her, they will lose their jobs. • Curley's wife's loneliness finally becomes so severe that she resorts to fantasizing herself as a famous actress just to feel wanted and more popular with others.

40. Loneliness • Loneliness affects many of the characters, and Steinbeck seems to show that it is a natural and inevitable result of the kind of life they are forced to lead. • The itinerant workers are caught in a trap of loneliness - they never stay in one place long enough to form permanent relationships. Even if such relationships existed, they would probably be destroyed by the demands of the itinerant life. • Let's examine the lonely situation of some of the characters, see how they try to deal with it, and the result. • Candy is lonely because he is old, and is different from the other hands. His only comfort is his old dog, which keeps him company and reminds him of days when he was young and whole. • He has no relatives, and once his dog is killed is totally alone. He eagerly clutches at the idea of buying a farm with George and Lennie, but of course this all comes to nothing. • Candy's disappointment is expressed in the bitter words he utters to the body of Curley's wife, whom he blames for spoiling his dream. • George is also caught in the trap of loneliness. Just as Candy has his dog for company, George has Lennie (who is often described in animal-like terms). Continuing the parallel, George too is left completely alone when Lennie is killed.

41. Another lonely character is Curley's wife. Newly married and in a strange place, she is forbidden by Curley to talk to anyone but him. To counter this, she constantly approaches the ranch hands on the excuse of looking for Curley. The only result is that the men regard her as a slut, and Curley becomes even more intensely jealous. Finally, her loneliness leads to her death as she makes the ' serious error of trying to overcome it by playing the tease with Lennie. • Curley himself is lonely. His new wife hates him as do all the ranch hands who despise him for his cowardice. • He has married in an attempt to overcome his loneliness, but has blindly chosen a wife totally inappropriate for the kind of life he leads. • His feelings are all channelled into aggressive behaviour which further isolates his wife and leads to the incident with Lennie where his hand is crushed. • Crooks is another who is isolated because he is different. He copes with it by keeping a distance between himself and the other hands. When he does allow himself to be drawn into the dream of working on George and Lennie's dream farm, he is immediately shut out by George's anger.

42. We are nearly there! • Next Theme: DREAMS

43. Dreams -The American Dream - The American Dream: ranch hands wish to be their own bosses, and actually have stability in their lives.

44. What is the American Dream The term was first used by James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America which was written in 1931. He states: "The American Dream is "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to achieve the fullest stature of which they are capable of, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the circumstances of birth or position."

45. Is the American dream possible in the historical context of the novel?

46. "'Well,' said George, 'we'll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens. And when it rains in the winter, we'll just say the hell with goin' to work, and we'll build up a fire in the stove and set around it an' listen to the rain comin' down on the roof...'"

47. Their perfect world is one of independence. Workers like Lennie and George have no family, no home, and very little control over their lives. They have to do what the boss tells them and they have little to show for it. They only own what they can carry. Therefore, this idea of having such power over their lives is a strong motivation.

48. George and Lennie have a dream, even before they arrive at their new job on the ranch, to make enough money to live "off the fat of the land" and be their own bosses. Lennie will be permitted, then, to tend the rabbits. • Candy, upon hearing about the dream, wanted to join them so that he would not be left alone. • Crooks, the Negro outcast, wanted to join them so that he wouldn't be alone.

49. Dreams 2 When Whit brings in the pulp magazine with the letter written by Bill Tenner, the men are all very impressed. They are not certain that Bill wrote the letter, but Whit is convinced he did, and tries to convince the others. In the transient life of these workers, it is rare to leave any kind of permanent mark on the world. In this letter Bill Tenner has achieved some of the immortality the other men cannot imagine for themselves.

50. Dreams 3 • When George goes into a full description of the dream farm, its Eden-like qualities become even more apparent. All the food they want will be right there, with minimal effort. As Lennie says: "We could live offa the fatta the lan'."Chapter 3, pg. 57. • When George talks about their farm, he twice describes it in terms of things he loved in childhood: "I could build a smoke house like the one gran'pa had..."Chapter 3, pg. 57. • George yearns for his future to reflect the beauty of his childhood. "An' we'd keep a few pigeons to go flyin' around the win'mill like they done when I was a kid."