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John Steinbeck. Of Mice and Men. John Steinbeck. Born in Salinas on February 27, 1902. Steinbeck was a naturalist and a regionalist; his novels are based on first-hand research.
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John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck • Born in Salinas on February 27, 1902. • Steinbeck was a naturalist and a regionalist; his novels are based on first-hand research. • His father was a manager at a flour mill, and his mother was a school teacher who taught him to read when he was only three years old. • He lived in the Salinas Valley in Central California and by the Monterey Coast, and many of his novels are based there. • He believed that life in the country is superior to that in the city. • In high school, knew he wanted to be a writer.
John Steinbeck • Graduated from Salinas High School. • Attended Stanford University but never finished. • Attempted some creative writing while in college and submitted it to magazines, but was rejected. • His first novel, Cup of Gold, was published in 1929, but it was not financially rewarding. • His second novel, The Red Pony, was published in two parts in a magazine in 1930.
John Steinbeck • His first three novels were unsuccessful, but, in 1962, he became the sixth American author to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature for his 1938 The Grapes of Wrath • In 1968, he died of heart disease while living in Manhattan.
John Steinbeck • Chief works: • Tortilla Flat • In Dubious Battle • Of Mice an Men • The Red Pony • The Grapes of Wrath • Canary Row • East of Eden • The Pearl
John Steinbeck • His writing technique is largely based on dialogue, connected together with brief, descriptive passages. • Character histories are explained through conversation rather than by the author. • Due to this, his novels were easily made into films.
John Steinbeck • A lot of his characters are: the have-nots, the misfits, the racial minorities unjustly deprived of their civil and economic rights, the simple, the poor, and the oppressed. • His characters use profanity because that is the way that they talk. • His characters are always hard-working and good-hearted but inclined to drink and argue. • His characters are rural heroes who are illiterate and sometimes weak, but, nevertheless, noble.
John Steinbeck • Was a regionalist: he was careful to portray local settings and local speech accurately. • He was concerned with the problems of the poor and oppressed, the “mice” in society. • His characters achieve a simple, tragic nobility of there own, and their problems have universal applications. • He believed: that all people must have a place in nature and learn to understand its power, that all people must require relationships with other human beings, and that all people share a need for a dream, goal, and vision for the future.
John Steinbeck • In preparation for writing his novels, Steinbeck would often live, work, and be with the people about whom he was to write. • In preparation for The Grapes of Wrath, he joined a migrant camp and rode with them to California. • For The Pearl, he traveled to the Gulf of Mexico.
Of Mice and Men • The title of the novel comes from a poem by the Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759- 1796) The best laid schemes o’mice and men Gang aft agley [often go wrong] And leave us nought but grief and pain For promised joy!
The setting: Of Mice and Men • The novel is set in the farmland of the Salinas valley, where John Steinbeck was born • The ranch in the novel is near Soledad, which is south-east of Salinas on the Salinas river. • The countryside described at the beginning of the novel, and the ranch itself is based on Steinbeck’s own experiences.
Historical Background to Migrant Workers • Before technology created farm machinery, humans had to do a lot of the farm work by hand. • Between the 1880s and the 1930s, thousands of men would travel the countryside in search of work. • Such work included the harvesting of wheat.
Historical Background to Migrant Workers • These workers would earn $2.50 to $3.00 a day, plus food and shelter. • During the 1930s, the unemployment rate was high in the U.S., and with so many men searching for work, agencies were set up to send farmworkers to where they were needed. • In the novel, George and Lennie (the two main characters) are given work cards from Murray and Ready’s, which was one of the farmwork agencies.
The American Dream • From the 17thcentury onwards, immigrants have dreamed of a better life in America. • Many people immigrated to America in search of a new life for themselves or their families. • Many others immigrated to escape persecution or poverty in their homeland.
American Dream cont’d • These immigrants dreamed of making their fortunes in America. • For many this dream of riches became a nightmare. there were horrors of slavery, there were horrors of the American Civil War, • there was a growing number of slums that were just as bad as those in Europe, • there was also great corruption in the American political system which led to many shattered hopes
The Disappearance of the Dream • The idea of an American Dream for many was broken when, in 1929, Wall Street crashed, marking the beginning of the Great Depression. • This era affected the whole world during the 1930s, but even in the midst of hardship, some people’s dreams survived. • Thousands of people made their way west towards California to escape from their farmlands in the mid-West that were failing due to drought. • Characters George and Lennie dream of having a “little house and a couple of acres.”
Of Mice and Men • Of Mice and Men is considered a “naturalistic tragedy” • It deals with the lives of migrant farm workers during the Great Depression. • The characters in the novel are the down trodden, misfits, and outcasts, disabled in some way, mentally, physically, economically, or emotionally.
Major Themes: • Treatment of the mentally handicapped • Mercy killings • Class conflict • Loneliness and isolation • Race and racism • Objectification of women • Friendship • Loyalty • Weak versus strong
John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men
