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Themes in Of Mice and Men: Exploring the American Dream, Loneliness, Friendship, Innocence, and Discrimination

In this class, we discuss the various themes in the novella Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, including the American Dream, loneliness, friendship, innocence, and discrimination. Students are encouraged to analyze key quotes to support their understanding of these themes.

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Themes in Of Mice and Men: Exploring the American Dream, Loneliness, Friendship, Innocence, and Discrimination

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  1. THANK YOU! I want to let you know how proud I was of this class yesterday. You held a class discussion yesterday that was worthy of a junior or senior class. You were on-task and focused, and tackled some difficult questions with intelligence, insight and wisdom. Yesterday was the most advanced class conversation that I have had the pleasure of watching, and I was proud to be your teacher yesterday. Well done!

  2. Themes of Of Mice and Men

  3. Instructions Please take out a clean sheet of paper, and brace yourselves to answer the questions posed on the slides. (Yes, brace yourselves.) Nothing like a little hyperbole (extreme exaggeration) to start off your day.

  4. Theme: A unifying idea that is a recurring element in literary or artistic work. What might be possible themes of this novella (short novel)? Please record your ideas on your paper.

  5. Themes in Of Mice and Men • The American Dream • Loneliness • Friendship • Innocence • Discrimination

  6. Your task… Choose one theme which you particularly like/understand, and search the book for three pieces of evidence to show how this theme is demonstrated. Your evidence will be lines taken from the book—either a quote from a character, or simply a line from the book. Once you have found your evidence, you will write a one-paragraph minimum explanation of why and how that quote demonstrates your chosen theme. Your paragraphs should be well and carefully written, a thoughtful and serious analysis of the theme demonstrated. (Six total—two per piece of evidence.) Your work does NOT need to be typed, but it should be neatly written and easily legible. If not, it will be returned for you to rewrite! You will have two class days to work.

  7. Ex.: Curley and Carlson looked after them. And Carlson said, “Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin’ them two guys?” The last line of Of Mice and Men demonstrates powerfully the theme of loneliness in this novella, and the difficulty we all have in being truly understood. George was just forced to kill his best and only friend in the world under horrifying circumstances, and his fellow ranch hand expresses confusion that something might be “eatin’” or bothering him. This line emphasizes George’s new solitude, both physically, having lost his traveling companion, and emotionally, having lost his friend. The one person George could count on for even imperfect and simplistic sympathy and good-spirited kindness is now gone, and in place of that loss are strangers who are miles from “getting” him. Friendship is a precious gift, and is a protection from loneliness. The blessing of having someone who truly “gets” us is to be valued, because for the most part we will spend our lives surrounded by “Carlsons.” George’s new life in loneliness then begins as Slim leads him into the town of Soledad, Spanish for “solitude.”

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