Of mice and men

• John Steinbeck grew up in and around Salinas, California
• Steinbeck's comfortable California upbringing instilled in him a love of nature and the land, but also of the diverse ethnic and socioeconomic groups featured throughout his fiction
• He attended Stanford University, but never completed his degree. Instead he moved to New York in 1925 to become a freelance writer. He returned to California after that plan failed and earned his first real recognition for Tortilla Flat (1935), a collection of stories about peasant workers in Monterrey, California
• He published many more novels throughout his lifetime and today is best known for the novella Of Mice and Men (1937) and the novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
• He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 and died six years later
• Historical context


  • When the stock market crashed in 1929, an already awful situation for farmers and farm workers got considerably worse. Following World War I, crop prices plunged, forcing farmers to expand their farms and buy more equipment to make up for the shortfall. This situation was exacerbated when a severe drought crippled much of the American West. So when the market crashed, farmers could not pay back the debts they had built up in buying more land and equipment. As a result, many farmers and farm workers, migrated to California in hopes of finding enough work to live
• John Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie were perhaps the two most famous chroniclers of the Great Depression


  Steinbeck's trilogy of novels portraying the struggle of migrant workers in California is the most enduring literary chronicle of the Great Depression: In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), and The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Woody Guthrie (1912-1967), the leading American songwriter of the late 1930s and 1940s, released the Dust Bowl Ballads in 1940, an album of songs inspired by the drought-ravaged region of the American West that came to be known as the "Dust Bowl" in the early 1930s
• Of Mice and Men


  • Setting: Salinas and Soledad, California during the Great Depression in the early 1930s
  • Climax: Lennie accidentally kills Curley's wife
  • Point of View: Third person omniscient
• George Milton


  George is Lennie's friend and protector. Unlike the giant, lumbering Lennie, George is small and wiry with a quick and resourceful mind. In many ways, George is a typical migrant farm worker, a class of poor and lonely men who traveled from ranch to ranch looking for work during the Great Depression. But George differs from these often bitter men because of his friendship with Lennie, which keeps him in his own words, from getting "mean" Though George sometimes resents Lennie as a burden, he also deeply loves him, and shares with him a dream of owning their own farm
• Lennie Small


  George's companion. Lennie is huge and immensely strong, but a mental disability makes him entirely dependent on George, especially after his Aunt Clara dies (before the novella begins). Lennie is the most innocent, gentle, and kind character in the novel, and his sole dream is to tend rabbits and live off the "tatta the lan" on a farm that he and George will own. In the end, Lennie and his innocent dream fall prey to Curley's revenge and George's mercy, two powerful adult emotions beyond Lennie's control or comprehension
• Candy


  An old handyman who greets George and Lennie at the ranch. The owner of an old and feeble dog. Candy is himself crippled-he lost his hand in an accident on the ranch
• Curley


  The boss's ill-tempered and violent son. He tries to make it clear that he is of a higher class than the other ranch hands by wearing fancy boots. He is also mean-spirited, violent, and insecure. Though the only married man on the ranch, he's extremely jealous and suspicious of his wife, and he tends to overcompensate for his lack of height by picking fights with larger men. Curley cares most about looking strong
• Curley's Wife


  The only female character in the novel, and Curley's wife. The men on the ranch call her a "tart" because she flirts with them. They consider her dangerous because any attention might cause them to get fired, or worse. But beneath her sexy exterior, Curley's wife is deeply lonely, and has dashed dreams of becoming an actress
• Slim


  A skilled mule driver with an ageless face, a grave manner, and a calm authority on how to run a ranch, Slim is a revered figure on the ranch. As the most self-assured of the men, he is the only one who never takes a swipe at anyone else in order to make himself feel stronger or better. At the same time, he is also the only one of the ranch hands who truly understands and appreciates the power and purity of the friendship between George and Lennie
• Crooks


  The stable manager, and the only black man on the farm. Crook's name comes from his crooked posture, the result of a kick from a horse. Crooks is bitter from a lifetime of lonely segregation. He thinks of himself as a cynic, and immediately sees that George and Lennie's dream of owning a farm will never come about. Yet at the same time, he can't entirely resist the beauty of the dream, and wants to be a part of it
• Carlson


  The ranch-hand who shoots Candy's dog in the back of the head. Though he isn't cruel, Carlson is without sentimentality, and has no qualms about killing or getting rid of anything that's no longer useful
• The Boss


  The man who runs the ranch, and Curley's father. He is quick to anger and suspicion, but is otherwise fair. Like his son, the boss wears fancy boots to show that he occupies a station above the ranch hands
• Aunt Clara


  Though not an actual character in the novel, Aunt Clara cared for Lennie until her death. She appears to Lennie in a vision near the end of the novel
• Whit


  A ranch hand
• Andy Cushman


  A childhood friend of George and Lennie
• Candy: 'You seen what they done to my dog tonight? They says he wasn't no good to himself nor nobody else. When they can me here I wisht somebody'd shoot me. But they won't do nothing like that.'
• George Milton, Candy: 'We'd just go to her," George said. "We wouldn't ask nobody if we could. Jus say, 'We'll go to her an' we would. Jus' milk the cow and sling some grain to the chickens an' go to her'
• Lennie Small: 'We could live offa the fatta the lan''
• Candy: 'I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn't ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog'
• Slim: 'Carl's right, Candy. That dog ain't no good to himself. I wisht somebody'd shoot me if I got old an' a cripple like him.'
• Crooks: 'A guy needs somebody-to be near him' He whined. 'A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody.'
• Crooks: 'I seen it over an over-a guy talking to another guy and it don't make no difference if he don't hear or understand. The thing is, they're talkin', or they're gettin' still not talkin. It don't make no difference, no difference...It's just the talking'
• Curley's Wife: 'Why can't I talk to you? I never get to talk to nobody. I get awful lonely.'
• George Milton: 'No, Lennie. I ain't mad I never been mad, an' I ain't now. That's a thing I want ya to know.'