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Literary devices of mice and men
Literary devices of mice and men
Of mice and men literary analysis
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The Great Depression created the conditions that has control of all the characters in the novel. The creation of “Bindle stiffs,” is a direct result of the cultivation challenges that came from the Depression. The fact that the men are “at bay” to a certain extent impacts the characters. Few to none of the characters are happy in the novel, for they were bound to work with so little being present. Lennie and George are representative of this novel. For their dream of having a farm shows the desire for economic autonomy and empowerment, something that few people showed during the Great Depression. The fact that Curley’s wife is able to make fun of them shows how desperate they are to stay and keep working at this ranch. They hold their
“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!” Robert Burn’s quote makes us believe that even the best laid out plans for joy often go wrong and brings us grief and pain. George and Lennie’s plan was for a better future. The future where they didn’t take commands from someone; where they took care of themselves. As George and Lennie keep talking about the farm and more people joining in on the plan, it looks like it might happen. But with the foreshadowing through this quote: “Look, Lennie. I want you to look around here. You can remember this place, can’t you? The ranch is about a quarter mile up that way. Just follow the river. (15)” This quote foreshadows Lennie messing up and it creating a larger gap between the dream farm and them. When Lennie kills Curley's wife, the idea of the dream farm slowly starts to disappear. As George finds out about what had happen, he realizes that plan for a farm was just an idea, an illusion. “—I think I knowed from the very first. I think I knowed we’d never do her. He usta like to hear about it so much I got to thinking maybe we would”
In the beginning, the farm and the bond between George and Lennie presented to us is so beautiful yet strong. Foreshadowing already appears constantly in the first section of the book and Steinbeck stresses the doom that awaits the pair. The rabbits ran for cover immediately after the footsteps, hinting their American dream is getting away from them. We learn about Lennie’s deadly desire to stroke for soft things, and the dead mouse explains to us that the weak, innocent will not survive. The innocent soft things from mice to Lennie’s puppy all dies because of Lennie’s incapability to control his immense strength, which he has completely no idea how to control which makes him no less helpless than the animals he kills. George recounts the reason why they had to flee from the previous weed and we are made aware that similar ending will fall upon the one and only woman in the ranch-Curley’s wife.
Life for ranchers in the 1930’s was very lonely. They have no family, and they do not belong anywhere. They come to the ranch, earn their pay, go into town, waste their money, and start all over again at another ranch. They have nothing to look forward to. But George and Lennie are different; it is not like that for them because they have each other. It was George and Lennie’s dream to own a piece of land and a farm. That dream is long gone. In the story, Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, Curley caused the death of his wife and Lennie’s death; Curley also shattered George and Lennie’s dream.
John Steinbeck's agricultural upbringing in the California area vibrantly shines through in the settings and story lines of the majority of his works. Steinbeck's novel, Of Mice and Men, takes place in the Salinas Valley of California. The drama is centered around two itinerant farm workers, George Milton and Lennie Small, with a dream of someday owning a place of their own. Lennie Small is a simple-minded, slow moving, shapeless hulk with pale eyes whose enormous physical strength often causes him to get into trouble. George Milton on the other hand is small in stature, clever, dark of face and eyes, and acts as Lennie's guardian and calming force.
To paraphrase Robert Burns-"The best laid plans of mice and men go awry". This is a bleak statement and it is at the centre of the novel's action. George and Lennie have the dream of owning their own ranch and living a free independent life; they would be self-reliant and most of all they would be safe from a harsh and hostile world. Other characters in the book also try to buy into their dream ie, Candy and Crooks. Ultimately, the dream unravels and like a Greek Tragedy, the ending is terrible but also predictable.
When asked about John Steinbeck’s career, people often refer to Steinbeck as a playwright, journalist, and a well-known novelist. The book Of Mice and Men is a popular novel by John Steinbeck and a required read for most high school students. Most of Steinbeck 's novels have a central theme focusing on the relationship between man and his environment. The American dream for George and Lennie, two of the main characters in Of Mice and Men, is to have a place of their own, to be respected, and to work hard for everything they earn and deserve. In Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men, the land and a hope of a better life becomes the talisman of an American dream for Lennie and George that is left unfulfilled.
The book takes place in the great depression where power was everything and if you were weak you were killed off by the strong so that they could survive. The characters understood this and tried to appear stronger and more powerful than each other to get by. Curly fights larger men, to appear strong. Crook threatens Lennie with the thought that George will leave him, and this is meant to scare him because Lennie has a special relationship with George that is irreplaceable. Carlson shoots Candy’s dog to show masculinity in a way and strip Candy of the one thing he really loves. And Curley's wife threatens to hang crooks to prove that even though she is a woman she still has a voice on the farm.
Compare and Contrast Essay Rough Draft January 26, 2016 Justin Park The Great Depression was the worst period in the history of America’s economy. There is no way to overstate how tough this time was for the average worker, and there was a feeling of desperation that hung over the entire country. Current political wisdom leading up to the Great Depression had been that the federal government does not get involved in business or the economy under any circumstances. Three Presidents in a row: Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover, all were cut from the same cloth of enacting pro-business policies to generate a powerful economy.
‘Of Mice and Men’ was written by John Steinbeck and published in 1937. The story is based on migrant workers in California during the time of the Great Depression. The Great Depression was caused by the Wall Street Crash in America which effected many business and banks many of which became bankrupt. This resulted in mass unemployment, inflation and economic migration from the city to the countryside. Steinbeck wrote this novel to show what life was like for low-paid, poor workers and to show how the Great Depression effected American people. He represents what life was like for many unprivileged people in 1930s America: migrant workers, women and black Americans.
The Great Depression and John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath Though most Americans are aware of the Great Depression of 1929, which may well be "the most serious problem facing our free enterprise economic system", few know of the many Americans who lost their homes, life savings and jobs. This paper briefly states the causes of the depression and summarizes the vast problems Americans faced during the eleven years of its span. This paper primarily focuses on what life was like for farmers during the time of the Depression, as portrayed in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, and tells what the government did to end the Depression. In the 1920's, after World War 1, danger signals were apparent that a great Depression was coming.
In Of Mice of Men, John Steinbeck uses a wide variety of literary elements such as foreshadowing and colloquial language in order to set the tone and capture the time and place. Throughout the book Steinbeck shows how the Great Depression negatively affected American workers by telling a story about two men who go through constant struggles.
With the setting as the Great Depression in the 1930s, George and Lennie of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men have overcome the adversity of being unemployed as they pursue work through Murray and Ready.In addition, they are bindle stiffs and are among other dispossessed males who must ride railroad cars and migrate from job to job. However, they are not alone like most of the other workers; due to the fact they have the friendship and trust of one another. In the beginning to the end George and Lennie share the hope of having a little farm of their own on which they can live on "the fat of the land" someday. (Citation) With this dream, they conquer the terrible alienation that men without homes encounter. Thus, George and Lennie overcome the adversities of poverty, alienation, and despair while staying true to their friendship.
Despite the loss of Lennie, George will continue to work to buy a house and have his own ranch, because that was his and Lennie’s dream. Even though the fatality of a good friend is traumatic and may set back their dream a bit I believe George will pick himself up and continue forward. Although Lennie was the better worker of the two I feel that George will find a way to make enough money to buy the house.
George and Lennie have to continue to move around the country looking for work until Lennie screws up again. The instability of work only makes it that much harder for them to complete their dream of a farm of their own. Candy’s participation in the dream of the farm upgrades the dream into a possible reality. As the tending of rabbits comes closer to happening fate curses them with the accidental death of Curley’s wife. The end of their wishful thinking is summed up by Candy’s question on page 104, “Then-it’s all off?”
The Grapes of Wrath is a realist novel that was written by John Steinbeck in the year 1939. The book has gained critical acclamation around the world to result in awards such as the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for fiction and culminated by winning the Nobel Prize in the year 1962. The book was set by the author during the Great Depression in the United States, which has been used to highlight the challenges and experiences of American people during that period. The book focuses on a family by the name the Joads and their struggle to survive in period marked by economic hardship with widespread bank foreclosures that forced a significant number of farmers in the country out of employment. The family was driven from their home by drought given that they were tenant farmers while at the same time struggling with the severe economic hardships (Steinbeck, 1996).