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Discuss Steinbeck's adept use of foreshadowing
Discuss Steinbeck's adept use of foreshadowing
Literary analysis of mice and men
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In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck two men, George and Lennie, are trying to earn enough money to make their dream come true. In the beginning of the novel George and Lennie are running away from a town called Weed and traveling to a new farm for work. They are dropped of a few miles from the farm and come across a little pond where they spend the night. George knowing that Lennie is mentally delayed tells him that if he gets in trouble,which he will, to come back to this exact spot. While they are at the farm many things happen, they meet the farm owner’s son ,Curley, and his wife, who is very lonely and tries to get attention, they also tell they dream to the swamper, Candy, who is very excited and wants to be part of this dream. Later in the story Lennie is approached by Curley’s …show more content…
I seen too many guys with land in their head. They never get none under their hand” (76). Crooks is telling Candy you will probably not get the land because he has seen people try but they never succeed. He is right Lennie and George end up never getting their plot of land. This use you might not notice at first, but if you look back you will notice Steinbeck cleverly hid this use of foreshadowing. The use of foreshadowing is very useful in a story, because it can make the endings of books either surprising or give it a sense of completeness. In The novel Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech, she uses foreshadowing throughout the whole book, but the reader doesn’t realize until the very end of the book when she finds out her mom is dead. This literally makes the reader gasp out loud in shock. Opposingly in Of Mice and Men the reader has a sense of what will happen in the end. Steinbeck uses foreshadowing in a more blatant or open way in which the reader can notice or acknowledge the effect of foreshadowing throughout the story. Both uses are very effective and make any story
“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 novel, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, foreshadowing is used a great deal throughout the whole story. From the beginning to the end, it appears everywhere hinting on what will happen in order to make the book more enjoyable. It was used to show that Lennie will be getting into trouble with Curley's wife, the death of Lennie, and exactly how he dies.
Have you ever watched a movie and knew what the ending was before it was over? Characters from the story use foreshadowing to hint on what will happen in the future. There are many examples of foreshadowing that John Steinbeck creates in Of MIce and Men. some key uses of foreshadowing that Steinbeck uses in Of MIce and Men are there wishes of the ranch but their plans going askew, how curley's wife will die, how they will not get the ranch, and lastly how lennie will die.
In California, two friends travel together to attempt to achieve their life long dream of owning their own farm. As they are traveling, they encounter situations that affect their future plans. During the Great Depression, George and Lennie, the main characters, begin searching for work to pay for their dream. As they search for work, George notices that Lennie can’t control his own strength. When they find work, they face many problems on the job especially with the bosses son, Curley. In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck uses Foreshadowing as a unifying device to reveal future events that may occur later in the story.
He also demonstrates another literary device, foreshadowing, in this novel, as well. Of Mice and Men includes lots of foreshadowing, which also helps improve how well the reader interprets the story. The use of foreshadowing in this piece of literature helps the reader predict what will happen later on. A way John Steinbeck uses foreshadowing in this novel is, “He wants to touch every’thing he likes.so he reaches out to feel this dress an’ the girl lets out a squawk” (41).
Dreams give people motivation and a sense of hope to not give up when life's hard conditions get in the way of success. In the novella, Of Mice and Men, George Milton has his own “American Dream” where he will live in a house, that he bought with his hard earned money, with Lennie. They will grow their own crops and own farm animals to feed themselves. This dream keeps George motivated to find new jobs when Lennie gets them into trouble. George does not want to give up on working hard and making money on ranches.
When Lennie and George encounter Slim, another ranch hand, they automatically respect him and react positively towards him. “This was Slim, the jerkline skinner. His hatchet face was ageless. He might have been thirty-five or fifty. His ear heard more than was said to him, and his slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought. His hands, large and lean, were as delicate in their action as those of a temple dancer.” (Steinbeck, 33-34) Slim is the noblest of the ranch as the only character who seems to be at peace with his circumstances and his life. The other characters view slim as wise and respectable man and often go to him for guidance, as the only person who has achieved what he wants in life.
Foreshadowing is used in many novels, but S.E Hinton uses this perfectly. She makes the foreshadowing easy to find. She also uses foreshadowing many times throughout the story. Most of the foreshadowings in her novel was crucial to the story. Foreshadowing is important to many stories. They move the plot a long and make to story possible. Some foreshadowing are so important, like in S.E Hinton’s The Outsiders. Without Johnny having the blade, he wouldn’t have been able to kill Bob. There would be no story without Bob being dead. Foreshadowing is an important part of literacy and makes the novel more
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.
Everyone has a dream they hope to achieve, but dreams are not always possible to attain. In John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, two ranch hands, George and Lennie, find work in Salinas Valley. Lennie, constantly getting into trouble, inadvertently causes the two of them to be run out of town and thus have to find new work regularly. George and Lennie's search for work in the hope of accomplishing their dream of a small farm of their own displays how futile realizing dreams can be.
'I see hundreds of men come by on the road an' on the ranches with
Thomas Hobbes in his Leviathan states that, "in the state of nature mans life is nasty, brutish and short". In depression era America, no greater truth could be said. There were millions unemployed, largely unskilled and living on the margins of society. The lowest of the low were the migrant labourers travelling from place to place trying to scratch a living. They often had to travel illegally by freight car with all its consequent dangers. Their life expectancy was low, crime was rampant and despair was a fellow traveller. This is the setting of John Steinbeck's, 'Of Mice and Men'.
Every person has an American dream, no matter how big or small, everyone has one. Their dreams however, vary from person to person, based on past experiences. While some people will chose to try to own a small farm in California, others will want to go to Hollywood and become an actress. Though American dreams are commonly found in living people they are also able to be within fictional characters as well; such as in Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck. Only American dreams can go astray due to problems that were not foreseen. In Of Mice and y Men, Lennie was the unforeseen problem with George, Candy, and his American dream because of his ableism. His mental ableism made him love to touch soft things such as hair, even though he could end
“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage and to pursue them.”-Walt Disney. We often persevere to achieve our goals but are held back by the slightest of things. Sometimes there is a minor setback that causes your dream to shatter and forces you to do something that you will regret. Steinbeck disrupts many characters’ dreams that all relate to the American Dream of the idea of having an equal opportunity to achieve your goals and prosper through your hard work and determination. Dreams can give you false hope and be destroyed easily, such as the dreams of Curley’s wife, George’s & Lennie’s, and Crooks’ in John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men.
a better way of life - but something always seems to get in the way of