2. Steinbeck background


John Steinbeck was born in 1902 in Salinas, California. He
went to University but never graduated and in 1925 he went
to New York to try and establish himself as a writer but he
failed and returned to California.
He wrote some novels and short stories and became known
for Tortilla flat in 1935. After this he moved on to more
serious fiction, often aggressive in its social criticism, and
produced Of mice and men in 1937.

3. 

In the 1930s a huge dust storm cloud swept across south
west America. It made farmland very difficult to grow things
on and it was estimated that 100 million acres were affected
by the storms.
Tonnes of topsoil off the fields were blown in huge clouds
hundreds of miles across the states with 60 mph winds
destroying lots of farmland.

4. 

The great depression was a severe
economic depression during the
1930s. It was triggered by the wall
street crash, a huge stock crash that
plummeted stock prices in 1929.
In America this caused wide
unemployment then poverty. In
1933 unemployment was at 25%,
this combined with the dust bowl
made the 1930s one of the worst
eras in American history.

5. Because of this many workers had to move around a
lot trying to find cheap labour to earn themselves a
living. These were known as migrant workers and
this is the situation George and Lennie were in Of
mice and men.
This depression and hard times are used to echo the
whole theme of loneliness in the book and this is
why Steinbeck chose to use these themes in the
book.

6. 

Of Mice and men was wrote with ideas of
symbolising all the problems of American
society at the time in a microcosm created on
the ranch.
George and Lennie represent the pain and
difficult lives of the migrant workers, Crookes
represents the racial segregation in America
at the time, and every character represents
the loneliness of the great depression.