The Role of Setting in John Steinbeck's Of Mice & Men
Throughout time man has encountered many trials and tribulations. One of these unpredictable changes was the depression era in the Western region of America. From the beginning to the end of the novel, Of Mice & Men (1937), by John Steinbeck, life is portrayed as cruel and an insurmountable conquest. During the 1930's the worst economic collapse of the world occurred : the Depression. The setting throughout this novel sets the emotions high because of the hardships that were encountered by two men looking for work. These men were George Milton and Lennie Small. George was "small and quick and hard of the face, and had sharp strong features" (9). Lennie was the opposite a " huge man, shape less of a face, with large, pale eyes, with wide sloping shoulders" (9). While the simple minded and powerful Lennie tries to keep out of trouble at the ranch, he worries about how George may get angry at him if he makes a blunder. Curly, the boss's son, is a trouble maker and pressures Lennie into fighting him which he does and pays the price. In addition, Lennie ends up killing Curley's wife, thus leading to the death of Lennie. George shoots him utilitarianly, which means he did it to bring safety to anyone who may have encountered him. With Lennies death George hoped to maximize happiness for the greatest number of people. Their dream once of having their own ranch died with Lennie.
Setting is encountered in every chapter and allowing the reader to visualize the surroundings which contribute to this story more than any other element. The story is set in 1930's California on the verge of Mexico. The river Steinbeck speaks of, "The Salinas River," happens to be the birthplace of Stei...
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...lood." This brings the story to and end when George killed his one and only friend, Lennie.
Ironicaly, Steinbeck was a marine biologist and when he wrote this book he was in the ways of looking at water. The pond that Lennie drank out of, which the river that ran into it came from his home town, and the cruel view of nature as the snake that probably ate the mouse that Lennie killed was devoured by a heron. Thus, showing that things have a chain reaction in nature and Lennie, some what, got revenged upon by the mouse and the other mammals that he killed. The setting is the biggest element of the novel setting the mood at the begining of each chapter and vividly examining the way it was during the depression. This finally answers the question "Where did I go George?"
Work Cited
Steinbeck, John, "Of Mice and Men." (1937). May 3, 2004. New York,
New York.
In order to solve this problem, the ICC needs to adopt a separate provision for trafficking of humans and adopt one of the definitions of human trafficking already in use via the TVPS or the Palermo Protocol. An ascertainable and broad definition regarding human trafficking will help bring such atrocities before the ICC and render actual meaning to the Rome Statute’s enslavement provision.
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is a novel about loneliness and the American Dream. This book takes place during the Great Depression. It was very difficult for people to survive during this time period. A lot of people hardly survived let alone had the necessities they needed to keep relationships healthy. Of Mice of Men has a common theme of disappointment. All the characters struggle with their unaccomplished dreams. The migrant workers, stable buck, swamper, and the other men on the ranch had an unsettled disappointment of where they were at in their lives. George and Lennie, two newcomers to the ranch, aren’t like the other guys. They have each other and they are the not loneliest people in the world. Lennie has a dream though he wants to own a farm with plenty of crops and animals one day. The only problem is his blind curiosity of people and things around him. George wasn’t justified for killing Lennie because Lennie was innocent and never got the chance to find out what he did wrong.
John Steinbeck, an American novelist, is well-known for his familiar themes of depression and loneliness. He uses these themes throughout a majority of his novels. These themes come from his childhood and growing up during the stock market crash. A reader can see his depiction of his childhood era. In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck shows the prominent themes of loneliness, the need for relationships, and the loss of dreams in the 1930s through the novels’ character.
John Steinbeck explores human experience in the novella ‘Of Mice and Men’ in friendship, loneliness and marginalisation. He does this through the characters as explained thought the paragraphs below.
The quote that inspired John Steinbeck was the best laid schemes often go off track can be seen in the novel of Mice and Men. When Curley's wife met a man in her childhood that offered her to be an actress but the chance went away and she later died. Then Curley wanted to be a professional boxer but the dream never happened and he became a farmer then got his hand broken for trying to be tough. George and Lennie were going to buy a farm to live off the fat of the land then Lennie had to get in trouble and George had to give up the dream and kill Lennie for what he had done.
The daily struggle of the working class, fear of loneliness and the reality of putting all your energy into plans that fail are the different themes relating to John Steinbeck's novel, "Of Mice and Men". The characters depicted by the author are individuals who are constantly facing one obstacle after another. The book illustrates different conflicts such as man versus society, man versus man, man versus himself and idealism versus reality. The book's backdrop is set in the Salinas, California during the depression. The two main characters include two men, George and Lennie. Supportive characters include a few ranch hands, Candy, Crooks, Curly, Slim and Carlson.
The novella comes full circle and ends like it begins in order to display a naturalist perspective. The setting in the beginning and the end of the novella are describing the same place, however, the setting is described differently. The description of the setting in the beginning of the novella is hopeful and serene while in the end of the novella the setting is hopeless and depressing. In the beginning of the novella Steinbeck describes the setting as “A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green...On the sand banks the rabbits sat as quietly as little gray, sculptured stones”(1-2). In comparison to the end of the novella when Steinbeck states “The deep green pool of the Salinas River was still in the late afternoon”(99), however there are no...
Of Mice and Men is a novel written by John Steinbeck. It is set in California during the great depression. The story follows two ranch hands who travel together and are very poor. Throughout the novel we witness many different philosophical references. Many different types of characters from this novel are reused in today’s society. Steinbeck also writes eloquently about the many different emotions, aspirations, and dreams of man.
Inclusion, in the educational system, is the integration of learners with disabilities into general education classes (Voltz et al., 2001). This concept may sound simple, however the reality is much harder to achieve. Inclusion primarily focuses on how to put students with special needs into a general education class, instead of focusing on how to change the general and special education system to better support all students. This is a necessary shift in the way educators, administrators, parents, and communities view the structure of inclusion, which is necessary for its underlying purpose to be realized.
According to the United Nations, thousands of people are smuggled across borders worldwide, and it now has reached an estimated 800,000 victims (“Human Trafficking Statistics”). By letting this continue, the numbers will only grow and continue to keep growing. Of the 600,000 to 800,000 men, women, and children who have been trafficked across international borders each year, approximately 80 percent are women and girls (“End of Human Trafficking Now”). The United Nations should be more proactive in both preventing and eliminating human trafficking because 161 out of 192 countries are involved with human trafficking (“Human Trafficking Statistics”) and the leaders of every country need to come together to end this phenomenon.
To solve this problem, all countries must coordinate the work of national and international organizations. Firstly, all countries need to enact international laws that will apply to all countries or people from different countries involved in human trafficking. This way, people who are involved even in one of the action by which human trafficking becomes possible will be criminally responsible and will face severe tribunal. These actions comprehend recruitment, seizure of documents, preparation of false documents (if the acts are committed with the purpose of sexual exploitation), dissemination of confidential information about victims, facilitation of the work of the prostitution business and its management. As well, they must strengthen border controls, since most of trafficked girls and people who export them were not even checked at the borders. Between 2003 and 2008, legislation in many countries was complemented by the regulations related to combating human trafficking. This was associated with the entry into force of the Trafficking Protocol in 2000. All countries need to cooperate in order to confront the problem and reduce the huge number of people that were
To begin discussing the need for treatment of addiction for correctional inmates the first thing that needs to be addressed is what is addiction and why should it be treated. In psychological circles addiction is classified as a brain disease. It is as much as a disease as cancer or asthma. Some opponents say that it is not a disease because a person has the choice to take drugs. The simple answer to that argument is that a person with asthma also has the cho...
According to the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, inclusion is the action of including students with disabilities in a regular public classroom (2010). Children with disabilities are now being included in the general education classrooms along with their peers who do not have disabilities; they are offered additional support and any other help that may be needed for them to succeed in a general education classroom. Having inclusion in schools makes every child feel welcomed and apart of something bigger. This practice not only helps the child with disabilities but inclusion helps the children without disabilities. In the following paragraphs, I will discuss the history, the pros and cons of inclusion and the next steps.
As case and point, “the impact of the Internet is far greater than any other communicative tool in the history of mass communications” (Elliot, 2008, para. 1). With an expansive, yet extremely convenient means to electronically join people through business, relationships, education and more, Sociology assumes the ...
...fter the study “remarked positively about the practice of inclusion, particularly about the critical value of a sense of community” (M. Smith; K. Smith, 2000). In “Toward Inclusion of Special Education Students in General Education” (2006) , Lorna Idol also explains how teachers feel about inclusion by stating: