Of Mice and Men: An

Introduction

Directions: Please take notes on the following slides to get a better understanding of the

author and background of the novel. With two column notes you write the main ideas on the

left and the details on the right.

Two-Column Notes

• Main Ideas • Details and specific information

John Steinbeck:

Facts• 1902-1968

• Born in Salinas, California.

• First Fiction published 1929.

• Focus on land owners, police and government treatment of workers.

• Won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1962.

• Died of heart disease in 1968.

John Steinbeck: Novels

• Popular Novels • Over 27 published works

• Wrote Of Mice and Men in 1937

• Other novels include The Grapes of Wrath and The Winter of our Discontent.

Setting: historical

• Migrant Farm Workers

• Stock Market Crash of 1929- “Great Depression”

• Dust Bowls

• Earned $2.50 to $3.00 a day plus food and basic lodging

• Agencies were set up to send farm workers to where they were needed

Setting: Physical

• Of Mice and Men is set in the farmland of the Salinas valley (California), where John Steinbeck was born.

• The story begins late on a Thursday afternoon and extends to Sunday afternoon.

Common Themes:

• Themes: • Compassion• Loyalty• Dependence• Vulnerability• Need• Longing• Violence• Intimidation

Important Terms:

• Novella: A shortened form of fictional development from 30,000-50,000 words.

• Foreshadowing: An object, statement, action or motif that anticipates or predicts a significant event.

• The title of the novel comes from a poem by the Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759 - 96):

• The best laid schemes o' mice and menGang aft agley [often go wrong]And leave us nought but grief and painFor promised joy!

• Photography by Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange

• Information by NobelPrize.org