In essence, Of Mice and Men is as much a story about the nature of human dreams and aspirations and the forces that work against them as it is the story of two men, George Milton, an intelligent but uneducated man, and Lennie Small, a bulky, strong but mentally disabled man.
Humans give meaning to their lives and to their futures by creating dreams. Without dreams and goals, life is an endless stream of days that have little connection or meaning.
When John Steinbeck published Of Mice and Men in 1937, the world was in the grip of the Great Depression.
Americans were out of work, breadlines were common day occurrences, and the future looked grim indeed. In California, there were economic and social problems that increasingly concerned Steinbeck and provided material for three novels about agricultural workers. By the time he wrote Of Mice and Men, the itinerant ranch hands were beginning to be replaced by machinery, and their way of life was fast disappearing. Nevertheless, Steinbeck’s story captures the culture of those workers realistically and provides a vehicle for his thoughts about the common man.
Of Mice and Men is a dark tale, a parable of men journeying through a world of pitfalls and brutal, inhumane experiences.
Their dreams seem all but doomed, obstacles block their ways, happiness appears to be an impossibility, and human handicaps affect their hopes.
When the novel begins, we are treated to a forest scene with the sunshine on the pond and the gentle breeze in the willow trees promising that life is good. But soon after, that nature scene is replaced by a human world that contains jealousy, cruelty, loneliness, rootlessness, longing for land, and shattered dreams.
Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place. . . . With us it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. We don’t have to sit in no bar room blowin’ in our jack jus’ because we got no place else to go. If them other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us.
George Milton
The power of John Steinbeck’s vision is that we, the readers, enter this world and are drawn into the journey of these two men, Lennie and George and we witness their dreams, their hopes, and their courage.
Like so many of Steinbeck’s characters, Lennie and George are not captains or kings but little battlers. They haven’t a dime to their names or a place to lay their heads, but they strive for a better life.
They long for self-respect, independence, freedom from fear, a future, a place to call home, and work that they love.
I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you…
Lennie
(The crux of George and Lennie’s relationship, and the reason why it’s such a profound one, is their commitment to each other and to their friendship.)
Steinbeck based the novella [1] on his own experiences as a teenager working alongside migrant farm workers in the 1910s, before the arrival of the Okies whom he would describe in his novel ‘The Grapes of Wrath’.
Interestingly, the title is taken from Robert Burns’ poem “To a Mouse”.
“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley”
(“The best-laid plans of mice and men / Often go awry”).
1. A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most novelettes and short stories. The English word novella derives from the Italian novella meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts.
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