Thursday 8th November
2012
Today’s LO:
To understand the social
and historical context of
the novel “of Mice and
Men”
1 Copy down the date, title
and L/O
2 – Register Challenge.
What, if anything, do you
know about the novel “Of
Mice and Men”
3: Starter:
Write down anything at all
that you know about
America’s history.
Things I know about
America:
Why is context important?
What does this article tell us about society
today?
Context: An introduction to 1920s
America
SOCIAL, HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT.
A time of massive change
in the world!
The Roaring Twenties
Read the extract from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott
Fitzgerald. It was first published in 1925, twelve years before
Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. The novel is set in New York during the
Roaring Twenties.
Stick in your book
…The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the
garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual
innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic
meetings between women who never knew each other's names.
The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now
the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices
pitches a key lighter. Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with
prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word. The groups change more swiftly,
swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath; already there
are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter
and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the centre of a group,
and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces
and voices with colour under the constantly changing light.
TASK: What were the ‘Roaring Twenties’
like? Highlight sections from the extract
that you feel capture the spirit and mood
of 1920s America and make a note of your
ideas alongside the highlighted sections.
Suddenly one of these gypsies, in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the
air, dumps it down for courage and, moving her hands like Frisco, dances out
alone on the canvas platform. A momentary hush; the orchestra leader
varies his rhythm obligingly for her, and there is a burst of chatter as the
erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray's understudy from the
Follies. The party has begun.
Life in the 1920s
1930s: Life Changed
What words does this newspaper use to show how
bad the situation was?
THE GREAT DEPRESSION!
• On Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, the stock
market crashed, triggering the Great Depression, the
worst economic collapse in the history of the modern
industrial world.
• It spread from the United States to the rest of the
world, lasting from the end of 1929 until the early
1940s. With banks failing and businesses closing,
more than 15 million Americans (one-quarter of the
workforce) became unemployed.
Watch this short clip
1. What was life like in America after the Wall
Street Crash?
2. Why were so many of them queuing?
3. What kind of work were the men looking for?
4. How would you describe their lives?
Historical Context
The depression also led to a drop in the
market price of farm crops, which meant
that farmers were forced to produce more
goods in order to earn the same amount of
money.
THE FARMERS
To make matters
worse, America
was also hit by a
series of droughts
and many farms
could no longer
operate.
How would the droughts mean there was more
unemployment?
The Dust Bowl
• The increase in farming
activity across the Great
Plains states caused the
precious soil to erode.
• This erosion, coupled with a
seven-year drought that
began in 1931, turned once
fertile grasslands into a
‘desert like’ region known as
the Dust Bowl.
Dust Bowl Plains
WHAT DID PEOPLE DO?.
People heard that, in
California, the soil
was still good and
there was plenty of
room and
opportunity for work.
If you were a farmer from Oklahoma in the 1930s
what would you do?
The History of Migrant Farmers in
California
–During the Great Depression, economic
and ecological forces (the Dust Bowl)
brought many rural poor and migrant
agricultural workers from the Great
Plains states, such as Oklahoma, Texas,
and Kansas, to California.
The American Dream…
• Hundreds of thousands • The state’s mild climate
promised a longer
of farmers packed up
growing season and,
their families and few
with soil favourable to a
belongings, and headed
wider range of crops, it
for California, which,
offered more
for numerous reasons,
opportunities to
seemed like a promised
harvest.
land.
… is shattered!!
• Despite these
promises,
though, very few
found it to be
the land of
opportunity and
plenty of which
they dreamed.
Mini Plenary
Making predictions:
Consider what we have looked at
and discussed this lesson.
This is the America that the
novella ‘Of Mice and Men’ is set
in.
Look at the image of a front cover
What do you think this novella will be about?
Write down three statements.
What is the American Dream?
• America has always been seen as the Land of
Opportunity, partly because immigrants from Europe
saw it as a place of freedom, a place to begin a new
life, a place for real possibilities and wealth for all.
• This belief in America as a country where ordinary
people could create a better life for themselves is
often referred to as “The American Dream”.
• From the 17th century, where the 1st settlers arrived,
immigrants dreamed of a better life in America.
• People went there to escape from persecution, to make a
new life for themselves and their families.
• For many the dream became a nightmare with the horrors
of slavery, of the American Civil War, the growth of the
slums and the corruption of the government. This led to
many shattered hopes
• For many the dream ended with the Wall Street crash in
1929.
Historical Timeline
The ‘New Deal’ support for
unemployment.
Banks, Factories
close, farming
collapses
1929
Financial
Crash
1931
1933
Franklin D.
Roosevelt
becomes
president.
1936
1937
Of Mice and
Men is
published.
Of Mice and Men
Look up the following words in the dictionary
and write their definition:– Itinerant
– Junctures
– Debris
– Morosely
– Brusquely
About The Author
• John Steinbeck was born in
1902 in Salinas, California, a
region that became the
setting for much of his fiction,
including Of Mice and Men.
• As a teenager, he spent his
summers working as a hired
hand on neighbouring
ranches, where his
experiences of rural California
and its people impressed him
deeply.
John Steinbeck
• He wrote the book ‘ Of Mice and
Men’ in 1936
• Like ‘Of Mice and Men’ many of his
books deal with the lives and
problems of working people.
• Many of his characters in his books
are immigrants who went to
California looking for work or a
better life.
American Dream in Of Mice and Men
• Steinbeck wanted to explore the themes of
power, ownership and control and their effect
upon ordinary people.
• Those people strived for a better life, and had
hopes and dreams
• The two main characters, Lennie and George’s
dream is significant because it tells us
something about the culture that has created
them.
Write this in your books:
Steinbeck's novels can all be classified as,
“social novels dealing with
the economic problems of
rural labour.”
The Title
The title comes from a poem
by a Scottish poet Robert Burns.
‘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!’
Inspired by a poem written by Robert Burns:-
So Why
The The
Titlebest-laid
Of Mice
and Men?
• From
the poem:
schemes
o'
mice an 'men / Gang aft agley
• Meaning: No matter how hard or well we plan
for something, our plans can often fail to
become reality...or worse, they can end up
going terribly wrong.
What 3 predictions can you make
about the book from this poem alone?
Write them down.
1.
2.
3.
• Although Of Mice and Men is a fictional story
Factinor
Fiction?
it is deeply rooted
historical
fact.
• The high unemployment resulted in many
people travelling to find work.
• They could be hired and fired at the boss’ will
(farm owners were very powerful)
 In pairs, discuss what you think John Steinbeck means by this quote:
“The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven
capacity for greatness of heart and spirit - for gallantry in defeat, for
courage, compassion and love. I hold that a writer who does not
believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any
membership in literature.”