Of Mice And MenBackground Info

The American Dream

1. The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success.

2. The idea of the American Dream is rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence.

3. "all men are created equal" "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights" "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The Great Depression

1. 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s2. Major bank failures and the stock market crash3. Farming and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by approximately 60%4. Drought and erosion combined to cause the Dust Bowl, shifting hundreds of

thousands of displaced persons off their farms in the Midwest.

5. Over 3 million unemployed young men were taken out of the cities and placed into 2600+ work camps managed by the CCC.

John Steinbeck

1. He was born in Salinas CA, February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968, died when he was 66 years old.

2. His father, John Ernst Steinbeck, served as Monterey County treasurer. John's mother, Olive Hamilton, a former school teacher, shared Steinbeck's passion of reading and writing. Steinbeck lived in a small rural town that was essentially a frontier settlement, set amid some of the world's most fertile land. He spent his summers working on nearby ranches and later with migrant workers on Spreckels ranch. He became aware of the harsher aspects of migrant life and the darker side of human nature. He also explored his surroundings, walking across local forests, fields, and farms.

3. Steinbecks experiences of living as a hobo and living in severe poverty during the great depression inspired him to write Of Mice and Men and Grapes of Wrath.

4. Steinbecks first successful novel was Tortilla Flat.5. Widespread charges of obscenity were brought against the novel, the

novel’s depiction of migrant living conditions a vulgar lie.6. This reveals about Steinbecks views and values that he is a very honest man

who stands up for himself and the truth, he is not scared to write things which others would find offensive.

7. "To a Mouse [on turning her up in her nest with the plough]," written by Scottish poet Robert Burns in 1785. Both mice and men suffer from being mortal, so no matter how different "thinking men" and "unthinking animals"

seem, they really aren’t that different after all – everybody suffers in the end. Thus giving Steinbeck his title for his book about the great depression.