Of Mice and Men Revision

Of Mice and Men will be part B of the Exploring Modern Texts exam.  The question is worth 30 marks and is split into two sections part (a) and part (b).  This means roughly 20 minutes for each as the total time for Section B is 45 minutes.

Part (a) will be an extract of the novel that you will be asked to analyse paying close reference to the text - ensure you do this: there should be a lot of quotes from that section throughout the whole response.

Part (b) will be a question that builds on part (a) and has often been primarily about context.  Remember this is an English Literature exam, not History, and you need to include quotes and language techniques when responding.  Using FLICTS will help you to remember what to cover.

If you want to revise the novel or a character the entire novel Of Mice and Men is online here which makes searching for characters or quotes simple.

If you want to revise further this slideshare is brilliant in helping structure responses.

Form 

• Of Mice and Men is a novel / novella and therefore you should refer to the reader.
• John Steinbeck himself called it a play-novella and there are similarities between it and a play. Primarily, at the beginning of each chapter is a description of setting which contextualizes the action for the reader (the riverbank, the bunkhouse, Crooks' room, the barn). This description tells the reader much about the lives of the characters via details or foreshadows what is to come.
• also, the novella is largely dependent on dialogue to tell the story.  This brings the reader 'close' to the characters as we rarely have an omniscient narrator to comment on the action.  This means that the reader is asked to make their own judgements.
• There are five chapters which is similar to many tragedy plays which have five acts. We could say that OMAM is similar to a tragedy as explained here or see if you can use this explanation of classical tragedy to link to the events of OMAM.
• it is also a thriller: the foreshadowing and hints throughout warn the reader that something appalling is going to happen. 

Language

• You can comment on the way Steinbeck uses colloquial language to show the characters on the ranch: their speech is written to seem accented and they use slang and taboo language such as swearing.  This is a hard, masculine, rough world and their speech reflects this.
• Metaphors / motifs - the red dresses, the animal imagery, the Dream
• Religious language - 'fatta the lan'' comes from the Bible and refers to the promise of a better life.
• Soledad - the nearest town to the ranch means solitary / lonely in Spanish.  Metaphor.
• Of Mice and Men - comes from the poem To a Mouse by Robert Burns.  The lines it comes from are:

The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men 

Gang aft agley, 

An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, 

For promis'd joy!

(which roughly translates as: both mice and men's most cherished plans often go wrong and leave us with grief and pain instead of the joy we were promised)

Ideas / Intentions

• Steinbeck's voice as omniscient narrator is not often present in the novel - he leaves the reader to come to their own interpretation without commenting.
• However, it is fair to interpret that Steinbeck is trying to make the reader think about the nature of prejudice (against the weak/disabled/old; discrimination against women; racial prejudice and the grinding poverty of the ranch workers).
• Steinbeck had Communist sympathies and if you were asked about the Boss or Curley an examiner would be impressed if you linked the relatively negative representation of these two men to Steinbeck's political sympathies which would be with the workers and against the Boss: 'A little stocky man stood in the open doorway. He wore blue jean trousers, a flannel shirt, a black, unbuttoned vest and a black coat. His thumbs were stuck in his belt, on each side of a square steel buckle. On his head was a soiled brown Stetson hat, and he wore high-heeled boots and spurs to prove he was not a laboring man.'

Context.

Context is ONLY examined in Of Mice and Men, not in An Inspector Calls. Remember, this is a Literature exam not History, so you need to link context to the characters and quotes in the novel.  There are few marks for being able to spout a timeline about the Great Depression but a lot for being able to link how the limited possessions of the ranch workers demonstrates the poverty at the time.

There is a useful overview of context here

• Ranch workers / itinerant workers - the novel was published in 1937 and Steinbeck had personal experience of the life of ranch workers from summer jobs he had on the ranches.  The decades before 1937 had been tough: the Wall Street Crash (1929) had led to the Great Depression where millions ended up poverty stricken. To make matters worse, over farming had caused the Great Dust Bowl and many farmers from these areas had been forced to travel for work.  There were refugee camps in California for the poor who arrived to seek works in the fertile Californian valleys. Many workers meant wage prices were low and any troublemakers could easily be replaced. Think about how the bunkhouse is described and how few possessions the ranch workers had:  Over each bunk there was nailed an apple box with the opening forward so that it made two shelves for the personal belongings of the occupant of the bunk. And these shelves were loaded with little articles, soap and talcum powder, razors and those Western magazines ranch men love to read and scoff at and secretly believe. And there were medicines on the shelves, and little vials, combs; and from nails on the boxsides, a few neckties.

• African-Americans - as you are aware America had an appalling history of slavery followed by a history of segregation, where white people would not allow African-Americans to attend the same schools, restaurants and their job opportunities were limited. True segregation was practised in the South - Alabama, Mississippi, Texas.  In the northern states and California there had not been slavery nor legal segregation. 
•  Crooks is proud of being Californian: “I ain’t a southern Negro,”he said. “I was born right here in California. My old man had a chicken ranch, ‘bout ten acres. The white kids come to play at our place, an’ sometimes I went to play with them, and some of them was pretty nice." However, whilst there is no legal segregation in California it was still a racist society and African-Americans were not welcome nor equal:  'He hesitated, and when he spoke again his voice was softer. “There wasn’t another colored family for miles around. And now there ain’t a colored man on this ranch an’ there’s jus’ one family in Soledad.” He laughed. “If I say something, why it’s just a nigger sayin’ it.” 
On the ranch there is an odd mix of hatred and respect for Crooks:  “Yes sir. Jesus, we had fun. They let the nigger come in that night. Little skinner name of Smitty took after the nigger. Done pretty good, too. The guys wouldn’t let him use his feet, so the nigger got him. If he coulda used his feet, Smitty says he woulda killed the nigger. The guys said on account of the nigger’s got a crooked back, Smitty can’t use his feet.” He paused in relish of the memory."
• Crooks' room in the barn represents segregation - he is not allowed to live with the other (white) men in the bunkhouse.

The disabled 

• the ranch is a tough, masculine world. Crooks and Candy as disabled people are treated less well.  Candy 'swamps' (cleans) which is the lowest job.  Crooks has more respect and looks after the mules.  However, physical disability is a real bar to them in this society.
• Lennie appears to have some sort of developmental abnormality. People who were mentally disabled were called unacceptable names such as 'retarded' in 1930s American and tended to be kept in institutions which were huge, unpleasant and not designed to help mentally disabled people live a fulfilling and happy life. Lennie is lucky to have Aunt Clara and George to allow him to live a more independent life. However, the prevailing attitude to mental disability is shown by the names Lennie is called: 'crazy bastard!' and 'dum dum'. You can learn more about the history of disability in America here

Themes

• Loneliness & companionship, violence, prejudice, segregation, dreams, failure

Structure

• Foreshadowing: the girl in Weed; the mouse to the puppy to Curly's wife; shooting Candy's dog; George warning & reminding Lennie about the hiding place
• Cyclical structure - the novel ends where it starts as nobody gets their dream.

Finally: this is FUN, FUN I tell you...