About 2 farm workers and their dream of owning their own farm
Title of the novel comes from the poem "To a Mouse" by Robert Burns. A line in this poem was - "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley" - this means that even really well planned out operations often go wrong.
Novel is fictional but it shows what life was like during the Great Depression - American stock market crashed so thousands of people lost their money, many banks shut down, no one could afford to buy things, millions ended up unemployed
Partly based on John Steinbeck's own experience
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Background Information
Weed and Soledad are both real places in California
Great Depression in 1930s hit farmers badly - forced to leave homes to find work
Some had borrowed money to buy machinery for the farm, this led to overpoduction which made prices fall
Huge areas of farmland became like a desert as the drought (combined with over farming) happened in the 1930s creating the 'Dust Bowl'
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Who Is Who?
George - small, fairly intelligent, travels with Lennie
Lennie - big, strong, slow-witted, travles with George, likes stroking soft things
Candy - old, one - handed rancher, sweeps bunk house, has an old dog
Crooks - crippled, picked on because he's black, very bitter about life
Slim - most respected man on the ranch, looks up to him
Curley - small, aggressive, boss's son, no one likes him
Curley's Wife - young, pretty, bit of a flirt, hates life, lonely
Carlson - insensitive, aggressive rancher, always complaining, stirs up trouble
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Chapter One
George & Lennie spend the night by a pool before starting work at a new ranch
George is annoyed with Lennie as they had to leave in a hurry from their least job.
Lennie perusades George to tell him about their dream farm
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Chapter Two
G&L arrive at ranch late so boss is angry
Candy explains to G&L what life there is like
G&L meet all the main people including Curley, Wife and Slim
Curley tries to pick a fight with L
Curley's wife flirts with the ranches and catches Lennie's attention
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Chapter Three
G talks to Slim. Find out what happened in Weed
Carlson wants to shoot Candy's dog and eventually he lets him
G&L start to talk about dream farm. Candy hears and asks to join them; he offers them money
Lennie crushes Curley's hand but Slim convinces Curley to say he got it caught a machine
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Chapter Four
Crooks eventually lets L stay in his room
Candy joins them, feeling uncomfortable to begin with, then starts talking about dream farm
CW comes in and spoils it. Candy stands up to her but she starts to undermine their dreams
G tells L off for going to Crook's room and telling other people about the farm
Crooks claims his disinterest
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Chapter Five
L accidently kills his puppy
L finds out that CW wants to be a movie star
CW lets L stroke her hair, but gets angry when he does it too hard. This makes L panic, breaking her neck
L runs away
Candy finds CW in the barn, dead, other men decide to hunt L down
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Chapter Six
L goes back to where G and him stayed before they arrived at the ranch
Lennie 'sees' his Aunt Clara who start to lecture about his faults
G finds L and calms him by telling him about the dream
G shoots L himself before Curley kills him in a really painful way
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