Of Mice And Men

How John Steinbeck uses animals to present the harshness of life in Of Mice And Men.

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  • Created by: katt
  • Created on: 27-04-11 18:50

Background

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  • Harsh and violent era.
  • Treated poorly
  • Survival of the fittest
  • The Great Depression
  • Had to move around in order to find work
  • Simplistic dreams- 'livin' off the fatta the land'
  • Sexism, racism and ageism
  • Struggle to survive.
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Lennie

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  • Comes in contact with various animals
  • Death of these reflects their lives
  • Unintentional violence
  • immense and uncontrollable power
  • his action are compared to those of an animal
  • Love for mice- first we encounter is a dead one
  • Lennie does not care much about death and is more concered with comfort.
  • Enhances future events

Destiny does not discriminate in laying out cruel fates.

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Slims puppies

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  • Drowns most of them, showing the survival of the fittest.
  • American dream that George and Lennie have is unrealistic in this harsh and violent world.
  • Is a fairytale set against the stuggle for survival.
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Rabbit dream

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  • The rabbits in the story represent Lennie's dreams
  • impossibility of their fulfilment
  • Lennie is very simple thinking
  • Lennie has an inability to see patterns in his life to recognise that failure is imminent
  • The fact that rabbits never actually appear in the novel, highlights the unfortunate reality that Lennie's dream can never materilise.
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