Context

Question 1

The Great Depression

Answer 1

1. The Great Depression was triggered by the Wall Street crash in November 1929.
2. It resulted in mass unemployment, with 25% of Americans unemployed by 1933.
3. Farmers were hit especially hard as the overproduction of crops caused prices to fall - many lost their land.
4. Ranches, like in OMAM, hired cheap, temporary labourers with no job security.
5. Geroge and Lennie constantly moving between ranches due to a lack of job stability.
6. Bosses could fire workers for any reason e.g. Lennie for his mistake.
7. While the phrase “The American Dream” existed before the Great Depression, it was during this era that it transformed into a broader concept of hope, opportunity, and resilience rather than just financial stability.
   8 “That dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”

Question 2

What are quotes that back up the Great Depression?

Answer 2

1. “Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world”
   —- Millions of men travelled alone looking for work, the lack of job stability meant that they couldn’t settle down or form relationships.
2. “I think I knowed from the very first. I think I knowed we’d never do her”
   — Most people in the 1930s never escaped poverty, Steinbeck is highlighting how the American Dream always fails the working class.
3. “Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land”
   — Most workers remained chasing their dreams forever - they are unobtainable. This novel suggests that the American Dream is a myth.

Question 3

Racism

Answer 3

1. Racism fundamentally shaped society and politics in 20th century America. Of Mice and Men was written in this context.
2. During the Great Depression, racism and racial violence increased.
3. Black people were severely affected by the Great Depression. By 1932, half of black people in America were believed to be unemployed. In some northern states, white people demanded that employers fire black people from their jobs to solve the problem of unemployment in white communities.
4. There were several laws passed around this time that made it legal to segregate black and white people.
5. The Civil Rights Act - which banned racial discrimination in employment, was not passead until 1964. So the novel was set at a time when racial discrimination was not illegal.
6. The only black character in the novella, Crooks, is treated unfairly by the other characters.