Location

Question 1

What are the 4 main locations in the novel?

Answer 1

In nature
The bunkhouse
The barn
The harness room

Question 2

What 4 points can be made about the natural settings?

Answer 2

Contrast to the harsh realities of life on the ranch

Novella begins with a peaceful setting - idyllic and likened to Garden of Eden

Nature is often associated with innocence but calm described initially is contrasted in the final
section - same location becomes restless and violent, such as when the heron catches the water snake, showing urvival of the fittest

Described at different parts of the day - affects the mood and atmosphere, often provides a sense of foreboding such as the ‘shade’ of the final section

Question 3

What is the context behind the natural settings?

Answer 3

Location of Soledad is significant as the name means loneliness, reflecting the lonely lives of itinerant farm labourers

Descriptions give clues to the itinerant nature of some of the farmworkers - branch of the sycamore tree is ‘worn smooth by men who have sat on it’, tells of repetitive coming and going of farmhands, typical of the 1930s

Endless and hopeless cycle of men and the
continuous cycle of the seasons

Question 4

What 3 points can be made about the barn?

Answer 4

Significant location - where Lennie goes to see his pup and where he accidentally kills it, same place where Lennie kills Curley’s wife.

The horses sense unease as they stamp their feet and rattle ‘their halter chains’

Claustrophobic atmosphere contrasts freedom described in the outdoor locations

Question 5

What 3 points can be made about the bunkhouse?

Answer 5

Described in detail - basic and lacks any home
comforts, except for a ‘black cast-iron stove’ to provide warmth

There is a table ‘littered with playing cards’ - showing what the farm labourers do in their spare time

Descriptions provided tell us more about the everyday lives of the ranch hands.

Question 6

What 3 points can be made about the harness room?

Answer 6

Crooks’ room is no more than a shed that ‘leaned off the wall of the barn’

The furniture in the room is even more basic than that provided for the other ranch hands.

Crooks’ bed is simply a ‘long box filled with straw’. The room is full of broken pieces of harness and other equipment needed for Crooks’ job as a stable buck.

Question 7

What is the context behind the harness room?

Answer 7

Condition of Crooks’ room demonstrates how black people were segregated and lived in poor conditions.

The broken harness could reflect the ‘broken’ man
that Crooks is