Visions Of America

Question 1

Not protecting the elderly

Answer 1

• He recognises that he will get fired and stop working, a bit like his dog
• ‘When they can me here I wisht somebody’d shoot me.’
• echos slim
• He’d rather be dead than endure being homeless in his last years of life
• “shoot” suggests he compares himself to his dog. His without his dog makes him want to die
• old people in Great Depression
• scares the contemporary reader: he is a victim of the Great Depression, if things don’t change, this is their future

Question 2

Society needs to become safer

Answer 2

-George + Lennie fleeing from mob in Weed: trial by others’ opinions
- example of rough justice, taken into hands of the people, no chance for Lennie’s defence
- ‘they run us outta Weed’ , ‘out to lynch Lennie’
- 1930s – lynchings common during mob attacks due to social + economic instability + anger towards minorities (outlet/scapegoats for problems within society)
- Steinbeck shows immediacy with which things can escalate and how dangerous it was to live in this society

Question 3

The dark and light of the barn inside and outside. Representing the other world Lennie lives in, as a neurodivergent person

Answer 3

• ‘a little dead puppy that lay in front of him’
• ‘shouts of men, playing, encouraging, jeering’
• represents the dark side to the life of neurodivergent people during Great Depression
• the other men would never understand
• society needs attitudes to change in order to help free neurodivergent people from their dark futures of mental asylums