Foreshadowing in John Steinbecks Of Mice and Men Research Paper

Foreshadowing in John Steinbecks Of Mice and Men - Research Paper display caseSteinbeck himself cared deeply about the lives of migrant workers as evidenced by his compassionate tone and creation of confused characters struggling in a competitive society. Steinbeck combined styles of modernism and realism to explore the lives of people breathing in and traveling through Southern California. Steinbecks parents, a Monterey treasurer and a school instructor/stay-at-home mom, taught him a love of literature from an early age. Although he did attend Stanford University for three years, he leftfield without completing his degree. These years, as well as his journalism job, provided the formative substance of his writing career for he worked and traveled throughout California as a short-term hired hand at mills, elicits, and big estates. During these years he came face to face with the resilience with which migrant workers faced their destitute, unstable lives. Throughout the allev iation of Steinbecks career he focused pick up 2 on the plight of the underdog within an increasingly unfair, capitalistic world. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his monumental novel, The Grapes of Wrath, focused on the dreams and tragedy of the Joad family, and for his combined works he was awarded the 1963 Nobel Prize. All of Steinbecks characters face issues equally derived from competitive social forces, the economic downfall known as the Great Depression, and the seasonal worker nature of the arouseing economy. The 1930s saw vast technological advances in leaven machinery that drastically reduced the number of men needed to operate a farm. In 1900, about 125, 000 workers traveled from Minnesota to Washington searching for work, but by the 1930s the numbers of out-of-work men looking for positions had doubled. Farms were comme il faut corporate industries with the absent owners living in cities hiring managers to run the farms. Migrant workers, nicknamed bindle-stiffs a s they packed up and followed the seasonal harvests, were severely underpaid, had no union or legal representation, or stable homes. In the later 1930s, fantastic strikes broke out in several areas leading to some improvements, yet most farm owners move to treat their migrant workers as disposable. This lifetimestyle continued until World War II dramatically change the lives of all Americans as itinerant workers had the option to enlist and the defense industry expanded to insure food for thought rations for citizens and soldiers. Steinbecks social experience of living with migrant workers and journalistic knowledge of the economics of itinerant life greatly influenced his novella Of Mice and Men. The very title indicates the central question considering the value of life as it relate the smallest burrowing creatures life to the hopeful pride found in the positive view of Name 3 American manhood. The novella begins with George and Lennie on the run. They are escaping their rec ent post at a farm called Weeds where Lennie scared a young woman by inappropriately but innocently touch modality her dress causing her scream as if she were being physically assaulted. This situation introduces readers to the roving nature of their farm work, Lennies inability to control his actions, and the tight protective relationship between these two men. These two protagonists develop a symbiotic relationship as they feed each others dreams of a owning a farm while making their migrant life bearable.