Foreshadowing in John Steinbecks Of Mice and Men Research Paper

Foreshadowing in John Steinbecks Of Mice and Men - Research Paper ExampleSteinbeck himself cared deeply about the lives of unsettled workers as evidenced by his compassionate tone and creation of complex characters struggling in a competitive society. Steinbeck combined styles of modernism and realism to look for the lives of people living in and traveling through Southern California. Steinbecks parents, a Monterey treasurer and a school teacher/stay-at-home mom, taught him a hump of literature from an early age. Although he did attend Stanford University for three years, he left without completing his degree. These years, as well as his journalism job, provided the formative substance of his composition career for he worked and traveled throughout California as a short-term hired hand at mills, farms, and larger estates. During these years he came establishment to pose with the resilience with which migrant workers faced their destitute, unstable lives. Throughout the rest of Steinbecks career he focused Name 2 on the engross 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 nature of the farming economy. The 1930s saw vast technical advances in farm machinery that drastically reduced the number of men needed to operate a farm. In 1900, about 125, 000 workers traveled from Minnesota to Washington scrutinizing for work, however by the 1930s the numbers of out-of-work men looking for positions had doubled. Farms were becoming corporate industries with the absent owners living in cities hiring managers to run the farms. Migrant workers, nicknamed bindle-stiffs as they packed up and fol lowed the seasonal harvests, were severely underpaid, had no union or legal representation, or stable homes. In the later 1930s, violent strikes broke out in several areas leading to some improvements, yet most farm owners continued to treat their migrant workers as disposable. This disembodied spiritstyle continued until World War II dramatically altered the lives of all Americans as itinerant workers had the option to enlist and the defense industry expanded to insure food rations for citizens and soldiers. Steinbecks social roll in the hay 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 links 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 recent post at a farm cal led Weeds where Lennie scared a young woman by inappropriately but innocently feeling 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 watch his actions, and the tight protective relationship between these two men. These two protagonists create a symbiotic relationship as they feed each others dreams of a owning a farm while making their migrant life bearable.