Brenna Williams Williams 1. Analysis of Research on John Steinbeck and Of Mice and Men

Transcription

1 Brenna Williams Williams 1 Mrs. Huynh-Duc AP English February 2017 Analysis of Research on John Steinbeck and Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck s Of Mice and Men (1937) is a classic piece of literature. Steinbeck, by combining elements from all his previous novels, [creates] his most characteristic work (Swisher 117). With the writing of Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck intended to create a microcosm which portrays the yearnings of common people (Swisher 122), as authors in the 1930s began to shift away from the middle class and focus more on the lower class. For a compendium of his novellas, the author wrote a preface that explains the circumstances out of which each novel arose (Swisher 27), where he states that [Of Mice and Men] had some success, but as usual, it found its enemies (Steinbeck qtd in Swisher 28). As three of Steinbeck s main novellas are set in the far western part of the New World far from the influences of the New England and Virginia cultures that shaped the East (Johnson xi), he has the ability to envelop the culture, ideas, and personality of people in his homeland of California with his own genuine perspective drawn from experiences in his early life. The characters in Of Mice and Men represent struggles that John Steinbeck faced in his own reality while wandering southern and central California, by epitomizing the American Dream, searching for independence, and breaking societal norms. Of Mice and Men outlines the journey of two impoverished bindle stiffs (Steinbeck 78) who are looking for work and traveling around California during the Great Depression. It overlaps the struggle of finding a job during the 1930s with the burden of responsibility, as George has to care for the mentally disabled Lennie. The novel begins a few miles south of Soledad, [along] the Salinas River (1) detailing a vivid natural landscape with tranquil scenery, creating a smooth segue into the situation of the main characters. The main characters are

2 Williams 2 George, small and quick, dark of face, with restless eyes and sharp, strong features (2), and his opposite [Lennie], a huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders (2). They have a dream of owning a little house and a couple of acres an a cow and some pigs (14), but their plan never works out because they can t find work. They wanted to go to a ranch to work, but they were camping out by the river for the night, because George [liked] it [there] (8) and Tomorra, [they were] gonna go to work (8). This situation leads to the revelation of the dilemma with Lennie. He keeps a dead mouse [in] his side coat pocket (5) to pet it with [his] thumb while [they] walked along (6), resulting in George [throwing] the mouse as far as he could into the darkening brush (9) to hide it from Lennie because [the] mouse ain t fresh (9). Early on, it is established that Lennie has a mental problem, which is notorious for getting both himself and George into trouble. He is often very absentminded, and he says, I tried not to forget. Honest to God I did, George (4) because he frequently forgets their plans and makes George repeat them many times. Lennie seems like a gentle giant at first, but as the novel progresses, the audience learns that he doesn t know his own strength, because he kills all of the animals accidentally. He is seen in the hay beside a packing case under a manger (84), talking to a little dead puppy that lay in front of him (85), asking it: Why do you got to get killed? You ain t so little as mice. I didn t bounce you hard (85). They eventually make it to a farm to work, where they move into a long, rectangular building called the bunkhouse (17), where they meet the tall, stoop-shouldered old man with a round stick-like wrist from losing his hand in a farming incident (18). This man, Candy, later offers George and Lennie $350 for a down payment on their own land, almost solidifying their dream, until Curley s wife and Lennie meet in the barn. The death of Curley s wife finally dooms the dream of owning a farm, and it ends

3 Williams 3 George and Lennie s friendship. When George makes the ultimate decision to end Lennie s life, the novel ends abruptly, with nobody but George and Slim realizing what happened, and how it occurred. Pretending that it was in self-defense, readers notice the guilt in George s reaction as he looked steadily at his right hand that had held the gun (107). Once called the most distinguished novelist of the thirties (Swisher 117), John Ernst Steinbeck was born on the 27th of February in 1902 to John Ernst Sr. and Olive Hamilton Steinbeck of Salinas, California (French xiii), and was their third child after Esther and Elizabeth, who were ten and eight, respectively (Swisher 13). John would later remember his father as a man who could never fulfill his own dreams (Tessitore 15). Steinbeck had his start near the Pacific, in a town that was a shipping center near lettuce and celery farms at the north end of a long valley that runs parallel to the coast, where his parents wanted to raise a son because they knew that men had more opportunity for adult achievement than women (Swisher 13). The area he was raised in was peopled with farmers, migrant laborers, and the speculators who recognized California s potential as an agricultural and industrial center, which made it more than a home to young John (Tessitore 13), because Steinbeck s paternal grandfather, Johann Großsteinbeck, had helped to establish Salinas (Tessitore 14). Großsteinbeck, a cabinetmaker until 1852 from Dusseldorf, Germany, joined a Lutheran mission and fell in love with and married Almira Dickson, the daughter of an American missionary... [soon moving] into the Dickson family home in Massachusetts, and Samuel Hamilton, Steinbeck s Irish maternal grandfather, showed up more prominently in his later work, especially his first novel, Cup of Gold, his self-proclaimed magnum opus, and East of Eden (Tessitore 14). Steinbeck attended West End Grammar School from the fourth through the eighth grade, but he was always characterized as shy and occasionally erratic by exhibiting either very friendly

4 Williams 4 or very hostile behavior toward teachers (Swisher 15). In the year 1919, just after World War I, Steinbeck graduated from Salinas High School and enrolled at Stanford University as an English major, attending intermittently until 1926, when he [left] without a degree (French xiii). During summers and times away from Stanford, Steinbeck worked as a laborer (Swisher 15), sometimes with land surveyors in the Santa Lucia mountains, and other times at a less punishing job at the Spreckles sugar plant in Salinas (Tessitore 20). Steinbeck met many bindlestiffs and heard their stories of life on the road (Tessitore 21), which inspired him to write many of his novellas. Being an adult in the 1920s and later years, he was inspired by many social and economic factors of the real world, such as the Great Depression and World Wars, becoming a historically-influenced writer. During his sophomore year at Stanford, Steinbeck wrote five or six short stories about college life, two of which were published by a local college literary magazine before he dropped out in 1925 (Swisher 16). For a time, the young English major moved to New York to be near his older sister Elizabeth, where he worked first as a construction worker, and later as a reporter for a Hearst newspaper for twenty-five dollars a week (Swisher 16). In the years between 1929 and 1939, Steinbeck s personal life became more satisfying, he became more confident, and he produced his best work [while] he continued to struggle with large philosophical questions (Swisher 17). He met a woman named Carol Henning in San Francisco and fell in love with her, marrying her in Glendale on January 14th, 1930, and adopting a Belgian sheepdog puppy before settling down together in Pacific Grove (Swisher 17). Things took a turn for the worst, because the Great Depression had already started to affect areas such as New York, which decreased book sales everywhere, and by 1932, Steinbeck s financial situation had worsened [because] Carol had tried two business ventures that

5 Williams 5 failed and Steinbeck was feeling guilty about his failure as a provider (Swisher 18). Steinbeck, after taking care of his ailing parents, changed his writing style, taking advice from other authors such as Edward F. Ricketts, and creating a theme of social protest and adopting naturalism (Swisher 19). John began to synthesize his ideas about biology, ecology, and social reform into a grand theory about human interaction, believing that humans behave themselves differently in large crowd settings, gaining groupthink mentalities and taking on a personality that is completely separate from the individuals (Tessitore 35). In early 1933, Steinbeck s work began to pay off as independent publishing companies accepted his novels (Tessitore 37). A stroke of luck emerged when To a God Unknown sold only 598 out of 1,498 copies, yet yielded $870 in only seven years of writing (Tessitore 40). Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Steinbeck began winning various awards for his works, and movie adaptations were formed from them. He toured the world, mainly Europe, in the 1950s, receiving a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, before his eventual death on December 20th, 1968 (French xiii), in New York City, New York (Encyclopædia Britannica). The American Dream is a very prominent theme in Steinbeck s novel Of Mice and Men, because of the era in which it was written. His grandfathers were both immigrants, one moving to Massachusetts from Germany, the other moving from Northern Ireland to find work (Tessitore 14). Both sides of his family were very influential to his writing style, because he drew from his personal life and experiences when he embraced modernism and naturalism in the 1930s (Swisher 40). He was inspired by his grandfathers humble beginnings, writing about immigrants and poor bindlestiffs trying to search for work during the Great Depression. The Growers Association exploited migratory pickers who never questioned the structure of society, because it was an easy and cheap way to gain workers for labor on farms (Karson 35). In

6 Williams 6 Steinbeck s novellas, especially Of Mice and Men, he emphasizes the importance of owning land to the characters, because they believe in having their own start and making their own way. Steinbeck claimed that for George and Lennie, being who they are and where they are, the outcome may be inevitable because they had such an atypical friendship alongside very unfortunate circumstances, which ended their dream of owning a couple of acres and a small farmhouse with varied livestock (Karson 37). A notable theme in Steinbeck s works such as Cup of Gold and Of Mice and Men is the vanity of human wishes, as well as the contrast between the poor and the well-to-do (Karson 37). Another prevalent theme in Of Mice and Men is the struggle of underdogs for independence. The novel explores themes of natural freedom, gender inequality, and social patterns. Steinbeck uses George and Lennie to project his own hostilities, by giving the only prominent woman role in the story no other title than Curley s wife, implying his ownership of her and removing her own personal identity (Karson 117). In Of Mice and Men, he portrays her as provocative and vicious, and contrasts this in the play version, where she is seen as a lonely, sad, misunderstood woman, which are both negative representations of the female gender (Karson 117). In the novel, three groups stand out, each differentiated from the others by its responses to the demands of society (Karson 45). These three groups are social irresponsibles, who intentionally withdraw from active participation in society, the heroes of Steinbeck who stand uneasily at the centre of society, and the ignorant farmers and the exploited workers, who protest in vain, fight feebly, and are defeated by society (Karson 45). George and Lennie, both underdogs in their own ways, seek each other out to co-exist as part of the third group. Therefore, their friendship is quickly placed as a creative defense against rank loneliness reinforced, thematically, by the hostility and guardedness of bunkhouse life (Karson 113). They

7 Williams 7 spend their time and effort attempting to make their big dream come true, at the expense of themselves. Other characters are also drawn to Lennie and George by the strong fascination that the dream exercises upon them (Karson 46). In the end, society proves too strong supported by the social system which gives no chance at all for the underdog (Karson 47). This final realization is embodied in George s final decision to kill Lennie, because [George] uses Lennie selfishly, [and] draws from him a sense of power, of superiority, which he sorely needs (Karson 115). Lennie s infantile reactions to everything around him, including the ignorance of his own violence, proves the psychological forcefulness of his low threshold between rage and pleasure, which is the biggest handicap that maintains his low social status as the main underdog in this story (Karson 119). Only Lennie stands up against the boss s son because his intelligence is too limited to enable him to recognize [reality] (Swisher 118). The novel assumes that these tensions are set up by the nature of capitalism, when in reality they re set up by history and sociological norms (Swisher 118). Steinbeck s observations about the influences of environment and consequence on the poor bindlestiffs of southern California are heavily reflected in most of his works (Tessitore 21). His writing style fluctuated from the 1920s to the 1940s, incorporating elements of naturalism and eventually modernism (French 26). Most of his novels include naturalism in the sense that the environment, living conditions, and personalities of background characters directly influence the main characters, especially in Of Mice and Men. Charles Child Walcutt, admired author of American Literary Naturalism: a Divided Stream and An Anatomy of Prose, stated that in Steinbeck s work these principles exist in tension, appearing to pull in opposite directions, and the writer deals with them as if he were confused and doubtful and somewhat surprised to see them emerging from a single phase of experience, as they repeatedly do, referring to how

8 Williams 8 Steinbeck could sometimes surprise even himself with the cruelties of reality on men (Walcutt qtd in Swisher 40). It is as if the fates of the characters are predetermined by destiny, creating a lack of control, and illustrating that the dreams and decisions of humans are not easily achieved. In many of Steinbeck s works, there is a belief in science, a firm belief in material causation, a belief in the spontaneous goodness of simple men, and a radical distrust of commerce, industry, the business outlook, and conventional piety and morality, highlighting the modernism in his views (Swisher 41), and some say he ascends to a higher plane by playing God, and showing the brutal truth of certain matters, assuming a position something like that of a physician or priest by garnering respect and admiration from his readers (French 30). Despite the aspirations of George and Lennie, we see that, as the novel s titular poem To a Mouse says, the best laid schemes o Mice an Men gang aft agley (Burns), meaning that things rarely go how they are supposed to, especially when it comes to the dealings and wishes of humans. Steinbeck was widely recognized as one of the greatest writers of the 1930s, receiving many accolades for his works, and inspiring people through the morals of his stories. Besides their obvious dark endings of death, poverty, and starvation, his novels carry a common theme of building up hope, only to shatter it in the end. The tact and ability that Steinbeck exhibits in his writing by weaving style, personalities, and catharsis into his work is truly skillful, simply because it has the ability to move audiences and create memorable conclusions that last in the mind. In his major works such as Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and East of Eden, Steinbeck explores the effects of poverty, tragedy, and irony on characters, using them as tools to tell the sad truths of the lives of many people. The harsh reality is exhibited in characters such as Rose of Sharon in The Grapes of Wrath, Lennie in Of Mice and Men, and Kate in East of Eden, due to their tragic ends and depressing backstories that are all gradually revealed. Other authors

9 Williams 9 credit Steinbeck for being one of the first to illustrate the difference between showing and telling, by leaving his narration cool and distanced (French 27), and claiming that he assumes a higher function by changing his style (French 30). In Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck masterfully crafts the plot to exemplify the buildup of hope in real everyday life, using the endings of the stories to symbolize the downfall when tragedy strikes, or when someone s plans go astray. With his impressive writing style, Steinbeck incorporates the American Dream, juxtaposition of social classes, societal norms, and thematic elements of naturalism and modernism to encapsulate a universe in which not every character gets his or her happy ending after all. This style exemplifies works from writers of an entire generation, such as William Faulkner or F. Scott Fitzgerald, showing that even the more realistic stories can send an equally powerful message, with less of a romantic and sugar-coated plot than most fiction novels possess. Works Cited Burns, Robert. "To a Mouse." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 19 Feb French, Warren G. John Steinbeck's Fiction Revisited. New York, Twayne Publishers; Maxwell Macmillan Canada; Maxwell Macmillan International, Print. Haugen, Hayley M. The American Dream in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Detroit, Greenhaven Press, Print. "John Steinbeck." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, n.d. Web. 02 Feb Johnson, Claudia D. Understanding Of Mice and Men, The Red Pony, and The Pearl: a Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press, Print. Karson, Jill. Readings on Of Mice and Men. San Diego, CA, Greenhaven Press, Print. Pettinger, Tejvan. "John Steinbeck Biography." Biography Online. N.p., 22 Jan Web. 02 Feb Reef, Catherine. John Steinbeck. New York, Clarion Books, Print. Steinbeck, John. Of Mice and Men. New York: Penguin, Print.

10 Williams 10 Swisher, Clarice. Readings on John Steinbeck. San Diego, CA, Greenhaven Press, Print. Tessitore, John. John Steinbeck: a Writer's Life. New York, F. Watts, Print.