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Mice and Men

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Throughout times of hardships, achieving one’s dream calls upon the need for friendship and hope. John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men uses the setting of the Great Depression of America in 1929 to convey the importance of dreams to keep oneself from falling into despair. The novel embodies the notion of friendships and emphasizes the importance of developing and maintaining strong relationships as a barrier to the oppressive and hostile world. To do this, Steinbeck utilizes a range of symbolic characters and explores the flawed nature of the American dream. By reinstating the power of relationships, exploring key characters of society through revolving around contextual influence, Steinbeck conveys the value of friendship, importance of dreams and attitudes to freedom

The importance of human relationships, dreams and freedom is epitomized in the opening chapter where Steinbeck constructs` a strongly idealistic atmosphere as a location to introduce his two key characters. The land is described with poetic imagery of “golden foothill slopes” where “sycamores with mottled, white, recumbent limbs and branches that arch over the pool”. This description lends contextual evidence of the Californian landscape and lives up to the naming of Soledad, which is a translation to loneliness, a large aspect during the Great Depression. The unspoilt scenery of purity and perfection is “beaten hard by tramps” when man decides to enter. This setting is particularly poignant as it foreshadows the events later in the novel. As George and Lennie are introduced, their characteristics contrast greatly with George being the “small, wiry, quit-witted man” and Lennie being continuously described with animalistic features and a “large, lumbering, childlike migrant worker”. The two are characterised by their differences, but more importantly their similarities. Hollow and staged threats

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