John Steinbeck is a writer noted for his characterizations and for his social consciousness as expressed in novels and stories about the poor and downtrodden, about labor problems, and especially about California and the migrant workers who helped shape that state in the 1930s. Of Mice and Men is one of his more popular novels, a short work about two migrant workers who travel from farm to farm doing whatever work is required. One is an amiable man who fears being alone, and the other is a mentally retarded man who does not always understand what is happening around him and who relies heavily on his friend for support. Lennie is the child-man who does not know his own strength, and George is the man who oversees what the other man does and who takes responsibility for Lennie beyond what would normally be expected. The style of this short work reflects some of Steinbeck=s usual methods as well as being somewhat different from much of his work in terms of the use of language and the way he characterizes different individuals and actions in the work. Differences can be seen between Of Mice and Men and a much broader work such as The Grapes of Wrath.
These two works were written in the late 1930s (1937 for Of Mice and Men and 1939 for The Grapes of Wrath). Both stories have a connection to the Great Depression, for in each the poor and downtrodden characters are adrift on the American landscape because the Depression has created a situation where they have to move from place to place to find work or where their land has been ruined and taken from them. In both novels, the characters are forced onto the road, and in neither case do they like this fact. George would like to be settled in one place, and he and Lennie have an oft-repeated dream of a chicken ranch where they can work for themselves instead of other people. The Joads in The Grapes of Wrath similarly want a piece of land of their own. They had one, but the drought too...