Gender Roles In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

When looking at the novel Of Mice and Men one should think, if this is the only historic information we had to look at from the Great Depression how would a reader look at the 1930’s and 1940’s? Do things like Gender roles and the way people were brought up effect the way the story is told or read? In the present generation equality of everything seems to be the big topic, but that would mean living in a system along the lines of a utopia and well frankly that doesn’t work out. When looking into the novel one doesn’t really get a sense of anyone striving for some social structure they wanted to work so that they could someday live carefreely. That’s what everyone wants right? George and Lennie were migrant workers whose dreams were of that …show more content…
Growing up for John was labor, John would spend his summers out in the fields doing migrant work for his family on Spreckels sugar beet farm. At this time, John was just picking up writing as a hobby and came up with the idea for the novel Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck spent a lot of his teenage years traveling California and observing and talking to people who owned farms. John was intrigued by the way the migrant workers acted towards each other. When reading Of Mice and Men you get that the novel is pretty keen on dialogue and how the workers interact when they are working or in their down time. Steinbeck spent a lot of time observing and writing down things he picked up when he was out working or conducting …show more content…
Steinbeck has done a lot of various odd jobs in his lifetime and also had a some good thoughts on what was going on in the world around him. Steinbeck has been interviewed countless times when he first developed a name for himself and economics would always creep into the conversations. Steinbeck was asked why people were moving to California during such a rough time and Steinbeck simply would say “it’s warm there and they think they’re going to get some little piece of land out there and live comfortably.” While reading this article a quote jumped out of the novel that speaks what he was saying at the time. “I seen hundreds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an’ that same damn thing in their heads . . . every damn one of ’em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a God damn one of ’em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land.” Steinbeck was really good at putting what was going on and the whole timeframe into his novel and getting the perspective of who were a lot of people back