Many literary geniuses throughout time have been inspired by events in history or other literature previous to their time, that ultimately shape and influence their writing, such as Shakespeare’s influence of Greek mythology in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or the Red Scare influencing Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Similarly to literary projects of both past and future, John Steinbeck uses other writers such as Robert Burns to inspire his novels and influence readers across the nation. Although Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is not a direct parallel to Robert Burns famous poem “To a Mouse” many similar themes and symbols can be connected between the two literary works. The overlying theme of both “To a Mouse” and Of Mice and Men is the common
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By utilizing similar rhetorical devices as Burns, Steinbeck is able to Juxtapose his work with Burns’ revealing more similarities between the two in setting, tone, and vernacular. The setting of the two works is primarily rural. In “To a Mouse” the entire span of the poem takes place on a man’s field where he turns over mouse nest and recounts his grief towards his actions. Steinbeck keeps the same rural feel found in the poem as he tells George and Lennie’s story in Rural California on a Ranch. Subsequently, the tone found in both the poem and novella are similar in that they give a more somber and hopeless tone towards the end of the stories; although in the beginning of Of Mice and Men there is a more hopeful tone, it quickly shifts to its antithesis in the last quarter of the book as Lennie accidentally causes many deaths, and George is filled with grief towards the actions that follows, just as the man in the poem was filled with grief towards his on actions. Lastly, Steinbeck also utilizes a vernacular to show the authentic home-like atmosphere on the ranch and show the common social marker on how the men during the depression used. The vernacular present in Of Mice in Men is imperative to authenticity of both the story in its theme in that the authenticity of migrant workers in this time allows
By utilizing similar rhetorical devices as Burns, Steinbeck is able to Juxtapose his work with Burns’ revealing more similarities between the two in setting, tone, and vernacular. The setting of the two works is primarily rural. In “To a Mouse” the entire span of the poem takes place on a man’s field where he turns over mouse nest and recounts his grief towards his actions. Steinbeck keeps the same rural feel found in the poem as he tells George and Lennie’s story in Rural California on a Ranch. Subsequently, the tone found in both the poem and novella are similar in that they give a more somber and hopeless tone towards the end of the stories; although in the beginning of Of Mice and Men there is a more hopeful tone, it quickly shifts to its antithesis in the last quarter of the book as Lennie accidentally causes many deaths, and George is filled with grief towards the actions that follows, just as the man in the poem was filled with grief towards his on actions. Lastly, Steinbeck also utilizes a vernacular to show the authentic home-like atmosphere on the ranch and show the common social marker on how the men during the depression used. The vernacular present in Of Mice in Men is imperative to authenticity of both the story in its theme in that the authenticity of migrant workers in this time allows