OF MICE AND MEN

HOW DOES OF MICE AND MEN REPRESENT THE ATTITUDES AND SOCIETY OF THE TIME?

LISTEN CAREFULLY TO THE LYRICS OF THE SONG.

WHAT HAPPENS IN CHAPTER 4

• The men go into town to the cathouse.
• Candy, Lennie, and Crooks stay behind.
• Lennie enters Crooks' room and is taunted by Crooks, who says that George may not return.
• Lennie panics and Crooks backs down.
• Candy joins them and tells Crooks about Lennie and George's dream.
• Curley's wife appears, is ordered out, and threatens Crooks.

Reactions

• How do you feel about Crooks in this chapter?
• How do you feel about Curley's wife?
• How do you feel about the "dream" in this chapter?

Steinbeck generates sympathy towards Crooks. How and why?

He also makes us feel antipathy (the opposite of sympathy) for Curley's wife. How and why?

a form of humor that regards human suffering as absurd rather than pitiable, or that considers human existence as ironic and pointless but somehow comic.
BLACK HUMOR (GALLOWS HUMOR)

Steinbeck creates gallows humor when Crooks taunts Lennie. How? Why?

Crooks gives some significant speeches about his own life. Pick one. Why is it so striking?

Slavery was practiced in the Deep South of America until then end of the American Civil War (1865).

The emancipation of the slaves did not mean a significant improvement in the lives of black people of the time.

Although they were "free", the black community was not allows to live in the same areas, attend the same schools, eat in the same restaurants or travel on the same trains or buses as white people.

Local laws discriminated against black people, and many black people were forced to take poorly paid jobs which left them as badly off as when they were slaves.

The police ignored the majority of crimes against black people and believed the word of whites against blacks.

How does Crooks embody these social issues?

HOW DOES OF MICE AND MEN REPRESENT THE ATTITUDES AND SOCIETY OF THE TIME?