1. Of Mice and Men
By John Steinbeck

2. Of Mice and Men Author: John Steinbeck Genre: Novella (short novel)
Published: 1937
Setting: Great Depression-era California
Based on author’s experiences as “bindlestiff”
Title: taken from Robert Burns’ poem “To a Mouse”
Controversy: Frequently censored/banned

3. Development Attempted writing a “play-novelette”
3 acts of 2 chapters each
Original title: Something That Happened
“To a Mouse”: regret narrator feels for destroying home of a mouse while plowing

4. Themes
“In every bit of honest writing in the world there is a base theme. Try to understand (people), if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a (person) well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love. There are shorter means, many of them. There is writing promoting social change, writing punishing in- justice, writing in celebration of heroism, but always that base theme: Try to understand each other.”
— John Steinbeck in his 1938 journal entry

5. Journal Entry
Of Mice and Men tells the story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers during the Great Depression in California. Imagine if you had to leave your home to search for work in order to survive. How would you manage to get along? How would you feel leaving home to find work? What would keep you going when times got tough?