Influence Of Writer s Life And Times - 1416 Words

Assignment #1: Influence of Writer’s Life and Times No other period in American history did the civilian population suffer the most financially than in the 1930s. The unemployment level rose to an all-time high, and inflation made it nearly impossible for the common man to afford basic luxuries. It was in this era that John Steinbeck wrote a short story based off of migrant laborers set in his hometown of Salinas. The Great Depression of the 1930s, a decade of hardship and destitution, greatly influenced John Steinbeck and his dismal novella, Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck, though raised in a fairly successful family in Salinas, California, knew what it felt like to scrounge for money. Working as a laborer and journalist in New York City,†¦show more content†¦Wandering around the countryside with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a sack full of personal valuables, these transient workmen were hard hit by the Depression and were forced to travel from job to job to survive. George and Lennie, who journey across California from Weed to Salinas, Steinbeck’s hometown, spend the novella yearning for the American dream, which to them was embodied in owning a small farm together with rabbits and a garden. This fantasy exhibits the two men’s loneliness and longing for stability (Of Mice and Men Synopsis). Steinbeck himself personally suffered these feelings while staying in New York after dropping out of Stanford (John Steinbeck Biography). Similar to the real life hardships of the 1930s, Of Mice and Men did not end happily. Lennie and George’s dream, like many others’, did not come true. The Great Depression, aptly named, grieved countless Americans and filled them with desolation. John Steinbeck experienced the emptiness and the poverty suffered by his characters during his time in New York, and used his understanding to weave together a masterful and doleful story inspired by the Great Depression. Assignment #4: Literary Analysis â€Å"It is my nature† says the Scorpion to the Frog in the aged fable of â€Å"The Scorpion and the Frog†, an allegorical tale with a meaning that parallels Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. In the fable, a scorpion wishes to travel across