Examples Of Foreshadowing In Of Mice And Men

Of Mice And Men is a novella written by John Steinbeck and first published in 1937. It tells the story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers, who move from place to place in California in search of job opportunities during the Great Depression. The novella ends tragically, with George taking Lennie’s life after he accidentally kills a woman. I believe that the ending is inevitable, demonstrated through foreshadowing of the event through out the book, characterisation of the characters, in particularly Lennie, the context of the time in history and finally the themes such as the American Dream and how it is unachievable.

Foreshadowing is critical in the development of any novel. In Of Mice And Men foreshadowing

Of Mice And Men is set in the Great Depression, when the dollar was low and unemployment was at an all time high. It was a hard time for everyone because the poor couldn’t afford anything so the rich couldn’t afford to hire anyone and society just crashed, times were tough and many people resorted to illegal ways of getting money. The Great Depression was easier for the white males of society because sexist and racist views dominated the images of people, people like Crooks who is an African American may have been well off at first but was chased off his own land with his family because society couldn’t stand to see black black families succeed. Others who suffered from an unfair public view were woman, because at the time they were not seen as equal to men and so where often mistreated such as with Curly's wife who is yelled at by Curly and has her things destroyed when he is angry. She can’t do anything on the farm because the way she acts makes the more cautious around her in case Curly finds out about her and beats them up or gets rid of him. Laws were not properly enforced in the time so often it was left up to the people to enforce the laws themselves. In the other town you hear how all the men in the town go out to attack Lennie, because they take the law into their own hands. This is a representation of law keeping throughout smaller towns and areas of America and it shows the context of how we must view George’s actions at in the end of the book. George knows that nothing will prevent a horrible painful vigilante lead death, and wants to spare Lennie this