Examples Of Foreshadowing In Of Mice And Men

Of Mice and Men and Foreshadowing During the last stretch of the Great Depression, in 1937, sociologist Paul S. Taylor estimated that about 200,000 to 350,000 people in the US were migrant workers. Migrant workers were workers who would move around the country and take temporary jobs. At that time period, migrant workers made up about a sixth of the population in the US at the minimum! John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, is the story of two migrant workers named George and Lennie who go from job to job to try to get enough money to fulfill their dream of owning their own farm. When they take a job they take on a ranch, everything changes for them, and that is where the story takes place. One element of storytelling Steinbeck uses is

“To a Mouse” was written by Robert Burns in 1785 and is the story a mouse has plans to hide in his home for winter but his home gets destroyed. Steinbeck uses this plot to build up the story in that George and Lennie have plans to get their own house but Lennie’s actions causes the plan to go askew. The title of the book even comes from the poem itself. A line from the poem “the best laid schemes of mice and men” is how Steinbeck came up with the title for Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck alluded the title to foreshadow the event in which George and Lennie’s plans go askew and they will never get their own land. One line from the poem “Small, sleek cowering, timorous beast, O, what a panic is in your breast” could be compared to George in a way. Towards the end of the book Lennie kills someone and George panics because he knows his future, or his house compared to To a Mouse, is destroyed if he doesn’t do something. Steinbeck uses allusion from To a Mouse in the title of the book and lines from the poem to foreshadow the events in which George’s and Lennie’s plans go askew and they will never get their farm