Columbia Law School

Any good, analytical points on 'Of mice and men's setting?

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just noticed you said setting. Sorry. The setting is South of Soledad, California in the 1930's. This is during the years of the great depression. Lennie and George are like thousands of male itinerant workers. They travel from place to place searching for short term work. The themes that I mentioned in my above post come into play here. The setting facilitates a sense of loneliness and isolation that these men experience. The land is vast and they are far from friends and family. When they do work the setting is often a farm or a ranch. Everyman seems to look out for himself and then move on. The depression makes the American dream both enticing and unreachable. The setting makes meaningful friendship a rare thing to have; this is why Lennie and George's story is so tragic.

There are so many analytical points to this novella; it is hard to know where to begin. There are themes which serve as a basis for analytical study. These include lonliness, issolation, friendship (male) and the impossibility of the American dream. Take a look at some of the past questions in this forum; most of them deal with analytical ideas. If there is something specific just post back on this thread and I can help.