How does Steinbeck present the culture of the migrant worker in the novel? Essay

John Steinbeck wrote a novel called Of Mice and Men in 1937. At the time America was in a period of economic depression following the Wall Street crash. John Steinbeck saw the effects and saw how people had to work hard away from home as migrant workers and this motivated him to write this novel. The story is about 2 migrant workers; Lennie and George. In this essay we will be looking at the character of the migrant workers, their motivations and their dreams for the future. Also we will be looking at the language and then conclude by answering the question ‘how does Steinbeck present the culture of the migrant worker in the novel? Migrant workers are people who go looking around for work away from home. They normally do not form long term friendships and normally do not form relationships with women. However in Steinbeck’s novel there are two friends called Lennie and George who have a long term friendship. Lennie is a big man with a mental age of about 8. He always relies on George to tell him what’s right and wrong. We can know that normal migrant workers are lonely. This is supported when George says â€Å"guys like us that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. The way he says loneliest, he doesn’t just say lonely he refers to migrant workers as â€Å"the loneliest people†. The migrant worker is shown to be lonely by Steinbeck. Also when Candy says â€Å"of course I ain’t got family† it tells us that it is usual to not have family and is a common feature shared by the migrant workers. Each character in the novel has his or her own characteristics, and this is how Steinbeck presents the culture of the migrant worker. Candy is characterised as being old and useless -the one who they use and Crooks is the lonely and isolated one. We come to know that Crooks feels lonely when he says â€Å"books ain’t no good a guy needs somebody to be near him†. The way he says ‘somebody’ means that he is desperate to have a friend and this desperation shows his loneliness. So Steinbeck presents us with different characteristics of each character like anger and loneliness. We also see signs of selfishness when Carlson shoots Candy’s dog. This novel is about hope and despair, love and disgust but Carlson isn’t really plugged into these things. This world is black and white to him with no subtitle for example when slim leads George away from the riverbank as he has gathered what has just happened Carlson says â€Å"what the hell do you thinks is eating them two guys†. This shows he is clueless to his surroundings but this is how he survives the life of the migrant worker. So overall there are different characteristics of the migrant workers. This is due to their circumstances like Crooks being black, Candy being old and Curley’s wife not loving him and not being loved by him. So Steinbeck presents the culture of the migrant workers to be selfish and lonely. But there are two characters that are different to the others; they are the dreamers, Lennie and George who symbolise hope for the migrant worker. What’s different about them is that they are friends who stick together till the end of the novel. This is shown when George says â€Å"with us it aint like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us†. This tells us that they have a dream the way George say â€Å"we got a future†. This shows us hope. Also when Lennie says â€Å"I got you to look after me and you got me to look after you†. This shows us lots of things, firstly it shows us friendship between them but it also shows that Lennie relies on George. George’s dream is to have is own piece of land and Lennie’s is to tend rabbits on that piece of land. But there are also other characters that have dreams like Curley’s. Her dream is to become an actress when she says â€Å"he was going to put me in the movies†. This shows us that she wanted to become an actress and therefore shows us that even she has a dream. Also Crooks dreams of being seen as equal to everyone else. He remembers his childhood, when he played with white children who came to his family’s chicken ranch. Even the old and useless Candy has a dream which merges with Lennie and George’s dream which is to have their own piece of land. So overall Steinbeck presents us with a lot of different characters of the migrant workers. He shows anger, aggression and even loneliness, but he also shows other things like hope, friendship and the dream of the migrant workers. He also shows the dream of the migrant worker and how it is pointless to have a dream. He shows us that dreams lead to disappointment. In the novel nobody’s dream comes true for example Crooks doesn’t get that equality he thinks he deserves, Curley’s wife doesn’t get to be an actress and Candy’s dreams get shattered along with George of having their own piece of land. The best way to avoid disappointment is to not have a dream this is what Steinbeck is explaining in this novel. Steinbeck uses a lot of descriptions to show the scenery. For example he describes a place at the beginning to be â€Å"close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green. The water is warm too†. Then at the beginning of section 2 he describes were they work when he says â€Å"the bunk house was long, rectangular building. Inside the walls were whitewashed and the floor unpainted†. He gives a contrast because at the beginning he describes a place that is beautiful and colourful by the way he says deep and green and when he describes the work place he uses very plain description like rectangular bunk house and ‘the floors unpainted’. This gives us a contrast between the life of nature and then the life of the migrant worker. The language used tells us that they were uneducated and had an accent by the way Lennie says ‘purty’ instead of ‘pretty’. Also we can tell that they are uneducated by the way they speak like when Lennie says â€Å"make um let me alone†. Steinbeck is recreating an authentic sense of the spoken voice. However people who sound uneducated can still have brains for example Crooks. He reads law books but his language is just as bad as the others when he says â€Å"I ain’t so crippled I can’t work like a son of a bitch if I want to†. They also use racist words towards crooks like ‘nigger’. This is only said to show us that they were all living in a time, in society that was racist. Overall I think that Steinbeck shows the culture of the migrant workers in numerous ways, he gives us different characteristics of the migrant worker for example anger, suspicions, selfishness and loneliness, but the most important thing is the dream of Lennie and George that one day they will have their own piece of land and this is what keeps them going. This shows hope for the migrant worker. Candy and his dog provides a parallel to George and Lennie. When candy’s dog got old and useless he got killed, but not by Candy but by Carlson, Candy felt that he should have killed the dog himself when he says â€Å"I should have killed him myself†. At the end of the novel George kills Lennie because he knew it would be better for him to kill Lennie and not regret it like Candy did with his dog. Steinbeck shows us that not all migrant workers are selfish and don’t make long term friendships by the characters Lennie and George. Steinbeck tells us how quickly hopes and dreams can get destroyed. The title ‘of mice and men’ refers to a poem which tells us of a mouse and how the mouse builds up his nest and how the nest is destroyed. The mouse symbolises Lennie and George and the nest is symbolises their dream and how it is destroyed so suddenly.