How does Steinbeck present the ranch community in Of Mice and Men? Value of Work and Working Men in Of Mice and Men for GCSE and IGCSE

Steinbeck presents the ranch community with a startling degree of realism, dramatising a condition created by the Great Depression of migrant labourers, forced into work communities, with no families. This is summarized in the key quotation at the start of the novel where George says ‘guys like us are the loneliest guys in the world.’ It’s a large scale farm with permanent and temporary workers, then the boss and boss’ son, and wife - who all have a higher status. The men put in ‘crops’ but never reap what they sow. The American Dream is to be self-reliant and self-sufficient - to own land - not to be isolated, but to be empowered, to be secure and to be able to ‘have fren’s over’. Though the men are forced into community on the ranch, there’s little friendship or kindness because of the poor conditions and poor job security. The community is presented as being intolerant of any kind of weakness - is racist and sexist - and often cruel. Here, there’s little sense of humanity: man is a machine whose purpose is to work. If one breaks down, you can always get another one.

IDEA ONE The ranch is at the heart of the novel, framed by Chapters One and Six which are set in the same Edenic natural landscape in the ‘Gabilan hills’. This is the natural, god-given beauty of America - ‘gold’ and ‘warm’ - precious. It has both a mythical and a vividly realistic element: it is a particular place in the time of the Great Depression. Despite its beauty it will not sustain life. Lennie’s plan to live in a ‘cave’ is dismissed by George: they need civilization (‘ketchup’) and the money from the ranch to achieve their dream of living ‘off the fatta the lan’. In the New World, land and property have already been divided: it must be bought. This can be