OMAM quotes flashcards

Power :

• Novella takes place is a remote landscape : cyclical structure with ‘brush’ represents limited impact individuals have on their environment yet the disruption human cause - setting highlights the struggle for survival in harsh conditions

  • ‘Path beaten hard by boys coming down to swim’ + ‘beaten hard by tramps’ + ‘limb is worn smooth by men who have sat on it’

• Hierarchy of power of ranch which represents society

• Curley - boots = needed additives to masculinity

Dream

• G + L

• Curley’s Wife

• Crooks + Candy

Discrimination

• Curley’s wife

• Crooks

• Candy

Setting

• social Darwinism

• Cyclical structure

• Garden of Eden - snake at beginning and end

Context - G.D

1930s USA, Great Depression= unemployment and poverty - autonomy, Great Depression destroyed the social fabric of the USA, greatly diminished American morality

Context- the American dream

Exceeding expectation of what an American should aspire to be - advertised America = ‘a land of equal opportunity’ but when people migrated to US it was not what it was painted as, American Dream was main source of hope for all US people during the G.D

Context - treatment of marginalised groups

Due to exceeding standard of systemically unjust US, people who did not fit the criteria of a ‘perfect American’ would be treated and classed as different and subservient to ‘normal civilisation’- marginalised groups include black citizens, disabled, the poor, women, the elderly…

Context - the dustbowl

Surrounding the states of Colorado and Texas, the Dust Bowl was an area of severe agricultural continuity and regression with modernity in US, very low population- pushed out all farmers due to climate

Context- itinerant workers

Itinerant workers were the term given to travelling workers after the arrival of G.D - people moved around to find work where they could e.g ‘Golden State’ of California

Significance of Salinas Valley + Soledad

Salinas Valley is where Steinbeck worked as a ranch worker + Soledad translates to solitude and loneliness which reflects one of the key themes in OMAM

Context - Nobel Prize Speech

In Steinbeck’s acceptance speech for the 1962 Nobel Prize in literature, Steinbeck said ‘the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit…In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation; I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication to literature’

Context - perfectibility of man

Emphasises the human capacity for greatness, even in the face of adversity. He believed that a writer’s purpose is to highlight the inherent goodness and potential for growth in humanity

context - discrimination against black people

• physically weakened but also segregated due to his race

• Jim Crow laws were deeply discriminatory laws in place in the USA In the 1930s, denying black people basic civil right like equal education.. (crooks has books - smart - Steinbeck going against these ideals)

• KKK was a violent white supremacist group that used terror e.g lynchings and threats to maintain white dominance and intimidate black Americans and other minorities

• Crooks role in microcosm is to represent how racism shaped relationships and power in the 1930s US

Context - Discrimination Overall

OMAM is described as didactic (intended to teach)

• ranch is microcosm of society where diverse individuals are forced together and portrays the inherently discriminatory attitude of 1930s USA

• Steinbeck’s disenfranchised (deprived of a right of privilege) characters are unable to escape their suffering

Context - physically + mentally disabled discrimination

Candy and crooks are physically maimed :

• Steinbeck draws attention to the many work based injuries on ranch = highlights the idea of danger faced by itinerant workers

• E.g Candy’s hand, Curley’s hand (‘caught in a machine’), Crook’s injured back as a result of a horse kick

• Lennie’s impairment is due to horse kicking head (lie)

• Candy - old and weak and feels useless + has limited control over his life

• Crooks is not only physically weakened but also segregated due to race

• Curley’s wife the only female on ranch is in an oppressive marriage and is killed by a physically strong character

Context - autonomy

Steinbeck draws attention to the way his characters are isolated for their difference and thus have limited status and autonomy

• crooks doesn’t live with other men and lives alone in stable - draws attention to racism - boss equates crooks with animals

  • ‘Pain tightened lips’ implies silent suffering

• Curley’s wife appears and is ignored in the stable + bunk house which are places dominated by men and she is killed in barn - equated to animal

Context - OMAM as social realism

-candy makes sexist and racist slurs when referring to Curley’s wife and Crooks

• however, while Candy sees Curley’s wife as a ‘tramp’, he describes Crooks as a ‘nice fella’ - implying his racist comments are normalised

George Milton