PLEASE ANSWER ON A SECOND SHEET AND AVOID COPYING WORD FOR WORD!!!!!
Also: some of these sites will tell you the whole story of OMM, so be careful if you seem to stumble onto a summary! If you DO find out, keep it to yourself.
1. What are John Steinbeck’s dates of birth and death? Where was he born (it became a significant part of his writing life)? What are THREE jobs he held during his life?
2. List the titles of THREE of his works in addition to Of Mice and Men.
3. List two literary awards his writing has won. What were they for?
4. When Steinbeck won the 1962 Nobel Prize for Literature, he said in his acceptance speech, “Having taken God-like power, we must seek in ourselves for the responsibility and the wisdom we once prayed some deity might have. Man himself has become our greatest hazard and our only hope.” What did he mean by those words? Discuss!
5. What was The Great Depression? What was the Dust Bowl? What effect did these two events have on working people in the US? NOTE: try to find at least two pictures from the 1930’s as they will help you get the sense of what was going on. Refer to the materials you find in the links below as you answer the question.
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/depression.htm
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/artgallery.htm
EXTRA OVER-THE-TOP INFO: Don’t tackle these until you’ve done a complete job on the first five!
A. Why has OMM been banned (or objected to) so many times? Give your source if/when you find that info.
B. Locate Robert Burns’s poem “To a Mouse.” See if you can find a copy that is NOT written in broad Scots, just to help you understand it! Find the stanza that relates to the title of Of Mice and Men and explain what it means.