Reading Report 1: Of Mice and Men

    The book I am going to read for this semester is Of Mice and Men. This novel was written by John Steinbeck and published in 1937. He was an American writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 with another of his books, The Grapes of Wrath. Although he started studying at Stanford University, he dropped out of school to work as a mason and farmworker. Most of his literary works talk about the life of the minorities, such as immigrant people, women, and the working class. 

    I chose this book because I read it is a mandatory novel in the schools of the United States and one of the most important books of American literature. Besides, I found it quite interesting that the story was based on the author’s own experience working on a farm and having met some immigrant people in his life. I think reading this book will be helpful for me as a teacher of English as a foreign language because it will introduce me a bit more to the story of the United States, a country where English is an official language. 

    The story develops in the United States, particularly in California during the times of the Great Depression, a worldwide economic downturn that started in 1929 and lasted until about 1939. Some of the consequences this event caused were the global economy shrinking, unemployment of people, and homelessness increasing (Amadeo, K. 2020). In the book Of Mice and Men, the story revolves around the experience of the main characters, George Milton and Lennie Small, who are looking for a job opportunity being migrant ranch workers in the United States during this global crisis. 

Patricia Contreras Escareño

282 words

Amadeo, K. (2020). The 9 Principal Effects of the Great Depression. Retrieved from link. On March 6th, 2021