Understanding Of Mice and Men, The Red Pony and The Pearl: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents

by Claudia Durst Johnson

Overview

Although John Steinbeck's novellas, Of Mice and Men, The Red Pony, and The Pearl are works of fiction, they provide a window on the history of the times and places they portray. Studying the historical, social, economic, and regional background of each novella is important to fully understanding each work. This interdisciplinary collection of rich collateral materials features a variety of primary documents that shed light on the background of each of these novellas--the pioneer days and life on the Western frontier, the early history of California, the gold rush, the plight of the migrant worker during the Great Depression, the problems of the homeless and the hopeless, and oppression in Mexico in the early 20th century. Documents include memoirs of mountain men and pioneers, books of travel, sociological studies, a political treatise, a journal, reports of U.S. commissions, a comic memoir, and an interview with a Salvation Army general who worked with the downtrodden during the 1930s. Most of these materials are not available in printed form anywhere else.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313090387
Publisher:	ABC-CLIO, Incorporated
Publication date:	06/25/1997
Series:	Greenwood Press Literature in Context Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

CLAUDIA DURST JOHNSON has recently retired as Professor of English at the University of Alabama, where she chaired the English Department for 12 years. She is the series editor of the Greenwood Press Literature in Context series, which includes her works Understanding Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1996), Understanding The Scarlet Letter (1995), and Understanding To Kill a Mockingbird (1994). She is also the author of To Kill a Mockingbird: Threatening Boundaries (1994), American Actress: Perspectives on the Nineteenth Century (1984), (with Vernon Johnson) Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century Theatre (Greenwood, 1982), The Productive Tension of Hawthorne's Art (1981), and (with Henry Jacobs) An Annotated Bibliography of Shakespearean Burlesques, Parodies, and Travesties (1976), as well as numerous articles on American literature and theatre.

Table of Contents

"The Triumph of Our Species": A Literary Analysis of Three Steinbeck Novels
Questions for Written or Oral Exploration
Suggestions for Further Reading
Old California and the West
From Hector St. John de Crevecoeur's Sketches of Eighteenth-Century America
From John Todd's The Sunset Land Or, The Great Pacific Slope
From Washington Irving's Captain Bonneville
From John Bidwell's "The First Emigrant Train to California"
Questions for Written or Oral Exploration
Suggestions for Further Reading
Land Ownership
From Thomas Paine's Agrarian Justice
From Hector St. John de Crevecoeur's Letters From An American Farmer
From Josiah Royce's California. A Study of American Character
From The Homestead Act of 1862 The Statutes At Large, Treaties, and Proclamations of the United States of America
From Henry George, Jr.'s "The Lands of the United States," in The Life of Henry George
From "The Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act" in Statutes At Large, Treaties and Proclamations of the United States of America
From Carey McWilliams' Ill Fares the Land
Questions for Written or Oral Exploration
Suggestions for Further Reading
The Vagrant Farm Worker: Homeless in Paradise
From James P. Beckwourth's The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth. Written from his own Dictation, by T. D. Bonner
From Franklin Langworthy's Scenery of the Plains, Mountains and Mines: Or A Diary Kept upon the Overland Route to California, by Way of the Great Salt Lake…In the Years 1850, '51, '52 and '53
From John S. Hittell's The Resources of California
From Josiah Royce's California…A Study of American Character
From Mark Twain's "California: Character of the Population" Roughing It
From Migratory Labor in American Agriculture: Report of the President's Commission on Migratory Labor
From the Jourbanal of a Working Man in John N. Webb's The Migratory-Casual Worker
From Nels Anderson's The Hobo. The Sociology of the Homeless Man
Questions for Written or Oral Exploration
Suggestions for Further Reading
Losers of the American Dream
From Alice Willard Solenberger's One Thousand Homeless Men
From Nels Anderson's The Hobo
From Carey McWilliams' Ill Fares the Land
From William T. and Dorothy E. Cross' Newcomers and Nomads in California
An Interview with Brigadier Luther Smith of Birmingham, Alabama
Questions for Written or Oral Exploration
Suggestions for Further Reading
The American Dream in a Mexican Setting
From James H. Wilkins' A Glimpse of Old Mexico
From Elizabeth Visere McGary's An American Girl in Mexico
From William Seymour Edwards' On the Mexican Highlands
From A. A. Graham's Mexico With Comparisons and Conclusions
From Mrs. Alec Tweedie's Mexico As I Saw It
From H. Hamilton Fyfe's The Real Mexico
From Edward Alsworth Ross' The Social Revolution in Mexico
Questions for Written or Oral Exploration
Suggestions for Further Reading

Editorial Reviews

A collection of primary material shedding light on the three novellas by American writer John Steinbeck (1902-1968). They include memoirs of mountain men and pioneers, travel books, sociological studies, a political treatise, a journal, and an interview with a Salvation Army general who worked with the poor during the Great Depression. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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