OF Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Again make sure you have re-read the story.

There are two areas to focus on in this one: character and themes.

Draw a spidergram for each character and on it write notes and quotations under headings:

• what they look like
• how they behave
• how they speak, what kinds of things they say
• how they treat other people and why
• what their dreams are
• anything you know about their history
• what the other characters think of them and why
• how does the author describe them and what techniques does he use to make the reader sympathise or not with them?

Next using the characters as a springboard make notes about them under different themes:

• loneliness
• dreams
• American society and how it treated people like them in those days and why
• American history of that era and how events like the depression and the dustbowl had affected people's lives and changed them
• power - who has it, what kind and how do they use it?
• the natural world versus the human world