Gcse Of Mice and Men

Anyone got igcse edexcel literature on Tuesday?

Found some notes on injustice on my pc.

Crooks- Injustice is due to his skin colour, people don’t look past the skin.
• He’s intelligent- Sad that he lives in a barn, and doesn’t deserve to be so lowly ranked among the men. The fact that he lives in a barn, connotes animal imagery, emphasising how low this rank is (medicine some his some animals). He has academic potential but this is wasted.
• Admirable because he tries to rise up by reading, admirable as he has self respect/ integrity.
• He felt the injustice as a child when his father did not want him to play with white kids so that he wouldn’t be hurt by the realisation of racism. This makes him bitter: ‘Nobody goes to heaven’. Also this reminds us that racism is learned rather than right, it’s due to people’s love for power over anything. Shown through Lennie as he comes to talk to him.
• Crooks is stereotyped because people don’t look beneath the surface (superficial society). Only we see his potential and passion. Steinbeck does not agree with this, shown through Slim (the moral conscience of the book), Slim talks to him, and He calls him ‘Mr Slim’.
• Beaten by the boss, called ‘crooks’ and ‘nigga’.
• Bitter due to injustice, torture’s Lennie about George and wants to gain power.
• The fact that he allows no-one in his room is ironic, it gives him the power which he wants, however simultaneously it drives people away and hurts him. Pride rules Crooks.
• Apparently an A* point- Steinbeck gives no solution, like it is in real life, emphasising that it is too great a problem in society. Tries to rise up against Curley’s wife however is put straight back down.
Curley’s wife- Victim of discrimination
• Men stay away from her, and is called a ‘tart’. She dresses provocatively- Red for danger. This danger due to Curley, and could get them in trouble. ‘Jailbait’.
• She wants attention, because she is lonely, she dresses up to get this attention but in doing so, drives people away. Tells people she is lonely, and talks to Lennie even though he’s a ‘dum dum’, although this desire for attention is her downfall.
• Men don’t like her because they can’t have her and don’t want to be sexually frustrated, which is selfish as they view her as a sex object.
• She is sometimes hard to relate to such as when she says she could get crooks ‘strung up’.
• Steinbeck doesn’t promote the discrimination, shown through Slim, who calls her ‘good lookin’. And discrimination is learned, shown by Lennie’s not minding her.
• ‘All the pain from her face was gone’- life was always a struggle, trying to impress people and be seen, showing she is happy in death.
• Injustice due to her marriage could have been a star but ended up marrying a unloving husband. Shown by the only time we see them together is when she is dead, and Curley is mad possibly because Lennie has taken something which is his. Ownership of women in such times.

hi..
what is the exam on tuesday (poetry or of mice and men plus an insector calls)

also does anybody know a site where i could print off the poems together..i have lost my anthology OOPS!!1

hi..
what is the exam on tuesday (poetry or of mice and men plus an insector calls)

also does anybody know a site where i could print off the poems together..i have lost my anthology OOPS!!1

I have got this exam as well and thanks to whoever started this thread, some really helpful points on here... Also check out this website great for inspector calls and Mice & Men..
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/micemen/context.html

Wow!! This is really good and really helped me!!! Thankyou soooo much for putting this up, this is amazinggg you are amazingggggg

^Robert Burns*

So is it right to say that the most likey question everyone thinks is gonna come up is CW and Crooks??

Anyone have awesome notes for slimmm?

Anyone have notes for AQA poems Relationships closter???

Thanks!

And you people do not do not forget this clever part:

"the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry"- Scottish poet Robert Burn's poem 'To a Mouse'. Hence the reader technically knows all along that George and Lennie's dream won't come true. The breaking of the dreams is foreshadowed.

The setting of the Salinas Valley is metaphoric since Salinas in Spanish means solitary. And the loneliness of the men is significantly pivotal to the plot.

Sorry, I hate to be picky but Salinas means salty in Spanish and I think you mean Soledad which is solitude. You could however say that the this salty river could represent a river of tears (hence the salty river) which George and Lennie are following; this means that they are constantly on a path of sadness and discontentment.

They start the book in Soledad (solitude) and the whole cycle is formed since they also end the overlay in solitude as well (the loneliness of George after he killed Lennie). This cycle could link in with the water snake and heron: at the beginning, the water snake escapes the heron but in the final scene the water snake is eaten and replaced by another snake, further exemplifying this cycle of disappointment (supported by Crooks saying "Nobody never gets to heaven").

I really like your point about the name of the novella though i remember reading that poem and instantly relating it to the book!

Good luck in your exam

I did this exam last year lol, I'm only here to help and yes sorry I totally forgot it was Soledad not Salinas that meant lonely.

Your point about the snake reminds me that the beginning I forgot what it's called where lennie and geroge are sitting can be seen as a representation of the garden of eden.

Oh right lol never mind and yeah, the bit at the beginning symbolises the Garden of Eden which simply shadows the Dream which George is narrating and is quite unrealistic because of the whole Dust Bowl that occurred. But the imagery of paradise definitely comes up at both ends of the book, when the first and final retellings of the dream are completed

I suppose the snake and the heron symbolism has a touch of irony to it as the snake is supposedly evil with the heron being the symbol for good, however here the heron eats the snake. The snake therefore could be seen as a representation of Lennie as although Lennie did do a 'bad thing' by killing Curley's wife the reader does feel grief. Furthermore I remember Lennie scared the snake away at one point and by that he replaced himself as the prey which creates an ominous sense of foreboding as Lennie is the prey but only a human can prey on a human.

Again this reminds me of Steinbeck's use of animals to create imagery and foreshadow events which others could mention in their exams- Lennie and the bear is the one that springs to my mind.

A very interesting viewpoint!
The fact Steinbeck compares Lennie to animals such as dogs, bears, coyotes, lions, etc. could obviously because of his largeness and brute strength but could also be because he is George's pet in a way and this wild beast is in captivity under George (which is why he only listens to George when he says "Go get 'im Lennie" when Curley was attacking him). Also, this imagery of animals represents that Lennie is seen as sub-human, firstly because of his incapibility to understand the simplest of issues (being a "dum-dum"), and secondly because he is also incapable of telling the various stages of moral corruption. This lack of understanding of goodness can be seen when Lennie doesn't even realise the difference between killing the small puppy and killing Curley's wife: they are the same to him, just another soft creature he has accidentally killed.
And obviously the way George 'put Lennie down' also exemplifies Lennie's below-human characteristics: the same way in which somebody would kill their pet to save it from further pain and suffering.

What exam board are you on? Different exam boards have used different themes/characters already.