A comparison between 'The Great Depression 'and 'Of Mice and Men' by Steinbeck

     The Great Depression was a huge economic downfall in North America and involved many other industrialized countries of the world. The Depression began in 1929 and lasted for about ten years. Millions of people lost their jobs along with many businesses going bankrupt. The common misconception of the Great Depression is people think that the stock market crash was the main cause for it. There were many causes for the Depression; unequal distribution of money during the 1920’s was the main cause of the Depression. This unequal distribution happened on many different classes of people. The imbalance of money is what created such an unstable economy. The stock market was doing much worse than people thought

The Great Depression of the 1930s was caused by a sequence of events that all began with the stock market crash of 1929. The crash consisted of a rapidly declining stock market in the fall and a multitude of crashes in the month of October. All of this devastated the economy and resulted in bank failures, reduction in consumption and buying of goods, and an extremely high unemployment rate. Most banks closed but those that survived were: “unsure of the economic situation and concerned for their own survival, [banks] became unwilling to lend money” (Kelly). This meant that banks no longer trusted that their loans would be paid back and feared closing down so they became very frugal.

The Great Depression was the worst period of economic decline in U.S. history. It began on October 29th, 1929, and was officially declared over, in the year 1939, once the second World War was commenced. There were many factors that both influenced, and made the Great Depression even worse. A few examples of this are: During this time period, many Americans had money invested in the stock market, and once they saw that somebody else began to sell their stocks, they sold their own. On October 29th, people began to sell their stocks at an extremely rapid rate. Due to the rapid rate of stocks being sold, people lost countless amounts of money, and eventually ran to the bank to take out whatever they had in there. However, these banks were

When the great depression hit America, the country was left in devastation. Due to the

The stock market crash, called Black Tuesday. Unequal distribution of wealth was a key factor during the time period as well. The day know as “Black Tuesday” was the day the stock market crashed. This led to the fall of stock prices, in fear, people sold their stocks and gathered the money they could. The people who didn’t, lost all of their stocks. Those who bought them on credit, they were now in debt. Investors lost a collective amount equal to the amount spent in WWI, that’s billions of dollars gone, approximately thirty-two billion dollars (32,000,000,000). As bad as the crash was, unequal distribution of wealth did not help. The rich saw an income increase of 70%, and the poor saw an increase of 9%. More than 70% of families earned less than $2500/year. Many of these families couldn't afford household products, such as the flood of overproduced goods. Only one out of ten families owned an electric refrigerator. One thing many people overlook when on the subject of the Great Depression is the president's influence on the situation. The two presidents during this time were Herbet Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hoover was in office during the collapse of the economy, he didn’t believe in national relief, he believed in self-prevalence and self-help. His beliefs didn’t get the confidence of the people, in 1933, a fourth of working American’s were out of a job, that’s more than fifteen million people unemployed. Many people disliked Hoover, so when they needed to make a home out of paper, glass, tin, or whatever they could find, they named the towns constructed from these items “Hoovervilles”. They were found mostly on the outside of cities. Hoover's idea of self-reliance didn’t get him reelected, he lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. Roosevelt brought forward a new strategy to take on the economic problems, it was called the New Deal. The New Deal was a series of actions him and his

The Great Depression was a time of great economic tragedy during the 1930’s. October 24, 1929 was the day of the stock market crash, causing economical shortage everywhere, even globally, and this scared everyone, including the rich. This day was/ is known as “Black Thursday”, where over 2.9 million shares were traded. On “Black Tuesday”, five days later, more than 16 million more shares were traded in another wave of panic. Many investors then lost confidence in their banks and demanded deposits in cash which forced the banks to liquidate loans in order to supplement their on hand cash reserves. By 1933, around 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half of the country’s banks had failed. This stopped Americans from purchasing which then led to less production of goods and decreased the amount of needed human labor. In the end, millions of shares ended up worthless, and those investors who had bought stocks with borrowed money were wiped out completely.

The Great Depression was a devastating time for many Americans. From 1929 to 1932, the US experienced an economic downturn that was calamitous to the lives of many people. Millions upon millions of Americans lost everything when the stock market crashed on October 29, 1929. After exiting an era that left people living a life of luxury, the stock market crash came as a surprise. As a result of the stock market crash, many became unemployed and many families were being forced to close their businesses. Although there were many factors that contributed to the cause of the Great Depression, the three main causes were The Stock Market Crash of 1929, high unemployment, a decrease in consumer purchases due to being “stuffed with stuff” during the roaring twenties.

The Great depression began in 1929 with a dramatic event called that Wall Street Crash. This led to the failure of banks and businesses all over the United States. Millions of people lost all their savings and their jobs, and thousands became homeless because they could not afford to pay their rent. Some homeless families lived in shacks made of cardboard. Others took the road to look for work. (Bingham J.) As it could be imagined it was very disheartening to many as losing everything that was worked hard for. Many events took place during this time, like the Stock Market Crash, The Dust Bowl, The New Deal and also Prohibition that changed the outcome of what people could and couldn’t do.

The Great Depression affected millions of people in America, two of those people affected were George and Lennie. George and Lennie are migrant workers that struck a job in California. George can be described as the brains of the partnership, while Lennie is more of the muscle. In the story Lennie has a fascination with feeling soft objects. This later gets them in trouble in the town of Weed. Once they get to the job, they go months will no big problems. Until, Lennie accidentally killed The owner’s son’s wife. After this happened Lennie ran off, and all the workers went to go find him and kill him. George does find Lennie before any of the other workers, and even with the chance to escape, he shoots Lennie. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the murder of Lennie was not Justified.

The Great Depression transformed American society and the way people thought about themselves and their relationship to the country. During this horrendous time period, many people lost many important pieces in their lives like money and jobs. Millions of families lost their savings as many banks collapsed in the early 1930s. They were unable to make rent payments or mortgage and many were removed from their apartments. The Great Depression challenged American families in vital ways, placing great economic demands upon families and their members.

John Steinbeck's agricultural upbringing in the California area vibrantly shines through in the settings and story lines of the majority of his works. Steinbeck's novel, Of Mice and Men, takes place in the Salinas Valley of California. The drama is centered around two itinerant farm workers, George Milton and Lennie Small, with a dream of someday owning a place of their own. Lennie Small is a simple-minded, slow moving, shapeless hulk with pale eyes whose enormous physical strength often causes him to get into trouble. George Milton on the other hand is small in stature, clever, dark of face and eyes, and acts as Lennie's guardian and calming force.

Throughout the many years of the Great Depression, the American economy plummeted greatly because of ongoing issues throughout the United States. The American market, and essentially continuously buying, are what keeps an economy in any country moving. The point at issue which allowed the economy to go down consists of three major factors. All three of these aspects took a great amount of citizens down along with all of their profits. Families, businesses, and employees struggled to stay standing during this time period. The American economy suffered this vast plunge because speculation in the stock market, maldistribution of income, and overproduction of goods.

John Steinbeck’s book Of Mice and Men is an extraordinary novel with unique characteristics. The novel is about an uncommon friendship between two extremely different individuals who are living and working together. This story belong to the genres tragic realistic fiction, historical fiction and drama. The linking between the novel and The Great Depression emphasizes throughout the story, which makes the novel very realistic and down to earth. The author touches on several themes such as: the unreachable American dream, the economic injustices, loneliness, friendship and people’s propensity for cruelty. In this book review, we will get into a deeper understanding of what the actual story means.

The world had faced two main economic problems. The first one was the Great Depression in the early of 20th Century. The second was the recent international financial crisis in 2008. The United States and Europe suffered severely for a long time from the great depression. The great depression was a great step and changed completely the economic policy making and the economic thoughts. It was not only an economic situation bit it was also miserable making, made people more attention and aggressive until they might lose their lives. All the society was frightened from losing money, work and stable. In America the housing market was the main factor of the great depression. A crisis of liquidity appeared in the banks forming a credit crunch. This period was influenced by over extended stock market shortage of water in the south and over trusting. The American government put down some regulations to control the productions which were essential for the war.

Imagine waking up one morning, only to find out that all your investments and savings are gone. So if your bank that you invested all your money in collapsed, you didn’t get any money back. This is what happened to millions of Americans during the 1930s. This era was called the great depression.