The cultural influences that motivated John Steinbeck to write Of Mice and Men were to show how discrimination was prevalent during the Great Depression. Migrant workers and women were treated poorly by society, which caused them to feel lonely and isolated. Due to the cause of the Great Depression, people also lost their jobs and had trouble getting them back. One example of discrimination from Of Mice and Men and John Steinbeck is that migrant workers and women we treated poorly by society, which caused them to feel lonely and isolated. Since the early 20th century, Steinbeck has been exposed to workers all throughout his young life because his father once owned a ranch on which he used to work. While Steinbeck was there he realized that during his “early work life he often looked at what happened when the hopeful expectations of immigrants and the poor ran up against the realities of the working world” (Bloom, 1). This means that migrant workers all had an American dream but all their dreams got held up during the working world. In his novella, the migrant workers George and Lennie had a big dream about owning their own ranch but they never got to pursue that dream because of their work. This shows that the migrant workers during Steinbeck’s childhood and in Of Mice and Men are related, just like the women during that time.
Women during the Great Depression were also treated unpleasantly. “Women weren’t allowed to own anything and were forced to work inside the house” (Ware, 1). This means that women were not allowed to work anywhere else but the house while the men worked. As for in Of Mice and Men, Curley’s wife was the only woman on the ranch and no one would talk to her because they knew that she would cost them their jobs. Plus, she always had to listen to Curley no matter what happened. Therefore, this is how women and migrant workers were discriminated in real life and in Of Mice and Men during the Great Depress...