Setting

Physical setting

The physical setting of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is an important element of the story. The novel opens with a long description of the Californian landscape where the events take place: 

A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hill-side bank and runs deep and green. The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool. On one side of the river, the golden foothill slopes curve up to the strong and rocky Gabilan mountains, but on the valley side the water is lined with trees – willows fresh and green with every spring, carrying in their lower leaf junctures the debris of the winter’s flooding; and sycamores with mottled, white, recumbent limbs and branches that arch over the pool. (p. 8)

The description uses lots of adjectives to create an atmosphere of calm beauty. The setting seems idyllic, an...