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Of Mice and Men | Themes and Concerns of Social Realism in Of Mice and Men

In the following essay, Kevin Attell places Steinbeck's work within the tradition of social realism and explores how the themes and concerns Steinbeck articulates in Of Mice and Men lend themselves to this genre.

John Steinbeck's work is most often considered in the literary tradition of Social Realism, a type of literature which concerns itself with the direct engagement with and intervention in the problematic (usually economic) social conditions in society. The height of Social Realism—and of its close relative, Naturalism, which blends social critique with a tragic narrative structure wherein a sort of natural fate irresistibly propels the characters toward their downfall—dates from the end of the nineteenth century and is represented by such authors as George Gissing,

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