Of Mice and Men
Publication date: 1937
Genre: Fiction
About the Work
Of Mice and Men is a novella written by John Steinbeck that tells the story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers, who move from place to place in California in search of new job opportunities during the Great Depression in the United States. Steinbeck based the novella on his own experiences working alongside migrant farm workers as a teenager in the 1910s.
While it is a book taught in many schools, Of Mice and Men has been a frequent target of censors for vulgarity, and what some consider offensive and racist language; consequently, it appears on the American Library Association’s list of the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books.
Challenges in Canada
In 1994, in Alberta’s legislature, Victor Doerksen called for the removal of profane, irreligious books from Alberta’s schools. He cited Of Mice and Men as an example. Doerksen had a petition that bore the signatures of 811 Albertans who wanted schools to withdraw books that “demean or profane the name of God and Jesus Christ.”
In 2000, Terry Lewis, a member of the Reform party’s national executive council, complained about the use of this novel by Winnipeg’s River East School Division and called for the book’s removal from school reading lists. The novel has been targeted in other school jurisdictions across Canada as well. Objection: Lewis, who distributed 10,000 copies of a pamphlet arguing against the book, said that Steinbeck’s frequent use of “God,” “God-damned,” and “Jesus” in profane and blasphemous ways offended Christians and couldn’t possibly have any educational benefit. Update: The River East School Division took no action. This objection and its disposition echoed an incident in Alberta in 1994, when a member of the legislature demanded that the novel be withdrawn from all high school reading lists in the province.