The Great Depression

• You can recreate the historical time period with a diorama. During the Depression, many people were unemployed and looking for work. Create a bread line with many tired-looking people waiting for food. You can also depict the main characters, George and Lennie, walking across a desolate California landscape looking for work, passing farms and ranches marked with signs reading "No Jobs." You may choose to depict a long line of farmhands at the ranch George and Lennie enter in Soledad.
  
  

Farms

• The main characters, George Milton and Lennie Small, are working at a ranch in Soledad, California. George and Lennie dream of owning their own farm one day. A diorama of the ranch at which the two friends are working should include a barn, bunkhouses and a house. Puppies can be added as another element of the story. Add more characters to the scene, such as Curley, Candy and Curley's wife. One corner should include a river because it is an important element in the book. The ideal farm George and Lennie dream of can serve as the focus of a diorama as well. This can be an idealized farm with a red barn, green crops, rabbits and other farm animals. Place George and Lennie in the diorama, leading their hoped-for future life.
  
  

Key Scene

• Your diorama can illustrate a turning-point scene. In a scene in Chapter Five, Lennie has petted a puppy for too long and hard, which causes its death. He hides the dead puppy in the hay. Curley's wife catches him, but she is not disturbed by the event. This event foreshadows her death, after Lennie pets her hair too long and hard, and it is a major plot point. Create a scene set inside a barn, with Lennie petting a puppy. Include straw and hay, as well as Curley's wife watching Lennie.
  
  

The River

• The river represents an important landmark in the book. George and Lennie drink water and talk about meeting at the river if anything goes wrong while they are working at the ranch. Later in the story, they talk at the river after the two deaths. Make a diorama of Lennie talking to himself alone, imagining a large rabbit and Aunt Clara, as in Chapter Six. Use plastic wrap or blue shiny paper for the river and add natural items such as sand, grass and pebbles along the riverbanks. Place a model of an older woman, a large rabbit and Lennie together near the river.