Of Mice and Men, set in the West during the Great Depression, captured and addressed many social issues of the time. George and Lennie, two bindlestiffs (or in layman's terms, hobos), are constantly searching for a new job to take on. They cannot keep a steady job due to Lennie's incompetence and the poor economy, leading them from one odd job to another just to earn their stake. The novel shows how poorly some Americans had to live just to get by from day to day.
Another issue that was addressed by the novel is that of racial segregation. Crooks, a black ranch hand whose back was crooked, was repeatedly shunned from being around the white ranch hands as well as threatened just because of his skin color. When Lennie ventures into Crooks' bedroom, the reader is shown a different side of Crooks that wasn't shown before. Crooks is a simple man who just wants to be treated as an equal to the other men on the ranch. The boldness Crooks feels when talking to Lennie quickly disappates when Curley's wife appears and threatens to have him killed.
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