As you read the story, you learn more about how the migrant workers lived. Add some more details about their lives, such as what they did for recreation, how they get along with each other, and what was each day like.

The itinerant farm worker of the Great Depression found it nearly impossible to establish a fixed home. These men were forced to wander from ranch to ranch seeking temporary employment, to live in bunk houses with strangers, and to suffer the abuses of arbitrary bosses. George sums up the misery of this situation at several points during his monologues to Lennie - "Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place" (15). They play cards in the bunkhouse or horse shoes outside with others but remain isolated in their inner world.