Accept Your Differences In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Accept Your Differences Audre Lorde once said in her book of poems, Our Dead Behind Us, “It’s not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences”. We shouldn’t feel ashamed of our differences, we should love ourselves because of them. However, there are many situations where you just feel ashamed of those differences. The characters of John Steinbeck's novel, Of Mice and Men reveal that everybody’s different, and you should accept their differences. The character Lennie is discriminated because his mental state isn’t particularly the same as everybody else’s. Since he has these mental disabilities, he struggles to communicate with people, control his emotions, and keep a strong memory.

Curley’s wife was the only woman who was brought up in Of Mice and Men, and she wasn’t even given a name. There are many examples of her diverseness in the text involving how she acts, what she looks like, and for just being a woman in general. One example that shows her discrimination is a conversation between George and some of the other guys in the novel. While the guys were talking about the attention Curley’s new wife desires, George was worried about her being a burden. George says, “‘She’s gonna make a mess. They’s gonna be a bad mess about her. She’s a jail bait all set on the trigger. That Curley got his work cut out for him. Ranch with a bunch of guys on it ain’t no place for a girl, specially like her’” (Steinbeck 51). He only thinks that she’s going to cause trouble, yet he’s barely even talked to her. The only reason he believes this is because she’s a women. Because of being a woman, Curley’s wife deals with being left out all the way up until she dies. Later on in the book, we get introduced to a character who is African American, named Crooks. During Crooks whole life, he’d been treated differently for what he looked like. As a matter of fact, Crooks said, “‘There wasn't another colored family for miles around. And now there ain't a colored man on this ranch an' there's jus' one family in Soledad.'