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Archetypes In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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The characters in “Of Mice and Men” have memorable personalities that we all can relate to due to their set archetypes. John Steinbeck uses these common and generalized in order to have the readers relate more to his characters. This allows the reader to experience the story and feelings of the characters much better and lets the reader to connect to the character’s feelings, or force the reader to form opinions that aligns with those of the main protagonist(s). In “Of Mice of Men”, readers are initially introduced to Curley’s Wife with words such as “tart”, and having “the eye”. Which, even if readers do not know what that means, it may be inferred through diction that she is overly flirty, or a “tramp”. On page twenty eight, when George is talking to Candy about Curley’s Wife, Candy shares quite a lot of information on her and her behaviors. Saying that she “visits the bunkhouse often”, immediately suggesting that she prefers the attention of men. Readers later discover …show more content…

Unlike the other ranch hands, Crooks has his own version of a bunkhouse suite in the stables of the barn. During the time period of this story, slavery had somewhat recently been abolished, which led to segregation in the south. This is the reason Crooks is alone in comparison to the other men, forced to sleep with “a manure pile under the window”. Remaining separate, but equal in the eyes of the people who don’t allow him in the bunkhouse. Crooks is also mentally outcasted in the eyes of the racist members of the ranch. He is not even viewed as a human being, and therefore sleeps with the horses in the barn, on page eighty one, Curley’s wife says to Crooks, “I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.”. This enhances how alienated Crooks is, as they threaten to kill him like some common

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Crooks was a Stable hand who took good care of horses, although he lived on his own due to his race throughout the story. Crooks was not allowed in the bunk house due to his white ranch hands, so the only place he was allow to stay in was in the barn with the animals. Steinbeck made crooks one of the lonely characters in the story and was discriminated by others due to his colour. Crooks bunk was described as "a long box filled with straw, on which his blankets were flung. On the wall by the window there were pegs on which hung broken harness".

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