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Character Mental Illnesses In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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Character Mental Illnesses Imagine being on the run working as a Laborers and having a partner, not like any other, big and strong, but has the mind of a child. In the story Of Mice and Men there are two main characters, George and Lennie. Lennie suffers from Autism from my diagnoses that will be further explained later. George suffers from depression from a screening I ran. Lennie is a man who is broad, and has the mind of a young child. Lennie has autism from my diagnoses, of course how can I prove this if I have never met Lennie? I can prove this because of his actions, how he talks, and how he interprets some situations. For example, in the story there is a part where Lennie is talking to George and has some strange behavior about something …show more content…

So Lennie walks off to go get wood for a fire because they are going to eat supper, Lennie walks down the trail only for George to hear him stop and splash in the water. Lennie comes back and immediately George tells him to give him the mouse. George knows Lennie has a mouse only because earlier in the story he had one, a dead one, and George got rid of it . Now the reason Lennie kept on picking up mice was because of their texture. A symptom of Autism is for them to enjoy textures and always want to feel them, it’s soothing to them. Later on in the story you find out they had to run from their last job because Lennie had felt a ladies dress, only for its texture not to make her uncomfortable. Of course back in the 1900’s they had no idea that autism had existed. So she screamed expecting he had the idea to rape her, her scream only scarred him and made him hang on tighter to her dress, only then George had to punch him to let go and run. Then again he …show more content…

Now as a guy he wants to go have fun, get girls, make money all the good stuff. He can't when he has a big guy following him around everywhere questioning everything they do. Now this man has dedicated his safety and his life to Lennie and for what? Nothing, just because they are family. He watches over him and treats him like a brother. Now the fact that George has no social life other than Lennie and has to be fly low on everyone’s radar, is depressing. So for George’s mental illness he begins with mid depression, meaning it's not super obvious but he does have it. Then at the end of the story after killing the one person he had and had been taking care of, his depression spikes making him super numb and slow. Both symptoms of depression. So George has been suffering the whole story but in the end it spikes higher than

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Lennie has the most obvious handicap, since it greatly affects his ability to function. Lennie has the mental capacity of a child, and he can’t take care of himself. Lennie loves to “pet” things, but he is unaware of his own strength. This results in a dead mouse, puppy, and eventually, woman! Lennie is enthralled by the idea of living on a farm with George, and he uses this picture-perfect image almost as a moral guide.

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In the book Of mice and men, One of the main characters is named lennie. Lennie is the one with the mental disease. How lennie likes to have fun is he likes to touch soft, pretty things. He likes to keep ahold of those things. As lennie and george ( the main characters) were walking to their job, lennie pulls out a dead mouse.

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American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR) as “significantly subaverage intellectual functioning exiting with deficits in behavior developed during the development period.” ( Mental Retardation 1) Not, only was Lennie mentally disabled, but he was mentally unstable. After Lennie ran away he started seeing things. His Aunt Clara popped up and yelling at him. There was also a talking bunny telling him, how disappointed George would be.

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Lennie's disability is shown in chapter 3 “Make ‘um let me alone, George” (Steinbeck 63) This shows that Lennie is affected because of his disability. Like society the girl doesn't care about Lennie's disability. This event shapes George and Lennie's relationship because after this occurs George knows that someday this disability will come back to bite Lennie

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Have you ever wondered what people with autism’s thoughts are ? Do you believe he should’ve been killed? In the book Of Mice and Men by George Steinbeck, Lennie would not make it by himself and he would have had no supervision; therefore George made the right decision. It was right to kill Lennie because he would have been miserable and not known what to do without George by his side. George and Lennie were always arguing, but that is how their relationships was.

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In Of Mice And Men John Steinbeck creates sympathy for Lennie by writing him as a person with a disability, and a misunderstood character. Lennie is an easy character to sympathize with since he’s mentally challenged, and judged by others. Many times, in the book Steinbeck shows Lennie doesn’t know what he’s capable of, for instance when he kills Curly’s Wife. It is shown that Lennie lacks social skills since Steinbeck has George talk instead of Lennie in important situations. A final example of is how Lennie speaks; he speaks with improper grammar and his speech is underdeveloped.

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Lennie Smalls one of the main characters in the novel of Mice and Men, is impacted by the human rights issue of discrimination and living with an intellectual disability. “Intellectual Disability, formerly referred to as "mental retardation, is characterized by "significant limitations both in intellectual functioning and in adaptive behavior, which covers many everyday social and practical skills” (Death Penalty Info). Lennie exhibits several signs of having an Intellectual disability, for example, he has problems remembering things. George is constantly giving Lennie directions that he has to repeat several times to help him remember.

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Lennie Small is a disabled character from the 1930s novel Of Mice and Men. As he travels to different farms with his companion, George, he finds himself in danger because of his disability. Throughout the story, Lennie’s disability is a major factor. Taken from the Prezi by Adam Mumford, Lennie most likely has autism, gigantism and acromegaly. Lennie showed many signs of these diseases with excessive petting, disproportionate bone structure and strength.

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George, was in a sense, Lennie’s caretaker. Lennie was never diagnosed with a medical condition, but he was stupid.

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Every time any character in the story gets attached or close to one another, something bad happens between the relationship and goes wrong. George is a very practical man. He gets the relationship between him and Lennie in a very practical way rather than being emotional. He can even kill another person just for his

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Lennie is triggered when certain things happen, like when he kills the mouse, he goes into another state of mind. When Lennie is not triggered he is described as an innocent, kind person or as others would say he is a big baby. Not many people see Lennie’s aggression except for George. George tries to handle Lennie 's anger with trying to demand him to do this or that but it never helps Lennie in the long run.

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In the novel Of Mice and Men it is very obvious that there is something wrong with Lennie. He has a childlike demeanor, has memory loss, and seems to panic in stressful situations. Although Steinbeck never mentions what is wrong with Lennie in the novel, all of these symptoms match up to one intellectual disability, Autism. The first symptom of Autism is sensory issues.

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George tells Lennie what to say and do because Lennie can not process information quickly due to his IDD. " Slowly, like a terrier who doesn 't want to bring a ball to its master, Lennie approached, drew back, approached again" (Steinbeck 9). In this quote Steinbeck paints this picture in the reader’s mind that Lennie is more like George’s pet. Requiring a lot of maintenance and effort, Lennie exemplifies the traits of an animal because his IDD makes his everyday life challenging to

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On of the main characters, Lennie, is retarded and often gets him and George into trouble. In the story, the author gives many clues that allude to the fact that Lennie has a mental illness. Throughout the story, he says and does things that shows the reader of this. The ways Lennie is shown as retarded is through his childish manner, his memory loss, his incapability to control his strength, and his cowardness.

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“But little Mouse, you are not alone,” is a quote from the poem by Robert Burns, To A Mouse. This quote directly relates to how some of men treat Lennie, Slim and George want to feel like Lennie’s companion. However, Curley feels very intimidated by Lennie because he is big and gets special treatment from the men. In chapter 3, Curley picks a fight with Lennie and instead of stopping Lennie from hurting Curley the men egg Lennie on, Lennie ends up breaking Curley’s hand. Crooks and Curley’s wife have another point of view on Lennie, both of them at different times try to show Lennie that George might not always be as faithful as he has been.

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