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Comparing The Divided In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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In the 1930’s there were many struggles. There were even more struggles for the disabled or people who were not white men. The battles were put into a novel called Of Mice and Men. In Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck illustrates the hardships of the Great Depression through the struggle of the powerless. Firstly, Race was a big problem in the 1930’s. Secondly, people with mental or physical disabilities were not included much in society. Lastly, woman were not treated as correctly as they are today.
To start off, in Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck illustrates the hardships of the Great Depression through the struggles of the powerless. In the Great Depression race was a big problem for the African-Americans. It can be thought that Crooks struggled …show more content…

In Of Mice and Men, the struggles of the disabled were demonstrated through literature. It can be thought that the disabled in the 1930’s were demonstrated by Lennie. One example of Lennie being mentally disabled is in the quote “Lennie was smiling with delight at the memory of the ranch. Curley stepped over to Lennie like a terrier. ‘What the hell you laughing at’ ” (Steinbeck 61) Lennie got called out by Curley because he was smiling. Curley thought he was laughing at him so he wanted to fight Lennie. Lennie did not know what to do and Curley was punching him even though Lennie did not want no harm. If Lennie could of thought that he might get mad he would but he doesn’t know any better and even if Curley tried to fight him Lennie could of tried to solve the problem with nobody getting hurt. It can also be thought that disable people did not get jobs in the 1930’s. One example of that is in the quote “He got kicked in the head by a horse when he was a kid.” (Steinbeck 22) George said that about Lennie because back in the 1930’s they did not accept the disabled and would not let them work. The reader can learn that people did not accept the disabled and did not treat them with extra help their

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Did you know in the 1950’s the people of the mentally disabled community were mistreated in our world? The people that were mentally disabled were isolated from the outside world, shocked several times, and locked up and let them starve to death. The book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is about the main characters George and Lennie, who migrate from one place to the other in search of a new job. The story took place during the Great Depression, and the story mostly took place in Soledad. George did the wrong thing by killing Lennie because he could of run away, let Curley find Lennie, or followed his and Lennie's American Dream.

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In the novel, ¨Of Mice and Men,¨ the author, John Steinbeck, develops complex characters which opens the story up for interpretation. Steinbeck uses both direct and indirect characterization, which forces the reader to infer important traits about each characters. An example of a character is Crooks, a colored man working on a ranch during the Great Depression. Being the only black man on the ranch, Crooks is often looked down on as a stable bunk, and is not respected as the other men are. Because of this, Crooks is perceived as powerless.

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An example of this is in ‘Of Mice and Men’ is “Crooks the negro stable book.” This shoes that people only see Crooks as his disability, colour or his job. Steinbeck does this because he wanted to shoe others that when it came to jobs black people struggled more than white people. The word ‘negro’ connotes that no-one really has respect for Crooks because he was black. Crooks sleeps outside with all of the animals.

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