Mental Disabilities in Of Mice and Men In the Steinbeck novel Of Mice and Men the two main characters are a man named George who is a tough hard worker, and his cousin Lennie who has mental defects. Lennie’s mental defectiveness is at most times a problem and a hassle to George because he cares about Lennie and he only wants the best for him in life. Lennie looks up to George because George is the one who usually always get Lennie out of trouble when he does things. One time Lennie thought that a young lady’s red dress was very pretty so he tried to touch it and the girl thought he was trying to hurt her so she began to scream and run away.(“Steinbeck…”) George made Lennie hide with him in an irrigation ditch so they would not be caught by the authorities.(“Steinbeck…”) Back during the Great Depression people with mental disabilities were hard to take care of and many people did not know how to treat people with it. Nowadays people with mental disabilities are implemented more heavily into normal society. There are special psychiatric facilities for people with very extreme mental disabilities. Some of the most common types of mental disabilities now are down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia and eating disorders. Recently there has been a large increase in the …show more content…
Having a mental disability in those days was a challenge as well. It is not Lenny's fault that he killed the puppy or Curley's wife he just didn't know what he was doing. In the end George finally decides to put Lennie out of his misery before the authorities did it in a more brutal