Examples Of Sympathetic Characters In Of Mice And Men

Chase Decker

2nd Hour

In Of Mice and Men, there are numerous examples of sympathetic characters throughout. They all come with their stories of false promises and lost potential which brought them all to this farm. They all have at least one thing deeply, horribly wrong with them, on top of all their other flaws. In that sense, Of Mice and Men addresses the flaws found in all people, and shows how they can make some people completely miserable.

I’ll talk about Lennie first, since I’m pretty sure he was specifically written to be the most sympathetic character from the beginning. Right off the bat, it is incredibly apparent that there is something not right about Lennie. To say the least, he’s a couple fries short of a Happy Meal. He has a

Crooks is a victim of unfortunate circumstances. He’s a black man in a time when black people were still very discriminated against, and as a result, was forced to sleep in the barn by the other characters, which certainly doesn’t help his crooked back that he has to rub cream on. All he has to do in his free time is read books, and is incredibly lonely. He has also become very cynical, as in reference to Lennie saying he’s gonna work with George to get a piece of land, he says, "You’re nuts." Crooks was scornful. "I seen hunderds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an’ that same damn thing in their heads. Hunderds of them. They come, an’ they quit an’ go on; an’ every damn one of ‘em’s got a little piece of land in his head/ An’ never a God damn one of ‘em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head. They’re all the time talkin’ about it, but it’s jus’ in their head". Through all the isolation Crooks is put through, and seeing so many others say the same thing, he has lost hope for himself or anyone that they could ever accomplish their goals in life, which is really depressing when you think about

First thing’s first, not once throughout the entire book does anyone refer to Curley’s wife by her name, and it’s unclear if they even know it in the first place. She’s unsatisfied with her marriage and gets lonely, so she gets flirty with the other guys, however, as a result, they tend to avoid her because they suspect she’s gonna try to start trouble, which in turn, feeds into the cycle of loneliness. Whenever other characters talk about her, it’s usually in demeaning terms and insults, since she had unfairly accumulated a rock-bottom reputation. During a very vulnerable period, she strikes up a conversation with Lennie and starts venting about where she could’ve been, "I tell you I ain't used to livin' like this. I coulda made somethin' of myself." She said darkly, "Maybe I will yet." And then her words tumbled out in a passion of communication, as though she hurried before her listener could be taken away. "I lived right in Salinas," she said. "Come there when I was a kid. Well, a show come through, an' I met one of the actors. He says I could go with that show. But my ol' lady wouldn' let me. She says because I was on'y fifteen. But the guy says I coulda. If I'd went, I wouldn't be livin' like this, you bet". Very soon after this, Lennie ended up killing her, though by accident. She was so lonely, and only trying to find someone to vent to, and doing so ended up being her biggest mistake. I kind of