Friendship And Violence In John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice And Men'

Paige Dupuy

Mrs. McLellan

English III

March 8, 2023

The novel Of Mice and Men is written by John Steinbeck who tells the story of two ranch workers George and Lennie who undergo several challenges which lead into several different themes like friendship, violence, loneliness and more. The two themes that are frequent are friendship and violence which Steinbeck portrays in several ways.

Friendship is an important theme in Of Mice and Men, showing that friendships are extremely important to one's way of life. In the novel George and Lennie were in the woods when they stopped to eat dinner and talk about their future, and how they have each other to survive. “Lennie broke in. ‘But not us! An why? Because… because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you and that's why” (Steinbeck 14). Steinbeck implies that George and Lennie have

Steinback has shown violence by having Lennie and Curley fight over the simple aspect that Curley hates Lennie for his size. Curley went into the bunkhouse to purely look for his wife who likes to mess around and talk to the other men,when the other men started making fun of Curley about his wife. When Curley saw Lennie he got ugly and started making fun and messing with Lennie, “Curley’s fist was swinging when Lennie reached for it. The next minute Curley was flopping like a fish on a line, and his closed fist was lost in Lennie's big hand. George ran down the room, ‘Lego of him, Lennie. Let go (Steinbeck 63).” Steinback portrays violence by stating that Curley was ‘flopping like a fish on a line.’ which shows how hard and aggressive Lennie was being towards Curley. The syntax and connotation in the novel appear through showing slim details of the violence portrayed; “Caught in a machine”, shows how when people asked what happened to Curley's hand they lied and said that he got his hand caught in a