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Gender Themes In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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“But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, in proving foresight may be vain: the best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley, an’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, for promis’d joy!” John Steinbeck took one of the lines from Robert Burns, ‘To a Mouse’ and made it the title of one of his bestsellers. In his book he incorporates the following thematic ideas: gender and race/ethnicity issues, having power and being powerless, and importance of relationships. Throughout the novella he develops these themes by constantly catching the reader’s eye with specific events or important conversations between the characters. Gender and race/ethnicity issues was a difficult matter of discussion and still is till this day. In Of Mice and Men Steinbeck uses characters such as Crooks and Curley’s Wife to portray problems such those issues mentioned above. Racial issues within the story mainly had to deal with the only African American that was mentioned, Crooks. He was the stable hand and they treat him unfairly and are very much rude to him. A specific incident that occurred that deals with this issue is when …show more content…

Most of the characters thrive off of having power such as Curley but that power could be taken away as fast as it was given. For instance when Curley starts picking on Lennie since he thought he was laughing at him. Curley continuously starts striking Lennie. During that moment Curley has the power but when George tells Lennie to defend himself Lennie instantly gains control and disfigures Curley’s hand. (Steinbeck 62-64) (Bloom). Another example of power switching from character to character is when Lennie is in Crooks quarters and Crooks tries to scare Lennie by putting thoughts in his head about George such as George is never coming back because he’s either dead or he doesn’t want to come back. This angers Lennie and just like that Crooks is the one that is frightened. (Steinbeck chapter

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