There is not just one theme in “Of Mice and Men”. In this story there are arguably several themes. Power in “Of Mice and Men”, is my interpretation of the theme of the story. This novella revolves around an informal hierarchy of the characters who establish their authority in different arguments and situations in this story. From low to high, every character in “Of Mice and Men” fits somewhere in their unspoken hierarchy. Some characters that are low on the scale are sometimes thought to be powerless but that is not the case. Like the oddball group left behind when most everybody went into town. Lennie, Crooks, Candy, and Curley’s Wife are the outsiders of the group but still manage to establish power above each other. A major example of that is when Curley’s Wife (someone with little credibility) threatened Crooks saying “I could get you strung up on a tree so easily it ain’t even funny.” (Steinbeck 81). This quote is relevant because it is Curley’s Wife establishing dominance and …show more content…
Not just social power but physical power. Lennie is undisputedly the most physically powerful character in “OMM”. George is often annoyed with Lennie’s physical power. An example of that is when Lennie picks up mice as pets but kills them accidentally while he is stroking them. An important dialogue representing this early in the story is when George said, “You got it in your hand. What you got in your hand?” (Steinbeck 5). This part of the story feels significant to me because this is the first time when Lennie gets caught with a dead mouse. In my interpretation of this, this event is a subtle foreshadow of when Lennie accidentally kills his pet