How Does Steinbeck Use Power In Of Mice And Men

Through leadership there are always two ways to use this kind of power, the right or wrong way. Steinbeck shows this in the book called Of Mice and Men, he uses his characters to show how people can use this power and what will happen to them. But Steinbeck wants to teach the readers, that there are things which people have to worry about while using this kind of power. If the person uses this power for the wrong way, it never ends well for them. But if the person use this kind of power for good, it will end well for them. Steinbeck shows these kinds of leadership through Slim, Curley, and George throughout the book.

Steinbeck shows the right way of using leadership through Slim, he acts like a kind king. But Slim listens to the other men

Curley uses his power for his agenda, he hates other people who are bigger than him. “Well… tell you what. Curley’s likes a lot of little guys. He hates big guys. He’s mad at ‘em because he ain’t a big guy. You seen little guys like that, ain’t you? Always scrappy?” (26). So he uses his power to bully and humiliate these bigger guys in front of everyone else. When Curley does this, they cannot stop him or Curley would have them fired right on the spot. “Never did seem right to me. S’pose Curley jumps a big guy an’ licks him. Ever’body says what a game guy Curley is. And s’pose he does the same thing and gets licked. Then ever’body says that big guy oughtta pick on somebody his own size, and maybe they gang up on the big guy. Never did seem right to me. Seems like Curley ain’t givn’ nobody a chance.” (26- 27). Curley is a power monger, he wants to take control and be the boss of everyone like a dictator. So Curley is a great example of showing this use of power in Of Mice and

George is mostly shown as a father figure to Lennie, he takes care of him. But George does not really act nicely to Lennie a lot, it is like he is a real father. George gets angry like a real father is, when his child did something wrong. But George took this power and used it the wrong way in the early life with Lennie. He used his power which he had over Lennie to make him do anything George said and did horribly things to Lennie. “I used to have a hell of a lot of fun with ‘im. Used to play jokes in ‘im ‘cause he was too dumb to take care of ‘imself. But he was too dumb even to know he had a joke played on him.” (40). But George got over that and started to use his power to do the right thing. So George became the better version of himself and made sure that Lennie does not get in trouble. “In a panic, Lennie looked at George for help.” (22). But George still gets angry at Lennie sometimes, he just gets mad about how Lennie acts. So George is still in the middle of using leadership for good and bad, but he leans more towards the right way of using this power in the book Of Mice and