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Did you know in the 1950’s the people of the mentally disabled community were mistreated in our world? The people that were mentally disabled were isolated from the outside world, shocked several times, and locked up and let them starve to death. The book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is about the main characters George and Lennie, who migrate from one place to the other in search of a new job. The story took place during the Great Depression, and the story mostly took place in Soledad. George did the wrong thing by killing Lennie because he could of run away, let Curley find Lennie, or followed his and Lennie's American Dream.
Discrimination Present in Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck was born at the beginning of the twentieth century and experienced the turning point of many eras that are evidenced throughout his writings. Steinbeck lived through the strong economic years during World War I, the dirt poor years of the Great Depression, and even saw the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s; all of his dreams for these decades are evidenced in his works, more specifically, Of Mice and Men. Of Mice and Men is set in the 1920’s in the Salinas Valley of California. Other writers, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, char-acterize the 1920’s as a fun decade with a booming economy filled with men rising from rags to riches, but Steinbeck shows how life was for men
In John Steinbeck’s 1930’s classic novella, Of Mice and Men, we are introduced to one of the main characters, Lennie Small. Lennie is developed as a mentally handicapped, who doesn’t know his strengths and weaknesses, who forgets everything, and who acts like a child. By this development, Steinbeck dehumanizes Lennie in order to show the mentally handicapped population has no chance of achieving the American Dream. Lennie doesn’t know his strengths and weakness, and how to control his strengths. At the end of chapter five, Curley’s wife comes into the barn, where Lennie is alone.
Martin Luther King stated that “hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.” Both love and hatred played a role in John Steinbeck’s novel, but in the end cruelty and hatred brought George and Lennie’s friendship to a tragic ending. Steinbeck wrote Of Mice and Men during the Great Depression of 1930’s.
The character Curley’s wife is a great example of the need for companionship and how loneliness can change someone. Steinbeck shows the wife’s feelings through her actions. “I could get you strung up on a tree so fast it ain't even funny.” (Steinbeck 81) This quote demonstrates how desperate she is for interaction with others, she was willing to go into Crooks’ room when she knows she is not welcome.
Together, they work to make the American Dream a reality. In his novel, Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck uses Lennie and his disability, Curley’s wife and her sex, and Crooks and the color of his skin to prove there is institutionalized oppression in American society. To begin, Lennie and his disability prove there is institutionalized oppression in American society. Lennie is depicted as a large man, capable of doing manual labor, but not capable of thinking for himself. Thus, George, his closest companion,
With issues such as gaining money and trying to live a life, women and Africans Americans had it tougher during the Great the Depression. In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, we read about two men, George and Lennie. As both of them go to a ranch to get a job, Lennie gets in trouble with the boss’ son. After that Lennie went to the barn to go pet the puppies and on doing so he kills Curley’s wife by accident. With Lennie on the run George finally catches up to Lennis on their meeting spot, as Lennis was sitting down on a log George comes from the back and kills Lennie for his own safety against the rest of the men that were after him.
“‘[Writers] are charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures...for the purpose of improvement’” -John Steinbeck, Nobel Prize Speech. According to Steinbeck’s speech, the purpose of literature is communication and exposition of problems, and understanding and teaching of the ways to fix those faults in society. One of John Steinbeck’s books Of Mice and Men advances his speech’s purpose by illustrating how discrimination, especially sexism and racism, can alter one’s personality and destroy their desire to achieve anything greater in life than their current situation. To begin, Steinbeck demonstrates the adverse impacts of sexism in this novel through the character of Curley’s wife. In the beginning of the book, Curley’s wife is
“She’s gonna make a mess, they’s gonna be a bad mess about her. She’s a jailbait all set on the trigger”. Of Mice and Men show’s George and Lennie’s path to their American dream. They are starting off as laborers in California in the Salina’s Valley and live in a hand-to-mouth lifestyle on a ranch. The novel portrays many male characters than female.
Do you think people are simply cruel or do they have a reasoning to be cruel? In the book of Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, many characters show a cruel side of them that was a bit misunderstanding but had their own personal reasons why they acted cruel. The novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, with a very intense storyline is about two best friends named Lennie Small and George Milton who are always on the road looking for work on farms, since they’re planning to own their own farm someday. When luck hits them and find work at a ranch they meet many people at the ranch but everyone doesn’t get along. Sadly in the end when George finds out they wanted to kill Lennie, George ended up killing Lennie himself.
“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.” - Alice Walker In Chapter 4 of Of Mice and Men race and gender are depicted in different ways symbolizing different character behaviors.
In 1920 when the 19th amendment was passed allowing women to vote, many women thought that Gender Inequality was coming to an end. Soon after, the Great Depression happened, and everyone was focused on that. Life for women was especially hard then because they had to live in a world full of poverty and discrimination. Throughout Of Mice and Men we see this through Curley’s Wife. She just wants to fit in and talk to the men without thinking she wants something, or being called rude names.
World of Sexism Due to the Great Depression, women’s rights took a back seat to employment and poverty. It was believed that women shouldn’t work but stay at home, clean, cook, and raise their children. The prejudice against women in the society was great back in the 1930s for they were degraded and underestimated. All the rights they had gained in the 1920s were neglected and the women were once again maltreated. In Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the victim of sexism is Curley’s wife who is so insignifact that even a name was not provided for her.
In the novel “Of Mice and Men” John Steinbeck portrays the theme of social injustice throughout the story in the lives of several characters that include Lennie, Curley’s Wife, and the stable buck, Crooks. All of these characters are mistreated in some way, shape or form. The hardships that these characters faced help guide us to see the social injustice that is prevalent in the story. Lennie is a victim of social injustice due to the fact that he is mentally disabled. He is not treated fairly when he was accused of rape.
The book Of Mice and Men is full of puzzling examples of the human condition, from Lennie and his mental disability to Curley only caring about his social appearance. With characters like these two, the book exploits the human condition that concerns circumstances life has given you. John Steinbeck brings to life what being a laborer in the American depression meant to the men and one woman who had enough personality to stand out. Steinbeck shows the human condition of men while they survive in the American depression.
