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Mental Illnesses In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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In today’s society, there are many people living with mental illnesses. As a matter of fact, every year about 42.5 million American adults suffer from a mental illness, with conditions such as depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. In the novella Of Mice and Men, written by John Steinbeck, Lennie is a character who has a mental illness. Because Lennie has a mental illness and most likely could not take care of himself, another man named George takes care of him after Lennie’s aunt's death. The novel takes place during the Great Depression. During this time period in the early 1900s, many people disliked and sloughed others who had mental illnesses. As a result, George had to make sure nobody would find out he had a mental illness. The mental illness that Lennie has is not specified in the book, however, the reader knows that Lennie has some kind of mental illness because Steinbeck puts many examples of Lennie's mental retardation throughout the novel. …show more content…

An example of this from the novel is in chapter 1, when Lennie was playing with the water. “Lennie dabbled his big paw in the water and wiggled his fingers so the water arose in little splashes; rings widened across the pool on the other side and came back again. Lennie watched them go. "Look, George. Look what I done."” (Steinbeck 3) From this quote we can infer that Lennie acts childish and innocent because of his mental illness, as playing with your hands in water is usually something that little kids think is fun. We can also tell that Lennie is excited and wants George to see what he did. This is another thing that many children do with

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Lennie had low brains and high strength, allowing him to get far with George helping him. But, Lennie never knowing when he did something wrong only put him on a clock before he would end up dying for something he didn’t understand. “They run us outta weed,”(Steinbeck 7) this quote shows that already at the beginning of the book Lennie has

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Lennie also looks up to George so much that he often repeats his actions. “Lennie, who had been watching, imitated George exactly. He pushed himself back, drew up his knees, embraced them, looked over to George to see whether he had it just right. He pulled his hat down a little more over his eyes, the way George's hat was” (Steinbeck, 4). Lennie does this not only because he looks up to George, but because he wants to impress in a way that in his head, makes up for him forgetting, and doing “bad things.”

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Throughout Chapter Nine of The Chosen, Chaim Potok demonstrates Reuven’s growth as a character, utilizes symbolism to show the struggles Reuven went through, and reveals how important it is to appreciate things you may take for granted, or even hate, such as Reuven’s exams. Potok exhibits Reuven’s growth as a character using the phone call with Billy’s father. On the call, he learns that Billy’s surgery was not successful, which shook him almost enough to make him drop the phone. This exposes how close he grew to Billy in his short stint in the hospital with him. We as people tend to form greater bonds with others when we go through highs and lows together, as Reuven and Billy did.

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In 2016 the movie Denial arose in the box offices worldwide, following the true events leading up to the Irving V. Penguin and Lipstadt trial for libel judgment as told in the book “ History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier” by Deborah Lipstadt. It told the story of outcome of Deborah Lipstadt’s prior book “Denying the Holocaust” which included the work of David Irving a known author and a self-declared historian on the topic of denying the existence of the Holocaust. Deborah Lipstadt who at the time was a professor of Holocaust Studies at Emory University put her own credibility on the line to prove that the Holocaust true. To claim this type of denialism means denying the most well know and best documented genocide of the

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Thus, George’s feeling of love and concern for Lennie’s well being are demonstrated. He knows that Lennie could not take care of himself so he begins to regret what he said. Another example is towards the end of the book. ” The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied” (Steinbeck page 106). During that event George is scared to kill Lennie and is feeling too scared to pull the trigger.

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George and Lennie share an unbreakable bond, despite their contrasting appearances and personalities with George being “small and quick”, while Lennie is “a huge man, shapeless of face, with large pale eyes and sloping shoulders” (Steinbeck 2). Even though they are so different, their personalities complement each other, and their undying friendship gives them hope and companionship in their desperate situations as migrant workers. Furthermore, throughout the novel, it is apparent that George takes care of Lennie through every obstacle he finds himself in, even though he is incapable of doing the same for George. Steinbeck also characterizes Lennie as innocent and animalistic to connect him to nature. He compares Lennie to animals in the barn describing the way he drinks water as, “snorting into the water like a horse”, and saying he “dabbled his big paw in the water” (Steinbeck 4-5).

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This trait of Lennie 's affects the story in a bad way because since he likes to pet things so much, he pets them too much that he kills them on accident. Lennie has done so much to ruin his world in the book. When Lennie gets to a new place to live, he accidently kills mice, a puppy, and a person, but says he 's sorry which makes him seem sympathetic. Steinbeck was successful at making Lennie sympathetic because he cares about everything and will always be there for George but other characters keep sizing up to him and he doesn’t know

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Schizophrenia is a disease that affects 1.5 million people throughout the world and may cause memory loss, hallucinations, and problems with restraint. Throughout the novel, Lennie demonstrates severe memory loss, visual and auditory hallucinations as well as a child like lack of restraint. Lennie Smalls from John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men suffers from severe memory loss. Throughout the novel it is apparent that Lennie often forgets things, for example “I forgot’ Lennie said ‘I tried not to forget.

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Lennie’s mental difficulties often frustrate George, and at times he lashes out at Lennie. When Lennie complains, George explodes, “‘Whatever we ain’t got, that’s what you want. God a’mighty, if I was alone I could live so easy’”(Steinbeck 11). Lennie doesn’t understand that George can’t give him everything. At times, George gets angry that he always has to support Lennie, “‘You can’t keep a job and you lose me ever’ job I get’”(11).

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The main issue presented in Steinbeck’s novel “Of Mice and Men” is mental illness and how it is treated. Throughout the book, we see the ways people handle Lennie differently from all the other characters. The first time we see this is very early on when the two men are seeking fulfilling work. The boss is very suspicious of George, even asking if he is only using Lennie to take his pay, thinking there is no other reason the two would be working together (Steinbeck

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Unfortunately, the mistreatment Lennie experiences is similar to the mistreatment of lots of other people with mental illnesses and disorders. George’s overbearing control that leads to Lennie’s demise is a direct call out to the fault of people who think they need to control people with mental health conditions lives’ to help them. In addition, Lennie’s mistreatment works to directly call out the faults of American society when they treat people with mental illnesses and disorders

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“Oh! Please don’t do that. George’ll be mad.” (Steinbeck 45). This part of the novel shows that Lennie never meant any harm he just wanted to pet something soft.

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