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Outcasts In Of Mice And Men By John Steinbeck

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Life isn’t fair for many people, and in the Novel Of Mice and Men written by John Steinbeck, this is evident through the characters of Crooks, Lennie, Candy, and Curley’s wife. In comparison to the other workers, these four outcasts are more closely related to each other than one may at first realize. Lennie has a lack of mental capacity, Crooks is black and has an injured back, Candy is missing a hand and is also old, and Curley’s wife is isolated by the other men due to being too flirtatious. These qualities, albeit unfortunate at best, gives these characters all one thing in common; they’re neglected and undesired by the other workers on the farm. These characters are all undesirable in their own way, and this is why they are outcasts. …show more content…

These characters are all outcasts because they either lack the ability to be of worth in a functioning society, or because of their ethnicity, gender, or traits which make them overall undesirable. This theme and this theme alone is very easy for people around the time period of the Great Depression to relate with. It was a time of great desperarity for many people, and the outcasts resemble this disparity to a very accurate degree. Like many of the average Americans at this time, they wanted a place in the world to call their own. They wanted to be accepted and they wanted to fit in. These outcasts were clumped together to reach out to a variety of either shunned, unaccepted, or prejudiced people. The outcasts all strive to make a connection with someone, and Crooks even says while speaking to Lennie on page 76, “It don’t make no difference if he don’t hear or understand. The thing is, they’re talkin’, or they’re settin’ still not talkin’, it don’t make no difference. George can tell you screwy things, and it don’t matter. It’s just talking, It’s just bein’ with another guy. That’s all”. This quote alone shows that despite how isolated Crooks has been his whole life, he, just like all the other outcasts, seek some form of acceptance, place, and

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