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Old Age In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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Sometimes when you are no use to something, you are forced to let it go. Sometimes you do not even have a choice. In Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, a character named Candy is going through this. Candy is very old, so he cannot help out on the ranch at all. At some point, he may be forced to leave the ranch or he may be killed. Steinbeck argues that the purpose of Candy’s disability of having old age is to demonstrate that if you cannot help in society, your chances of survival will be decreased through the use of the comments of the other workers on the ranch. Steinbeck supports this claim by demonstrating how in the society that the book is based in, if you are not helping in society, then your survival may be threatened. An example of this is when Candy’s dog is about to get shot. Since he can no longer help out, the other workers want to kill him. “We can’t sleep with him stinkin’ around in here” (Steinbeck, 47). This quote demonstrates how when you cannot help out anymore, you are no use to society. Since all Candy’s dog does is make Candy happy, the workers feel that his life does not add enough value to the ranch. Steinbeck tries to tell us that this may be the case for Candy soon because he is also very old and he does not do much to help around the ranch. …show more content…

An example of this is when Slim has to choose which puppies to keep alive and which to kill because he doesn’t have enough food to feed all nine. “I drowned four of em right off. She couldn’t feed that many” (Steinbeck, 35). This quote demonstrates how during the great depression, only a limited amount of living things could stay alive. The reason Slim killed four of the puppies is because he didn’t have enough food to feed all nine. Steinbeck tries to show us that Candy could reach the same fate as the four dogs because society might choose to kill

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Euthanasia In Of Mice And Men By John Steinbeck

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Whyn’t you shoot him, Candy?” (Steinbeck, page 44) This clearly proves that the dog is just suffering and has become too old to live. As Candy and the dog are growing older, the dog is not able to do anything and cannot survive on its

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Hope In Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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In this chapter, the gloom is relieved by the hopeful planning of the three men — George, Lennie, and Candy — toward their dream. For the first time in his life, George believes the dream can come true with Candy's down payment. He knows of a farm they can buy, and the readers' hopes are lifted as well, as the men plan, in detail, how they will buy the ranch and what they will do once it is theirs. But while Steinbeck includes this story of hope, the preponderance of the chapter is dark. Both the shooting of Candy's dog and the smashing of Curley's hand foreshadow that the men will not be able to realize their

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How Does Steinbeck Use Foreshadowing In Of Mice And Men

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Steinbeck quotes: “Look, Candy. This ‘ol dog jus’ suffers himself all the time. If you was to take him out and shoot him right in the back of the head-’ he leaned over and pointed, ‘-right there, why he’d never know what hit him.” (Steinbeck, 71). This quote acts as a catalyst to foreshadow the scene at the end of the novel.

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Examples Of Foreshadowing In Of Mice And Men

1205 Words | 5 Pages

As the dog lost its serviceability, it lived on with age and suffered, thus had to be put down in order to prevent it from suffering any longer. Contrary to this, Lennie was one of the most useful members of the farm. His strength making it easy to do certain things, his mentality however, was something else, like that of an ignorant, innocent child. Even when a girl screamed, Lennie became “scared all he can think to do is jus’ hold on.” (Steinbeck, 41) Unbeknownst to Lennie and George, his natural innocence and ignorance, will whittle down his usefulness until nothing's left.

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Steinbeck utilizes his theme of lonliness to enhance the idea that so many individuals feel as though they do not belong for their own seperate reasons. In the story, Candy's dog is old, raggy, and worn out. Characters all feel as though the dog should be killed, because they do not want to have to deal with it around them. The dog is useless, and too old to perform any tasks to benefit the farm. Numerous individuals feel as though others make them feel like they are useless, and worth nothing.

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This is in complete relation to Candy as after his dog is killed he contemplates that if he gets fired from his job, his one purpose, the same thing that happened to his dog should happen to him, death. As it is stated, “You see what they done to my dog tonight? They says he wasn’t no good to himself nor nobody else. When they can me here I wisht somebody’d shoot me”(Steinbeck 60). The dog itself is a symbol for Candy, but also for all of the elderly.

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Throughout the story, Steinbeck’s use of character development and dialogue of Candy, Crooks, and Curley’s wife reveals that loneliness and isolation are caused by both social barriers and sometimes personal choice. During the start of the novella, Candy, an old swamper, is revealed to be lonely and distant from the other men due to his disability. Compared to everyone else, he is the oldest one, and to further isolate himself, he only has one hand. This prevents him from working as much as the others, which, in turn, causes him to distance himself from the other workers. In the beginning, when George in hesitant in staying in the bunks, Candy was persistent in keeping him there by saying, “Tell you what…last guy that had the bed was a blacksmith…clean a guy as you want to meet.

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To start off, in the novel, Candy being very old was probably considered an outcast to society for being handicapped. John Steinbeck describes Candy by saying “The door opened and a tall, stoop shouldered old man came in, he was dressed in blue jeans and he carried a push broom in his left hand” (18). With Candy being very old, he was not in the Physical condition to work as hard as the other young workers. Besides Candy being very old, he once got his hand trapped in a machine which left him handicapped for the rest of his life.

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Candy talked about how his dog was the strongest dog he had ever witnessed, and people undermined him and his dog because of their physical shape. While reminiscing his dogs astonishing aspects, he was negatively interrupted, which he responded to with, “You wouldn't think it to look at him now, but he was the best damn sheep dog I ever seen.” The text shows that with time all people and objects alter and deteriorate due to life advancing. However, others feel a need to express a person’s valuelessness throughout their aging.

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1120 Words | 5 Pages

Candy feels useless without his hand and feels that he has no place to go and no family to turn to and confesses to George, “When they can’t use me here I wisht somebody’d shoot me. But they won’t do nothing like that. I won’t have no place to go, an I can’t get no more jobs. ”(Steinbeck 59).

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Of Mice And Men Quote Analysis

598 Words | 3 Pages

You gotta get him out.” (Steinbeck 74). The quote connects to the point because this old dog represented a person who can’t physically do anything anymore, so people lose their interest in this person like they lost to the dog and told Candy to get him out of the room. When they also said that the dog is useless Candy took it personally. This shows that during this time people counted the time they didn’t have time for useless things or

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2208 Words | 9 Pages

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