Responsibility In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Responsibility is defined as the state or fact of being responsible, answerable, or accountable for something within one's power, control, or management. The idea of responsibility can find its way into our lives and this theme radiates from the words written in the 1937 novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Now Of Mice and Men is saying that responsibility can appear positive on the surface, but the motives can be self-serving. In this novel, the whole theme of responsibility can be portrayed by many characters actions and personality development in the storyline. George feels responsible for Lennie’s well-being throughout the book. Slim is responsible for the selected ranch workers and the amount of work they complete. While Curley’s wife’s actions are indirectly linked to the death of Lennie Small making her responsible for the tragic end of the story. One of the main characters has a huge responsibility placed upon him in the book. George Milton feels responsible for the protection of Lennie. Despite his caring thoughts towards Lennie, he mainly stays

Curley’s wife is intentionally forcing Lennie to feed her attention seeking personality and she places his hand involuntarily onto her head which leads to her death and eventually his. The way she words her speech pattern makes us assume she actually wants Lennie to see how soft her hair is, when really she just is searching for attention in a novel where that is never given to her. Curley’s wife is ultimately responsible for Lennie’s death which fits into the novels theme of responsibility. The reason she is responsible for this event appears to have good intentions as she just wanted Lennie to see how soft her hair was. But really her motives were not as they appear and she forced him to feed her never ending attention seeking personality making her motives self-