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Social Darwinism In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

154 Words1 Pages
In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck employs the modernist concept of Social Darwinism in order to distinguish between characters who survive and characters who succumb to the abuses of society. Social Darwinism, in short, is the theory that the Darwinian laws of natural selection account for the social hierarchy of society. Just like how favorable characteristics allow animals to survive in the wild, favorable attributes allow an individual to thrive in society. Social Darwinism champions the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’, implying that only the strong will survive and thrive, and the weak will be left behind. In his novel, Steinbeck applies Social Darwinism in order to create a social hierarchy between the characters of his novel,
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