The Disfunction of the Elderly John Steinbeck, the author of the novela Of Mice and Men develops many characters throughout his novella including the character of candy. The novella tracks the man of George and Lenny, Lenny being a mentally handicapped man and George his caregiver, as they go to a job site and find a old man. This old man, Candy, is portrayed in such a way that demonstrates that the elderly and handicapped are a disfunction to society and will never truly achieve the idea of the American dream. A person can have a major purpose in their life, they can be living their live to the fullest with a solid income, but this can all die with the snap of a finger. Once a person has reached their purpose in life they are useless; they have no reason to continue. 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. The dog was old and had a purpose at one point in its life for it was a sheep dog. Once it got old though and could not do its job it was useless and deserved to die. The same idea goes for Candy, once he doesn’t have a job anymore he is useless and the only