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What Are The Similarities Between Of Mice And Men

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There are striking similarities between the types of violence humans inflict in Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men and Robert Burns’ poem "To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough”. In the poem, Burns narrates a situation where, while plowing, accidentally destroys a mouse’s home for the winter. So even though he was unintentional in the causing of distress, it still happened. This situation draws parallels to Lennie inadvertently making George’s life hard and hurting those around him in Of Mice and Men. The characters in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men demonstrate an array of physical and psychological violence towards each other. For example, George is emotionally abusive to Lennie for the entirety of the book,”’You said I …show more content…

Even starting in the first chapter physical violence is used frequently. An example being,“Lennie hesitated, backed away, looked wildly at the brush line as though he contemplated running for his freedom. George said coldly, ‘You gonna give me that mouse or do I have to sock you?’"(__) this shows how Lennie may only respond to violence most likely due to the fact that mentally he is a small child. A large amount of the interactions in this novella are those of violence; the most memorable one taking place in the very last pages when George killed Lennie once he realized that Lennie’s actions, even if they weren’t understood, were violent nonetheless and that would just repeat themselves and needed to be stopped. The act of painlessly shooting Lennie through the back of the head could be debated as an example of euthanasia. This is because George prevented Lennie from further pain caused by the other ranch men - if they had caught him, they would have tortured Lennie instead letting him die in peace. With this one action George euthanised the entire situation. If Lennie had lived and escaped, the two of them wouldn’t have been able to achieve their dream of living off the fat of the land and George understood that Lennie wasn’t developed enough to comprehend his own actions - let alone stop them from

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The main characters in the movie The Wizard of Oz and the main characters in the novel Of Mice and Men, these characters share many of the same characteristics. Both the story and the movie show many similarities to the Great Depression. However The Wizard of Oz has very symbolic characters related to the Great Depression. In The Wizard of Oz the four main characters are Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Lion.

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I think euthanasia (mercy killing) should be allowed because it seems right. If someone is suffering and lying in a hospital bed being kept alive even though they have nothing to live for and nothing to do and they want to die, I believe euthanasia is the right choice in that situation. Just like if George let Lennie live, he would have either been caught by Curley and killed painfully and slowly, or on the run again to end up in a similar situation.

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In the book, Of Mice and Men, George Milton and Lennie Smalls, try to make enough money to build themselves a home. After working on a farm for a few days, Lennie, the mentally ill man, gets into trouble and is hunted. George finds Lennie at their meeting place from the beginning and takes a responsible action towards what Lennie has done. That responsible action was the mercy killing of Lennie.

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645 Words | 3 Pages

George is justified in euthanizing Lennie because he prevented suffering, he realized that Lennie would continue to harm others and himself, and he knew that Lennie was incapable of making a decision for himself. One reason George euthanized Lennie is when he realized that Lennie would continue to harm others and himself. Lennie is not even aware of how strong he is. Whenever he pets a mouse, he ends up crushing it not even realizing he killed it. Lennie doesn't understand the long term effects that come along with killing a living creature.

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748 Words | 3 Pages

“...He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the sand and he lay without quivering,” (Steinbeck 106). Of Mice and Men is the tragic tale of two bindlestiffs in the 1930’s who traveled together and dreamed of owning their own farm.

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880 Words | 4 Pages

In Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, he conveys the crueler side of humanity through the use of characterization, tone, and imagery. Through characterization, Steinbeck conveys the toxic traits of the workers on the ranch. When George is talking about what happened in Weed, he tells Slim that Lennie had scared a woman by grabbing

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947 Words | 4 Pages

‘ “ Well, you ain’t bein’ kind to him keepin’ him alive,’ said Carlson” (Steinbeck 45). In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, even the wise Slim agreed that Carlson’s decision to shoot Candy’s dog outweighed the alternative of selfishly allowing the dog to continue suffering. If ending the suffering of an old, crippled dog is more humane than allowing the dog to suffer, then one can also see how George’s decision to kill Lennie is also ethical. More specifically, if George did not decide to take Lennie’s life quickly and peacefully like he did, he knew the other men on the ranch planned to torture Lennie to death. One reason George was justified in his decision lies in the fact that Lennie simply could not learn from his mistakes, dooming

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600 Words | 3 Pages

Taking someone’s life is nearly impossible to justify. In John Steinbeck’s novella, Of Mice and Men, George had to make a tough decision when he killed his best friend, Lennie, to save him from a more painful death. The story takes place during the Great Depression in California, and follows two unlikely friends, Lennie, a extremely strong yet mentally disabled man and, George, who is much smarter and the leader of the two. George and Lennie are migrant workers, and after losing their previous job, have come to the ranch where the story takes place to find work. After Lennie accidentally murders Curley’s wife, he runs away, and a band of the workers assemble to punish Lennie, with Curley, an aggressive and prideful character as the leader.

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955 Words | 4 Pages

There are many examples of this all throughout the book. One example of Lennies death being a euthanasia is Georgie euthanizing Lennie before Curley murdered him. Curley and Lennie already have a bad history, but when Lennie messed up to a point of no return, Curley said that he was going to shoot his guts out. This would have been an extremely painful way to pass. This led to George knowing what he had to do to make Lennie’s last few moments as peaceful as possible.

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f Mice and Men Essay - Essays and Analysis Critical Context and Evaluation print Print document PDF list Cite link Link Of Mice and Men is one of the most widely assigned modern novels in high schools because of both its form and the issues that it raises. John Steinbeck’s reliance on dialogue, as opposed to contextual description, makes the work accessible to young readers, as does his use of foreshadowing and recurrent images. Equally important is the way in which he intertwines the themes of loneliness and friendship and gives dignity to those characters, especially Lennie and Crooks, who are clearly different from their peers. By focusing on a group of lonely drifters, Steinbeck highlights the perceived isolation and sense of “otherness”

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Hope, Disaster and Everything in Between In Of Mice and Men, author John Steinbeck tells the story of George and Lennie, two friends who encounter both good and evil forces during their work in 1935 California. Steinbeck illustrates these forces in his characters, motifs, and plot, pitting images of lightness and darkness against one another throughout the novel. In analyzing how Steinbeck manipulates light and dark imagery through the hopes and dreams of the men, the negative forces acting against George and Lennie, and the complex personalities of major characters, it becomes clear that everyone is a mixture of good and evil. Steinbeck uses light to illustrate the hopes and dreams characters have for the future.

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569 Words | 3 Pages

There are cats of cruelty all over john Steinbeck’s novel of mice and men some acts of cruelties involve gender, race, age, disabilities. Cruelty in all forms causes destruction for the victom’s in of mice and men. There can not be cruelty without someone causing it. Carlson and Curley’s wife are two examples of cruelty causing destruction in “of mice and men”. Two of the characters that went through the most cruelty in the story were candy and crooks.

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839 Words | 4 Pages

In the novella, Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, George’s decision to kill Lennie at the end of the novel was justified. George and Lennie were best friends, and have been since they were little. They got ran out of Weed(the old farm they used to work at) for harassing a girl and not letting her go. He was just scared from her screaming and kicking. He didn’t mean to harm, or scare her.

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513 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel “Of Mice and Men” John Steinbeck portrays the theme of social injustice throughout the story in the lives of several characters that include Lennie, Curley’s Wife, and the stable buck, Crooks. All of these characters are mistreated in some way, shape or form. The hardships that these characters faced help guide us to see the social injustice that is prevalent in the story. Lennie is a victim of social injustice due to the fact that he is mentally disabled. He is not treated fairly when he was accused of rape.

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833 Words | 4 Pages

Georgia Cook 11/24/15 8C FRIES Companion or Competition? Humans are connected with one another through simple gravity-like forces that are ubiquitous and powerful, but in Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, the characters isolate themselves. While the english poet John Donne once said that “No man is an island”, his contemporary John Milton believed that “Solitude sometimes is best society”. So, which is true? In both books the characters act as if they are“islands”, but this does not create the “best society”.

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