Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, is a story about discrimination due to someone being different in any way. The reader learns how people were treated and discriminated in 1930s during the great depression. This is important because this issue continues even to this day. This problem has been around for a very long time. Steinbeck uses Archetypes,Symbolism, and Setting to convey the theme of discrimination. Steinbeck uses Archetypes to represent various larger groups of people at that time in order to show how each group was discriminated. Lennie is symbolic of the “wise fool” archetype, being mentally inferior but being able to reveal the best and worst of others. Like when he was talking with crooks. Crooks scowled, but Lennie's disarming smile defeated …show more content…
Mice represent the false hope of a safe space for Lennie and his vulnerability. During the course of the book, we see lennie with serveral mice, as he links them to his Aunt for a warm reminder, but it also makes it clear that he suffers from the problem of hurting what he loves, he likes to pet soft things, resulting in him killing curley's wife and his puppy, thus lennie suffers in the end. Due to them being small, they are able to be killed very easily physically, as in the way that lennie is mentally small that leads into his downfall. Rabbits represent self sufficiency, but ultimately false hope in the end. This is shown during the book when lennie loves to pet them, but knows they are likely going to die afterwards due to how strong he is. At the end of the book, he hallucinates a "gigantic rabbit" that tells him he "ain't fit to lick the boots of no rabbit. You'd forget 'em and let 'em go hungry". This giant rabbit suggest that deep down, lennie knows that his dream will never come true. These symbols show just how segregated and sad these people are due to their race or
For Lennie’s archetype, his character represents innocence. In the story, Lennie is always in need to pet some kind of animal. His want of constant comfort from an animal is a childish quality for a grown man to have. This childish quality makes Lennie’s character have the innocence of a child no older than eight years old.
The bunnies are a symbol for self-sufficiency which Lennie so desperately tries to achieve; however, they ultimately turn into false hope. Even though Lennie does not make it to his dream farm physically, he teaches us the lesson that sometimes dreams are not meant to be attained, but they are still meant to be pursued and strived
In addition to not fitting in with society, Crooks, Lennie, and George stand out since they all have become a specific archetype. Steinbeck describes his character
The title also indicates that mice have a part in story. Mice was something that Lennie liked to pet because he was fond of small, soft things. This fondness also led to the abolishment of the dream. During the Great Depression there was a huge difference between people of lower and higher class. The mice from the titley is representing the lower class and the men are the upper class.
George knows that Lennie is not like other men because of the way he speaks and acts around animals such as rabbits and mice. I want to prove that the most important thing in Mice and Men are Lennie’s rabbit, salinas river, and George shooting Lennie.
"And I get to tend the rabbits" (Steinbeck 105). Rabbits were what George and Lennie were talking about just moments before Lennie dies. George knew that this innocent idea of tending rabbits would calm Lennie down so his last thoughts would be something that brought him joy. By using the motif of rabbits Steinbeck shows how Lennie would have never been able to survive off that dream and how having innocent dreams can blind you from the real
Lennie represents as a strong muscular man with a mind of four-year old boy . George is the caretaker of Lennie, George can't go anywhere without Lennie doing something wrong. Lennie likes soft things sometimes Lennie is stronger than he thinks ¨give me that mouse! , I didn't mean to kill it George¨ ( Steinbeck 4). Lennie refuses to give up the mouse Aunt Clara ¨ give you a rubber mouse and you wouldn't want nothing to do with it¨(Steinbeck 5).
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”
John Steinbeck's novella 'Of Mice and Men' contains various important themes. One of the significant themes of this novella is hope, friendship and loneliness, determination that empowers a man to endeavour with a feeling of self-esteem. In this novella, Loneliness is presented to be one of the dominant themes. The composer outlines the depression of ranch life in the mid 1930's and shows how individuals headed from town to town in an attempt to discover kinship keeping in mind the end goal was to escape from forlornness.
Steinbeck shows how labeling and stereotyping influence how people look at the world by saying someone is one thing, without knowing everything about them. Since George may not fully realize that Lennie has trouble understanding the main point of things, George stereotypes Lennie as stupid. When George is annoyed with Lennie, Lennie thinks George is angry about, ‘“ I was only foolin’ George. I don’t want no ketchup. I wouldn’t eat no ketchup if it was right here beside me.”’
Of Mice and Men is a short novel written by John Steinbeck in 1937. The book takes place in southern California during the time of the dust bowl, and focuses on 2 migrant workers, George and Lennie. Throughout the book, there is many belittling of others. Steinbeck uses various scenes involving the discrimination of minority people and character development to show people have an inherent need to make others feel powerless in order to feel more power themselves. One of the main ideas of the novel is the deprecation of others in order to feel more powerful.
In the novella Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck often employs animal imagery to dehumanize Lennie, in order to allow the reader to justify George putting him down at the end of the novella. As Steinbeck’s use of animal imagery progresses throughout the novel, Lennie is dehumanized by being compared to an animal that only hinders George’s pursuit of happiness. Starting with Lennie’s introduction, Steinbeck influences how the reader perceives Lennie. During the reader's first encounter with Lennie, he is described as walking “heavily, dragging his feet a little, the way a bear drags his paws," (Steinbeck 2). Steinbeck’s diction invokes animal imagery by comparing Lennie’s movements to that of a bear, which immediately dehumanizes Lennie to the reader.
The novellas Of Mice and Men and The Pearl are both often noted as social criticisms. The author, John Steinbeck addresses real-life issues that society is facing. Whether through direct statements and comments, or through a fictional characters’ situation, Steinbeck criticizes just some of the problems of society. He shows the way people are discriminated against, and why. He shows the issues society faces.
“But little Mouse, you are not alone,” is a quote from the poem by Robert Burns, To A Mouse. This quote directly relates to how some of men treat Lennie, Slim and George want to feel like Lennie’s companion. However, Curley feels very intimidated by Lennie because he is big and gets special treatment from the men. In chapter 3, Curley picks a fight with Lennie and instead of stopping Lennie from hurting Curley the men egg Lennie on, Lennie ends up breaking Curley’s hand. Crooks and Curley’s wife have another point of view on Lennie, both of them at different times try to show Lennie that George might not always be as faithful as he has been.
Of Mice and Men is about Lennie and George in which Lennie decided to feel a girls skirt because he liked the type of material. So George went with Lennie to escape and not get in trouble and decided to go to a bunkhouse where they work and are provided with food and a place to live. George and Lennie are best friends and so they went together. Lennie has the mind of a 6 year old and needs to be with George. When quit their jobs, George planned out a dreamland of how they will live when they get enough money to move to their own house.