Martin Luther King stated that “hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.” Both love and hatred played a role in John Steinbeck’s novel, but in the end cruelty and hatred brought George and Lennie’s friendship to a tragic ending. Steinbeck wrote Of Mice and Men during the Great Depression of 1930’s. He was a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winning author. Steinbeck was once a manual laborer. Steinbeck was familiar with the time period and could connect with the feelings of the migrant workers. His writings were about social and economic concepts. This novel illustrates the culture of violence and cruelty of that time. Steinbeck 's characters show different types of inhumanity. Every character feels isolated and lonely, which causes some to attack those who are weaker than they are. Loneliness and the cruelty of others caused George and Lennie to stick together during many hard years, but the violence of their fellow workers overcame George’s good intentions to care for Lennie.
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.
During the Great Depression, times were very tough in the United States for everyone. In “Of Mice and Men”, John Steinbeck illustrates the struggles of discrimination and the struggle of finding a job, in everyday life during the Great Depression through Lennie, Crooks, and Curley’s wife. In this novel Lennie, a not so bright but hard worker faces the challenges of trying to find a job during the Great Depression along with a mental disability. George says to Lennie at the beginning of the story, “If he finds out what a crazy bastard you are, we won’t get no job, but if he sees ya work before he hears ya talk, we’re set.”
To begin with, Steinbeck has created two very different main characters. Lennie is a large, hulking man with unnatural strength. Despite his appearance, Lennie has the mind of a child. This immature mind causes trouble for both main characters. George on the other hand is a short, quick –witted man who has
Every day over 352,000 babies are born. The second these babies enter the world, the opportunities and privileges given to them vary but are set at their birth. Privilege constantly determines opportunities whether the individual can help it or not, and it is revealed constantly throughout our country's history. In the past privilege has affected minorities lives and their opportunities in careers, freedom of speech, and much more. Unconscious biases and privileges are still very well present today but not as obvious.
Discrimination Present in Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck was born at the beginning of the twentieth century and experienced the turning point of many eras that are evidenced throughout his writings. Steinbeck lived through the strong economic years during World War I, the dirt poor years of the Great Depression, and even saw the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s; all of his dreams for these decades are evidenced in his works, more specifically, Of Mice and Men. Of Mice and Men is set in the 1920’s in the Salinas Valley of California. Other writers, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, char-acterize the 1920’s as a fun decade with a booming economy filled with men rising from rags to riches, but Steinbeck shows how life was for men
Examine how far George and Lennie are loyal to each other throughout 'Of mice and men' In the novella 'Of Mice and Men', by the well-known author, John Steinbeck, the reader is introduced to a varied range of different characters on the ranch; within this realm loyalty between George and Lennie plays a significant role in the lonely itinerant lifestyle. The characters in this short novel act in a world of their own, having no connections to any other type of society; through this Steinbeck can strongly depict the theme of loyalty and friendship in dire situations during this period of time. During the 1930's, at the ranch, a predominant role of intelligent white-males is seen to retain power over lesser groups of people, of which Lennie is portrayed to be this part as he is mentally disabled. Despite this George and Lennie strike up a friendship of loyalty: showing firm and constant support. ' Guys like us got no fambly...they ain't got nobody in the worl' that gives a hoot in hell about 'em' sums up the reason why their loyalty and companionship is so vital and special to each other.
As society has become an integral part of the world’s culture, the opinions and misconceptions of others have dominated the way people live. Throughout history, certain groups and ideas have been suppressed by the ones in charge. These actions have sprouted an almost universal indifference to those deemed less than ideal, and therefore created a divide in the way society sees race, age groups and even gender. Coupled with the Great Depression, these beliefs are the driving force for the majority of problems individuals experience in the text. In the novel Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck uses the device of conflict to portray the external struggles of characters living in the era of the Great Depression.
In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the era of the Great Depression in the 1930’s is revealed through a simple story of ranch workers who hope to improve their lives. Migrant workers, George and Lennie, have a friendship that is based on trust and protection. The other workers lack the companionship and bond that these two men have. In the novel, the absence and presence of friendship is the motivation for the characters’ actions.
In John Steinbeck’s captivating novel Of Mice and Men, Crooks faces discrimination from the world around him because of his race, yet he still believes others should consider him their equal. While everyone on the ranch views Crooks as less important, this does not stop him from standing up to the other workers. In addition, Crooks fights for respect instead of giving up on his dreams of equality. Finally, Crooks continues to have pride in himself and in his history despite working in a place that people constantly treat him as inferior.
In John Steinbeck’s captivating novel Of Mice and Men, Crooks faces discrimination from the world around him because of his race yet he still believes others should consider him their equal. While everyone on the ranch views Crooks as less important, this does not stop him from standing up to the other workers. In addition, Crooks fights to be respected instead of giving up on his dreams of equality. Finally, Crooks continues to have pride in himself and in his history despite working in a place where people constantly treat him as inferior.
In the novel George and Lennie have a friendship were George tells Lennie what to do and Lennie does it. Lennie’s mental states causes him to sometimes forget stuff, and can’t makes decisions as quick as everyone else. George has to take care of Lennie and he tells Lennie what to do. Steinbeck uses George and Lennie to show the theme of power and control. Lennie’s strength is used to show that having power was a big thing during the Great
George and Lennie, prominent characters in the story Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, are migrant workers—men who move from place to place to do seasonal work— who end up in California and are faced with numerous problems. Set in the era of the great depression, the story of Lennie and George, two very different men who have formed a family-like union, takes place on a farm where Lennie struggles to stay out of trouble. Having committed an unintentional, harmful act, Lennie is faces severe consequences; and George must decide to make a necessary decision which changes the mood of the entire novel. By the comparison and contrast of George and Lennie, unique characters who are very different from each other, the reader can better acquaint himself
Discrimination and loneliness always been a problem even in the olden days. John Steinbeck is the author of the novel Of Mice and Men. The main characters of this novel are George and Lennie. This is a novel about two men who travel together in a time when most men would travel alone. There are multiple way to prove that there has always been fascism, segregation, discrimination and loneliness even in the olden days.
Anyway, this research will focus only on three aspects - conscience crisis, violence, and fate and destiny. These aspects will be discussed in three separate chapters under the umbrella of the selected novels of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men(1937) , The Grapes of Wrath(1939) , and The Pearl (1947) and Cormac McCarthy ’s Blood Meridian (1985) , No country for old men( 2005) , and The Road (2006) . The investigator has adopted the sociological methodology throughout the thesis. Furthermore , the second chapter - conscience crisis, will be divided into two parts ( man’s inhumanity to man and greed ).