Of Mice and Men Essay
Was the ending in Of Mice and Men inevitable or not?
The novella Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck was originally published in 1937. The novella follows George Milton and Lennie Small, two migrant workers looking for jobs on ranches. George is the smart leader and Lennie is the mentally challenged follower who doesn’t know his own overpowering strength. They arrive to a ranch and come close to reaching George’s dream of owning their own ranch and Lennie’s dream of tending rabbits. Unfortunately, Lennie accidentally kills a woman on the ranch and George chooses to kill Lennie before a mob of other people could possibly doom him in prison, torture him, or hurt him in a worse way. This ending was not inevitable and the novella could have ended in another,
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The promise from Curley “I’m gonna shoot the guts outta that big bastard myself” suggests we may see Lennie’s demise at the hands of Curley. Curley and Lennie do fight earlier in the book, but it doesn’t really have a proper resolution and it seems like there is more to follow. Curley shows hate to Lennie from their first meeting beginning with “Lennie squirming [squirmed] under his [the] look and shifting [shifted] his feet nervously. Curley stepped gingerly close to him.” This displays the immediate rivalry between Lennie and Curley, because Curley first singles out and confronts Lennie for seaming weak. The novella seemed quite ready to wrap this conflict up in the climax with Lennie being shot or killed some other way by Curley, but Steinbeck chooses a different route. The ending was not inevitable, because some foreshadowed events did not end properly or reach where they could have reached and the climax could have had a major pay off.
Secondly, the ending to Of Mice and Men could have been different due to the cultural context of the time. This book was set in the Great Depression, a time great social, political, and
He shows his malevolence through his unnecessary need to provoke a fight with Lennie, even though the big man did not directly attack him in any way, but after first seeing Lennie, Curley is described: “His arms gradually bent at the elbows and his hands closed into fists. He stiffened and went into a slight crouch. His glance was at once calculating and
In the historical fiction novella, Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, George’s decision to kill Lennie at the end of the novel was justified. Lennie Smalls is always with his best friend George. He is incapable of doing many things because he is mentally disabled. George normally makes decisions for him and in this case, it’s about Lennie suffering and staying alive, or ending his life peacefully. Curley is a character that played a big role.
The most famous line from Of Mice and Men, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go arise,” demonstrates the theme of how intentions of futuristic times often become demolished. Steinbeck implements foreshadowing, characterization, and symbolism to develop the theme throughout the plot. John Steinbeck communicates the theme by foreshadowing Curley’s wife being uses murdered, George taking the life of his best friend, and Lennie and George’s incomplete dream. In the novella, Steinbeck explains Lennie’s fascination with petting soft objects. Starting in the first chapter, Lennie picks up the mouse to pet it and then strangles and suffocates the creature .
Some decisions you have to make in life are so difficult that we would rather not have to deal with them. George Milton had to decide the fate of his closest friend’s life. Lennie Small, a character from John Steinback’s book Of Mice and Men, is a childlike adult that George looks after. They were best friends until he accidentally killed the wife of their boss’s son. George had to decide whether or not he would kill Lennie mercifully, or let the rest of the worker's murder him.
Sydney Votino Mrs. Daquelente English 2 12 May 2023 Formal Outline: Cause-and-Effect Essay Thesis: Lennie, Curley’s Wife, and Crooks are characters from John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men who struggles with mental issues, being used, and racism leading to broken dreams that negatively impacted their lives. Body Topic A: To begin, Lennie’s experience with mental issues ruined his dream and drastically changed his hopes for the future. Direct Quote
Throughout the novel Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck’s use of symbolism, characterization, and imagery demonstrate the cruel instincts of mankind. Man’s cruelty to man is and will be prevalent in society, therefore Steinbeck’s
They are doomed from the start because of Lennie’s fatal flaw—he is developmentally disabled and therefore incapable of bringing the dream to fruition—but his naïveté also allows both him and George to pursue the dream. Lennie’s innocence permits George to believe that the dream might be attainable: “George said softly, ’I think I knowed we’d never do her. He usta like to hear about it so much I got to thinking maybe we would.’” Lennie is the keeper of the dream; he does not question its inevitable fulfillment, he simply believes. Without this innocence, George would be like all the other ranch hands, wasting his money on whiskey and women, drifting aimlessly from one job to the
George and Lennie are migrant workers, which mean they go from town to town looking for any work they can get frequently. This book had its tragic at parts and it showed how dreams can be crushed very easily. John Steinbeck in his book, Of Mice and Men,
This quote tells us that Curley would kill Lennie and shoot him in the guts. It tells us that Curley wants him to suffer. George killing Lennie was the right choice
In the end of the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Lennie accidentally killed Curley's wife after she would not stop screaming for him to let her go, George knows that there is not any way he can get out of it. Even if they were somehow able to escape, Lennie is unable to keep himself out of trouble and therefore will never be safe. If Curley were to find Lennie he would lynch him, making his death agonizingly slow and torturous. George killed Lennie to spare him the agony that he would have had to face either at the hands of Curley or due to his inability to care for himself.
After reading “Of Mice and Men,” a novella by John Steinbeck, a few essential connections can be developed from details of the setting. These connections can be found in “Paradise Lost,” a poem by Steinbeck that describes the Adam and Eve and their place in the Garden of Eden. One of the three connections that Steinbeck included in “Of Mice and Men” is the connection of temptation, a form of trickery that the serpent uses to convince Eve to eat the forbidden apple. In “Of Mice and Men,” Steinbeck includes the form of temptation of wanting to do something because of a certain reason, that has a negative effect afterwards. According to Steinbeck, “ ‘Oh!
Even still, Lennie was much more likely to die from Curley’s lynch mob had George not shot him first. As evidenced by the events of Chapter 6, Curley’s men were able to independently get near Lennie, and were likely to approach him even without George as the “shouts of men” got louder and louder. If Lennie was killed by Curley, he would have been shot in the guts, and died painfully as he bled out. Only George, by retelling his dreams about the farm, could spare Lennie from such a fate, and let him die as he lived: blissfully ignorant. Through sparing him the anguish that awaited his friend, George is justified in
There are two reasons Curley wants to kill Lennie. The first reason is because he is a big guy, and Curley hates big guys. The second reason is because Lennie killed his wife. It states in “Of Mice and Men” that “Curley gon’ta wanta get ‘im lynched. Curley’ll get ‘im killed.”
The theme of the novel, Of Mice and Men, written by John Steinbeck, is hope and loss. This is shown through the perspectives of Curley's wife, Candy, and George. In this story they all have a period where they hope for something more, but later on lose it. Although it is hard to remain hopeful in horrible situations, it is best not to lose hope and give into the situation you find yourself in.
Of mice and men is a prominent book read by most high school students for a long time. Of mice and men is a book written by John Steinbeck. In the book George and Lennie had to run out of weed, so they looked for a ranch to work on. Lennie had issues with liking soft things that lead to him killing Curley's’ Wife and a puppy. To express that the american dream is impossible to achieve Steinbeck uses conversations, conflicts, and events.