Examples Of Outcasts In Of Mice And Men

Lily Kettner

Kline

Honors English 9

1/21/23

The Outcasts

Everywhere you go there are those weird outcasts. Whether you're reading a book, watching a movie, or even going to school there are always people who don't fit in. Sometimes it is because of others, and sometimes people don't fit in because they want to stand out. In the novel, there are many characters, some of which fit in great and others don’t. Throughout the story, Of Mice And Men, by John Steinbeck, Lennie, Crooks, and Curley’s wife were all outcasts on the farm.

Lennie is an outcast throughout the novel. Readers find that Lennie has a mental disability. Because of this mental disability, people think Lennie is peculiar and stupid. This was during a time that people with

The author showed that Curley's wife is an outcast by not giving her a name at any point in the novel. This makes it obvious that women are treated less than men, especially at this time. The book’s setting is the 1930s around the time of the Great Depression (Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Ketcham). During this time women were looked at and treated as less than men in almost every aspect of daily life. Steinbeck wanted to keep her unnamed to show that she was a stray. The author also indicates that she is an outcast when she tells some of the boys she is lonely. “I get lonely,” she said. “You can talk to people, but I can’t talk to anybody but Curley. Else he gets mad. How’d you like not to talk to anybody?” (Steinbeck, 87). This was one of many mentions of how she gets lonely. The last way that the author proves Curley's wife is an outsider is by making her an attention seeker who will say and do promiscuous things for attention, approval, and validation. Whenever you hear Curley’s wife in the novel she says that she is looking for Curley this is a ply to start a conversation with the men and get attention (Of Mice And Men Curley's Wife Feminist Analysis). The men on the farm think that she is trouble and that she is overly flirtatious which is scary to them because they do not want to make their boss and source of income, Curley, mad. Throughout Of Mice And Men Curley's Wife is used to be an object to push the story along but also prove the misogynistic era that the 1930s