Essay On Friendship In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

“The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men/ gang aft agley,” (Burns 38). This precise verse from the poem “To a Mouse” inspired John Steinbeck to compose the widely-known novel Of Mice and Men. This book depicts the story of a clever man named George and his faithful yet mentally disabled companion, Lennie, working on a Californian ranch during the Great Depression. The two have an American Dream of owning their own farm, but this is all shattered when Lennie unintentionally murders the boss’ daughter-in-law. In order to protect his closest friend from a most terrible and cruel death sentenced to him by society, George shoots Lennie humanely.

“The best laid schemes of mice and men go often askew.” This was from Robert Burns’ poem, “To a Mouse.” John Steinbeck used this quotation as the title of his book, Of Mice and Men. As in the poem, human being’s plans also do not always go as intended. Even in this title, Steinbeck is already foreshadowing what will happen in the story. George and Lennie, in Of Mice and Men, wish to someday own their own farm together. But, Lennie has mental disabilities, such as short-term memory loss.

Mercy Killing is a moral and just way to show compassion for a loved one in need. TS In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, one of the main characters, George, faces a difficult situation when his best friend, Lennie, murders the wife of another character, Curley. S George must make a significant decision to either let Lennie continue to live and allow him to suffer through Curley’s vengeance, or to prematurely end Lennie’s life, and thus save him from endless torture at the hand of an enemy. George feels responsible for Lennie because of his promise to Aunt Clara to take care of him. Shooting Lennie was George’s way of protecting him.

He life has so far been trying to keep a steady job while caring and looking after Lennie, who easily gets them kicked out of almost every place they go to. “An’ you ain’t gonna do no bad things like you done in Weed, neither,”(Steinbeck 8). George honestly knew he would be better off without Lennie. But because of Lennie’s aunt, he would keep him safe even if a town was after him. Multiple times he has saved Lennie from others who misinterpreted him for a fool or a creep, when really they acted on impulse than understand the situation at

In the novel ‘Of Mice and Men’, Steinbeck introduces us to a character named ‘Crooks’. He is not shown as a main character of the story, but is given much light in section 4, especially in this extract. Steinceck presents the character of Crooks in order to represent the racial attitudes towards black people at the time of the Great Depression and to show us the negative stereotypes of black people in an American society in the 1930s. At the beginning of Chapter 4, Steinbeck gives careful detail of Crooks’ room when he writes, “a long box filled with straw, on which his blankets were flung”. Crooks’ bunk is described as an untidy and uncomfortable place to rest, much similar to the animals’ with whom he shares the harness room with.

For Hamlet, this would mean that, because the ghost resembled him, Hamlet trusts him. He even acknowledges that “one may smile...and be a villain” but he does not even begin to consider that the statement could apply to the ghost before him (1.5, 109). In fact, he simply uses what the ghost has told him in order to strengthen his belief in the villainy of his uncle. It doesn’t occur to Hamlet, despite his friends’ various warnings, that the ghost could potentially not be his father. It doesn’t matter to him that, once alone with it, the ghost could “assume some other horrible form,/which might deprive [his] sovereignty of reason” (1.4, 72-3).

Douglass begins his narrative with the analogy, “Slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs (pg. 1).” This analogy is saying that slaves know nothing of their age, which is a basic fact that most people can recall instantly. Also, by using this specific analogy, Douglass is demonstrating how slavery is dehumanizing for blacks by bringing slaves down to the level of a barn animal. White readers at the time would have never known personally what it as like to be treated similarly to an animal, but many were aware that animals were pieces of property, not something that you saw as an equal to a person. By comparing a slave to an animal, white Northerners who had little exposure to slavery could now see how the institution of slavery degraded slaves from the status of a human to that of a piece of expendable property.

When I finished reading the excerpt about the life of Frederick Douglass, I learned more about the roughness and hardships of his life and story. Had I not read this excerpt, I wouldn 't know the beginning of his life story and many of the reasons he wanted to become and abolitionist. Sometimes Douglass wished to be animals, so that he could escape the world of thinking. This was a very rough life for a young boy to become a slave and grow up as one. When sold into slavery, Frederick was not very old.

“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.” - Alice Walker In Chapter 4 of Of Mice and Men race and gender are depicted in different ways symbolizing different character behaviors. For starters, in this chapter race is seen as a barrier between workers. Crooks, a black stable buck, is separated from the rest of the men and lives in a secluded bunk by the barn. These living conditions compare Crooks to more of an animal than man.

Making a sacrifice to a healthy friendship Of Mice and Men is a story written by John Steinbeck, a story about two men named George and Lennie. In the story George and Lennie have been kicked out of the town Weed because of an incident that happened to Lennie in weed Ultimately, George stays with Lennie through thick and thin while on the ranch miles ahead from Weed. Lennie appears to have trouble there on the ranch he kills the boss's son’s wife and kills a puppy that was given to him. Friendship is extremely important in the novel because in John Steinbeck's book Of Mice and Men he uses the struggles of friendship to illustrate the difficulties for the migrant workers' survival during the 1930’s. George is a character that display friendship by caring for Lennie in the book Of Mice and Men.