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Mental Disabilities In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

1007 Words5 Pages

Imagine if you were working very hard on a ranch and you only got paid $50 a month. Well, this was the life during the Great Depression. In John Steinbeck’s novella, Of Mice and Men, George Milton, a ranch worker and one of the main protagonists, is a small, wiry, quick-witted man. He has to take care of his friend Lennie Small, a mentally disabled man who has the perception and social skills of a 5-year-old. However, Lennie is exceptionally strong and he is very hard-working on the ranch. While working on the ranch, they meet Candy, a swamper who lost one of his hands in a farm accident. He spent most of his life on the ranch living with his dog, who is blind, stinky, and can barely walk. As the novella progresses, the reader will observe …show more content…

Lennie has a mental disability that makes him have the mind of a 5-year-old, and Candy’s dog has a physical disability, which makes him barely able to walk. When Lennie and George are talking to the boss, George says, “He got kicked in the head by a horse when he was a kid. He’s awright. Just ain’t bright. But he can do anything you tell him” (22). This quote explains that George was lying about how Lennie got his disability, just so he can make the boss think that he was not born unintelligent. It reveals that George really wants the job, so he tries to make him and Lennie great candidates for the position. On the other hand, Candy’s dog has been living with Candy for a very long time, but can’t live much longer due to his poor health. When George and Lennie see Candy’s dog for the first time, the author describes him as, “And at his heels there walked a dragfooted sheepdog, gray of muzzle, and with pale, blind old eyes” (24). The dog is characterized as being very old, dragfooted, and having very old eyes. The way the author describes the dog can give a clear picture of how the dog looks like, and how he has had a big impact on Candy’s life. Despite the fact that both relationships have a significant number of similarities, they are different since Lennie and Candy’s dog both have different disabilities which have different impacts on how George and Candy live their

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Of Mice and Mental Impairment Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is a fiction novella set in the time of the Great Depression. It follows George Milton and Lennie Small, two itinerant workers with the same dream; they hope to someday get a farm of their own. However, Lennie has a severe mental disability, so George constantly has to tend to Lennie and help him get out of messes. In the novel, George and Lennie travel to their new job on a ranch in Salinas Valley, California.

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As the dog lost its serviceability, it lived on with age and suffered, thus had to be put down in order to prevent it from suffering any longer. Contrary to this, Lennie was one of the most useful members of the farm. His strength making it easy to do certain things, his mentality however, was something else, like that of an ignorant, innocent child. Even when a girl screamed, Lennie became “scared all he can think to do is jus’ hold on.” (Steinbeck, 41) Unbeknownst to Lennie and George, his natural innocence and ignorance, will whittle down his usefulness until nothing's left.

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"We're born alone we live alone die alone. Only through love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone” Orson Welles. In John Steinbeck's novel, “Of Mice and Men”, Steinbeck focuses on the struggle of having a disability while struggling to get by during the American Great Depression on a Californian ranch life. Even though one may have to live around their disability, they do not let that become a big stepping stone in the life, whether they know about it or not. In John Steinbeck's novel, “Of Mice and Men”, Lennie Small, Carlson and Crooks are three great examples of how they keep living their lives despite the facts that they each have a disabilities to their lives.

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Candy´s dog is killed , simply for the fact that he is aging , and ¨ smells bad¨ . Due to his old age , he is rendered useless. Candy insinuates that the same will happen to him when he becomes incompetent of fulfilling his duties . The quote ¨ I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn´t ought to have let no stranger shoot my dog.¨ ( 89 ) symbolizes the companionship you also find in george and lennie.

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He jus’ wanted to touch that red dress, like he wants to pet them pups all the time’” (Steinbeck 42). This quote is the first example in which Lennie’s mental disability gets in the way of his dreams. George tells Slim what had happened in Weed between Lennie and the woman in the red dress and how the whole situation started. “‘Sure, he 's [Lennie] jes like a kid.

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When his dog gets shot he does not have much to live for. He cannot work with the other men and now has lost his one friend in the world. After everyone left the barn and a gunshot was heard in the distance Candy turns to George and says "You seen what they done to my dog tonight? They says he wasn't no good to himself nor nobody else. When they can me here I wisht somebody'd shoot me...

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