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Mentality In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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Of Mice and Men, written by John Steinbeck, is about the lives of working men on a ranch during the Great depression. John Steinbeck was highly capable of capturing the lives and thoughts of working men during the Great Depression, also bringing in the suffrage of mentality and how it was viewed by others in that era. However, there was one character, Slim, who fully understood the concept of a corrupted mentality and how one should deal with that dilemma. When it is stated “His hands, large and lean, were as delicate in their action as those of a temple dancer” (Steinbeck 33-34) the author is showing that though he is a skinner, his hands seem rather sophisticated and set off a soothing mood. From this evidence, it is shown that if one closely …show more content…

For the majority, these workers were not well educated or else they would have found a county job or such a career similar to that. Slim is one of those workers on ranches, but he is not ignorant, comparable to other workers. He is actually quite intelligent for when he and the other men find Curley’s wife dead, he is the only one to knows what to do. When “Slim went quietly over to her, and he felt her wrist. One lean finger touched her cheek, and then his hand went under her slightly twisted neck and his fingers explored her neck” (Steinbeck 96), he showed his intelligence by feeling for her pulse and her broken neck. Though numerous people today know these types of actions as simple knowledge, it was not so simple during the Great Depression. It was the beginning of the nineteenth century and around that time, only doctors and well educated people knew to look for those signs when it is likely someone is dead. None of te other men knew what to do and didn’t truly know if she was actually dead. Slim was the only one who was able to confirm that fact. Since he is both caring and intelligent, one may understand that he is also trustworthy as

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