Old Age In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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Sometimes when you are no use to something, you are forced to let it go. Sometimes you do not even have a choice. In Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, a character named Candy is going through this. Candy is very old, so he cannot help out on the ranch at all. At some point, he may be forced to leave the ranch or he may be killed. Steinbeck argues that the purpose of Candy’s disability of having old age is to demonstrate that if you cannot help in society, your chances of survival will be decreased through the use of the comments of the other workers on the ranch. Steinbeck supports this claim by demonstrating how in the society that the book is based in, if you are not helping in society, then your survival may be threatened. An example of this is when Candy’s dog is about to get shot. Since he can no longer help out, the other workers want to kill him. “We can’t sleep with him stinkin’ around in here” (Steinbeck, 47). This quote demonstrates how when you cannot help out anymore, you are no use to society. Since all Candy’s dog does is make Candy happy, the workers feel that his life does not add enough value to the ranch. Steinbeck tries to tell us that this may be the case for Candy soon because he is also very old and he does not do much to help around the ranch. …show more content…

An example of this is when Slim has to choose which puppies to keep alive and which to kill because he doesn’t have enough food to feed all nine. “I drowned four of em right off. She couldn’t feed that many” (Steinbeck, 35). This quote demonstrates how during the great depression, only a limited amount of living things could stay alive. The reason Slim killed four of the puppies is because he didn’t have enough food to feed all nine. Steinbeck tries to show us that Candy could reach the same fate as the four dogs because society might choose to kill