Theme Of Desires In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

The novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is about two men's struggles to find a way to make a living in California during the 1930s. One of the characters, George, helps take care of his mentally disabled friend, Lennie, as they work on a ranch to get enough money to buy their own plot of land. One theme that emerged from the story is that lacking resources often leave a persons desires unfulfilled because George and Lennie lack stability and wealth. Also George lacks the resources to teach Lennie how to control himself.

George and Lennie lack stability in their lives because they don’t have the necessities to live. For example, they do not have a constant home. Lennie is always getting into trouble, so they have to move around a lot to

In the beginning of the story Lennie really wants a mouse to place with, but George doesn’t want him to have a mouse because he knows Lennie will end up killing it. On page nine it says, “‘Lady, huh? Don’t even remember who that lady was. That was your own Aunt Clara. An’ she stopped givin’ ‘em [the mice] to ya. You always killed ‘em’” (9). This shows that Lennie was given mice over and over again, but he was never taught how to control his strength and not kill them. He just kept messing up. Parents are supposed to teach their children how to fix their mistake— they tell them right from wrong. George is like a parent to Lennie, but he was unable to fix Lennie’s mistakes. Unlike most parents, George was unable to provide a good home for Lennie, clean food and water or a good education. Being a good parents requires resources to teach children and George can’t teach Lennie right from wrong. Therefore this shows that George doesn’t have the resources to teach Lennie how to fix his

All Lennie wants to do is feel the softness of the puppy and to be nice to it, but he was unable to do that because he isn’t aware of his own strength. You can see that Lennie was never taught to control his strength from this example in the text, “And Lennie said softly to the puppy, ‘Why do you got to get killed? You ain't so little as mice. I didn’t bounce you hard’” (85). Thus we can say that Lennie didn't want to hurt the puppy, he just couldn’t help himself. George again, is incapable of teaching Lennie like a parent would their child because of their lack of simple necessities of life. You would think that George would try to teach Lennie not to kill, but he doesn’t because he can’t with their lack of