With all the books we’ve read throughout the semester, all of them have- in some way have been about mutual relationships. Freak the Mighty, Of Mice and Men, and Tuesdays with Morrie have all dealt with two main characters having a mutual relation that is either one-way or a stable one.
In the first book Freak the Mighty, The main characters- two young boys named Kevin and Max start off with a one way relationship with Max being a pair of legs for Kevin and not getting anything from the friendship Kevin sees of them in his head. Kevin see’s the two as knight and horse which is kind of a harsh thing to think Max is. After a while of not getting any satisfaction from the friendship Max decides to end it, not wanting to just be a pair of legs
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from a young crippled kid. The two finally get back together after going on a mission to retrieve Max’s mothers’ handbag from a manhole. While going on this mission Max realizes that their relationship isn’t that bad and sees that he isn’t just a pair of legs for Kevin - Kevin is able to extricate Max from the situations he could never get out of in one piece on his own.
The second book- Of Mice and Men- our main characters Lennie and George are two runaways from their old town Weed after our dopey protagonist Lennie touches a lady’s dress, not knowing that the woman would scream and say it was sexual assault. Due to this incident the cops were called on the two and they had to run to avoid getting locked up.
The two needed a job since they were basically running from their old one, they drag themselves through brushes to get to Soledad where they find work, during this time we get to see how their relationship is. The relationship the two have isn’t very equal- it’s not equal because George is Lennie’s caretaker, Lennie isn’t too smart, so the ill tempered George has to set aside how annoyed get’s at Lennie to dig the poor dope out of the millions of holes he ends up falling into.
The relationship is stable in the sense that the two work well together, in both the book and movie they show Lennie and George work fairly well together on the actual job side of things. Outside of work George often snaps at Lennie like a dog due to being annoyed with Lennie’s sluggish brain. It is a torn opinion on if the relationship is
stable. Our final book, Tuesdays with Morrie, is a book about Mitch and his school teacher Morrie’s relationship as Morrie slowly dies because of the disease ALS. The twos relationship is very apparent right off the bat of them meeting after not seeing each other for years. The dying teacher and his student talk on a very personal level, Morrie not being afraid to talk about death and what life means to Mitch. The two have a very equal relationship, both of them are very bonded from the years of school and learning about each other through lessons. Regrouping after six years made it able for them to bond more, even though on every Tuesday they would meet Morrie would be sicker and sicker the two still talked like they used to. Mitch obviously was heartbroken Morrie was dying and decided to record his and Morrie’s conversations, working in journalism had become a great plus for Mitch sense he could record Morrie’s wise voice and later in life write a whole book on the experience witnessing his teacher slowly decay each and every week. In all of our books, each one has dealt with relationships, either good or bad it’s still a relationship that grows over time as the characters develop and the story goes on. No matter what the two get into the relationship comes back to one peaceful, constant state.
In chapter one, George and Lennie are introduced onto the scene and you get to know them a little bit and you get to see how they are related/ their relationship. When I read this first part, I could tell that George was pretty much Lennie’s caretaker and it was his job to find Lennie a job and make sure he ate enough and stayed a live. He kind of resented having to drag Lennie around (pg 11~12: “Well we ain’t got any!” George exploded. “Whatever we ain’t got, you want. If I was alone I could live so easy… But wadda I got? I got you. You can’t keep a job and you loose me every job I get.”), because Lennie’s a bit slow and he messes up a lot. He tries really hard to be good and listen to what George tells him to do, but in the end of every situation, Lennie forgets what George told him beforehand and sometimes it creates a little trouble (pg 45~46: “Well, he seen this girl in this red dress. Dumb like he is, he likes to touch ever’thing he likes. Just wants to feel it. So he reaches out to feel this red dress an’ the girl lets out a squawk, and that gets Lennie all mixed up, and he holds on ‘cause that’s the only thing he can think to do. Well, this girl just squawks and squawks. I was jus’ a little bit off, and I heard all the yellin’, so I comes running, an’ by that time Lennie’s so scared all he can think to do is jus’ hold on. I socked him over the head with a fence picket to make him let go. He was so scairt he couldn’t let go of the dress. And he’s so strong, you know… Well, that girl rabbits in an’ tells the law she’s been raped. The guys in Weed start a party out to lynch Lennie. So we sit in an irrigation ditch under water all the rest of that day.”). But when you look at them, you can tell that George is...
why Lennie and George Travel together and is not very understanding. Although you never find
George and Lennie were lifelong friends and had varying personalities even from the start. Lennie thought about how his Aunt Clara said he should have been more like George. At the time when the story took place, the two men were travelling together, and had been for some time, working and then moving on to search for the next job they could find. They were like many other men in search for work, except it was rare for men to travel together. George felt a need to take care of Lennie because he was somewhat slow. George was an average man of the time. He was a good size, nice, but firm, and he had aspirations to be more than just a nomadic laborer. Lennie, on the other hand, had always been a little different. He was big, goofy, clumsy, but sweet. They were also both good workers. George was concerned with working and getting his money before they got into trouble and had to leave camp. Lennie was the one who normally started the trouble. He was a hard worker and lived to appease George, but he got distracted easily which angered George. George told about how they would own a house and a farm together and work for themselves. Lennie loved to hear the story and think about the possibilities, even though nobody knew if any of it was a possibility. George and Lennie's differences in part led to George's inclination to kill Lennie. Despite their dissimilarity, the two men needed each other probably more than they realized.
George wanted to be alone, away from Lennie because he could earn a lot more money without worrying about Lennie. George wants Lennie gone so he could live life without getting into so much trouble like Lennie does. When Lennie gets into trouble then they both get into trouble. George needed Lennie gone in general weather he had to kill him or
Finally, mutualistic relationships are often shown in literature; specifically in, Tuesdays with Morrie, The Mighty, and Of Mice and Men. In Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch and Morrie help each other by giving affection and sense of purpose. In The Mighty, Max and Kevin are mutual because they accompany each other, and they are mentally or physically strengthened. In Of Mice and Men, Lennie and George are companions and they protect each other. All these stories have one thing in common, mutualism, and just like the hermit crab and the sea anemone, the goby fish and the shrimp, humans and plants, these characters needed each other to be fulfilled.
Freak has Morquio Syndrome which made him very small, and Max has Learning Disabilities and “was the size of a giant” which made people never open themselves up to Freak and Max. Those two didn’t really achieve anything until they became friends. In the realistic fiction novel, Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick he told a compelling story about Friendship, determination, and imagination. I believe the theme of this novel of the book is if you put your mind into it, you can
Since the begging George and Lennie have stayed together, but as they work there are times when they are separated. George docent
Within the beginning of the story, the dynamic of George and Lennie’s relationship is introduced, one that is uncommon and presents a fatherly vibe. The readers are thrown into the novel at the height of the great depression, an economic catastrophe that shook the world. Within these dark time, an unlikely friendship is in full blossom and we are meet by Lennie and George setting up camp for the night by a riverbed. After the duo’s personalities are expressed, they begin to set up the idea of a commonly shared dream which exists according to Lennie “Because... because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you” (Steinbeck 14). Lennie is seen as a quite simple minded and extremely dim-witted character from just the first
The emotional symbiosis between George and Lennie helps each man. Lennie’s attachment to George is most strongly visible when Crooks suggests George is not coming back. Lennie is almost moved to hysterics and his fear does not quickly abate. George prefers to feign dislike for Lennie to Lennie’s face: “I could get along so easy and so nice if I didn’t have you on my tail” (7). When pressed, George reveals his true feelings for Lennie. “I want you to stay with me Lennie” (13). They stay together because “It’s a lot easier to go around with a guy you know” (35). Both men need and value their strong emotional relationship.
What truly led up to this, and how would the story have gone differently if George had not killed Lennie? As aforementioned, they lived in the Great Depression, a time where achieving the American Dream was almost impossible to do, especially with all the farms being lost in Oklahoma. Most of the character's perspective of Lennie was that he was most simply a passive aggressive retard. Later in the novel the reader notices that he is incredibly strong which serves to positive and negative effects in the story.
George and Lennie take care of each other through out the story. In the story it says, “Because… because I got you to look after me and you have me to look after you, and that’s why” (Steinbeck14). This quote means that as long as George and Lennie are together, they take care of each other no matter what happens to them. This goes with the topic because they take care of
It is then revealed that Lennie’s obsession with all things soft has gotten him and George in hot water. One particular incident featured Lennie stroking a woman’s dress, because he enjoyed the softness. The woman confused this for attempted rape, and when she jolted back to escape his grasp, Lennie held on, she threw a fit, which lead to Lennie and George hiding, or rather George hiding Lennie, from police officials.
Every relationship is different. Weather one may be in a relationship with a boy, or just a friend, it is different. Even though they are different, the characters in “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “IND AFF” by Fay Weldon are in similar relationships. That is, the male is dominant over the female, and the woman thinks the man is her knight in shining armor. In the beginning of “IND AFF” the unnamed woman thinks her professor, Peter, who she is having an affair with, is her ticket to creating a good thesis and higher standings. Similarly, in “The Birthmark,” Georgiana thinks her husband is her ticket to flawless beauty because he tells her he will remove her birthmark. Obviously, this is not how relationships operate in today’s society. These two relationships compare and contrast with each other as well as with relationships in today’s day-and-age.
George understands that he can’t hide Lennie from the world forever and that the natural order of things is that the strong pick off the weak, and he will eventually have to let Lennie go. This motivates him to seize reality, meaning he had to kill Lennie, which itself was a sign of tremendous growth in himself. Killing Lennie had many effects on George; one of them being that he became one of the men he’d tell Lennie stories about. George believed that he and Lennie were not like the other migrant workers – travelling alone and spending all their earning on a whim. When George would te...
The connection between George and Lennie illustrates the adversity during their course towards achieving the American dream. Things Lennie did, either on accident or purpose, foreshadowed what was going to happen in the book and the way people acted impacted this. Like millions of other people, George and Lennie were affected during the great depression heavily, and dreamt of owning land of their own. They worked from place to place making barely any money, and didn’t have a real home. To add to this, Lennie got in trouble a lot and in the end George had to make the crucial decision to shoot Lennie so he wouldn’t have to deal with any more difficulty. George knew he had to do what was best for Lennie and himself.