Injustices In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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Steinbeck used his novella Of Mice and Men in hopes of bringing to light the injustices in how we treat minorities in our society in hopes of teaching us that we need to be accepting and caring to form a better society. Illustrated by characters symbolizing different minorities then how they are treated by other characters. Through his words he describes how fear of things that are different or our insecurities cause us to treat people unfairly and cruel. The first social problem is about the treatment of people with mental disabilities, even violent people, at the time period the book was set there was no treatment options for these people they were either locked up in solitary or hung because people didn’t understand such as when Candy stated “Curley gon’ta wanta get ‘im lynched. Curley’ll get ‘im killed” (94). This is evidence that the people don’t understand his …show more content…

Crooks, the only black character in the story, was treated very differently than any of the other characters in the story. First, Crooks lived in the barn separated from all the others because they were white. Crooks wasn’t allowed in the bunkhouse to play cards or talk with the guys. Also, when Curley’s wife walks in on the guys and Crooks asks her to leave she intimidates Crooks by saying “I could get you strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny”(81). Steinbeck wants us to understand that we should treat everyone equal regardless of their skin color. This issue is the most prominent issue today that was mentioned in the book. Today Blacks are still fighting for what they believe is injustice against the police after a series of white police shootings against unarmed black people. These events have sparked protest both violent and nonviolent against police and has even resulted in the death of multiple innocent police officers. These issues among whites and blacks continue to hold back the american people and may continue to for years to

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