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Analysis of the main themes in of mice and men from the perspective of
The theme of Of mice and men
The theme of Of mice and men
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Man needs companionship and has difficulty maintaining it because no humans think the exact same or have the exact same beliefs. To maintain a companion you must have things in common, you must be able to disagree with a sort of respectful understanding, and finally you must care legitimately about that person. These three requirements to preserve a companionship are at times arduous to keep true. Some people do not have the time, concern, or the ability to sustain a veritable friendship with a companion or companions.
Lennie and George’s companionship meet and transcend all the needed requirements. They are a textbook example of loyal friends. They, together, are like peanut butter and jelly in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Lennie gives George someone to talk to and someone to keep him on track. George gives Lennie insight on the world and someone that will respect him even though he isn’t intelligent. They, more importantly, give each other something to live for. If George wouldn’t have met Lennie he would be a drunk in a whorehouse dying of cirrhosis. If Lennie didn’t meet George he would of died soon after his aunt did, because he would either have got himself in a bind with no one to help him or he would of simply wondered off and died of loneliness.
Crooks suffers from loneliness, because he is black, not because he is an unfriendly person. Crooks, though, may seem mean, but he is just tired of being rejected and disrespected by everybody around him. Crooks has a horrible life. He will never have a companion or anybody that will respect him unless he meets another black person. Crooks says,” I’ll tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick. (Pg. 73)” He doesn’t even have the opportunity to have a companion, and that is sad.
Curley’s wife suffers from loneliness also. Her only companion is very controlling. Curley makes sure his wife doesn’t talks to anyone. She is a victim of herself because she married a man that she hardly even knew. She married him though to have a companion. She killed herself and Lennie because of her need for companionship. She craves companionship because she is an attractive woman with need for interaction. Curley’s wife says,” Think I don’t like to talk to somebody ever’ once in a while? (Pg. 77)”.
Curley has two companions: his wife (which doesn’t even like him) and his dad, which is forced to like him because Curley is his son.
Crooks also feels a great deal of loneliness, as he is an outcast on the ranch. He lives in his own room where hardly anybody ever bothers him. He is never invited to play cards or do anything fun with the other guys. One day a curious Lenny asked, “Why ain’t you wanted?” Crooks replies “Cause I’m black. They play cards in there, but I can’t play because I’m black. They think I stink. Well I tell you, you all stink to me” (pg. ). Crooks’ attitude towards this is shown when he saw Lennie playing with his puppy outside of Crooks’ quarters. Crooks states that “if me, as a black man, is not allowed in the white quarters, then white men are not allowed in mine” (pg. ). However this is merely a front as the more open side of Crooks is shown later on in the book.
Curley’s wife expresses her suffering of loneliness and boredom to the men by asking for compassion. To Curley’s wife, loneliness means the lack of social interactions and conversations. Boredom means the repetitiveness of her daily life. She tries to explain her situation to the men by asking rhetorical questions about certain aspects of her life. Curly’s wife had just walked into the stable room to figure out where her husband is. She encounters Crooks, Candy, and Lennie who give her a difficult time when she tries to have a conversation with them. She is asking for compassion when she says, “Think I don’t like to talk to somebody ever’ once in a while? Think I like to stick in that house all the time?” (77) The tone and wording of this suggests that she is asking a rhetorical question in an attempt to get the men to feel for her.
Curley’s wife shows her sympathetic side when she comforts Lennie after he kills the dog. She tells Lennie, “Don’t you worry none” (87). This quote demonstrates trying to connect with someone on the ranch; in this case it is Lennie. She tells him he is not a bad person and tries to keep his dream of tending the rabbits alive. She also says, “You can get another one easy” (87). This quote shows that she is a compassionate human being despite the constant judgment of her personality. Because Curley’s wife is comforting Lennie, he calms down and starts listening to her. Moreover, despite ...
Curley's wife is seen as a cheap possession, a toy that belongs to Curley. A possession that he gets to control. His lack of love, respect and attention results to her death in the end. By all the men she’s seen as a tramp, they think that she’s out cause trouble. But the truth is she’s desperately lonely. She just wants someone to talk to. She’s missed out on a wonderful life that could have been hers, and that hurts her.
Crooks expressed feelings of loneliness through out Of Mice and Men. Crooks? loneliness is caused because he is black, at the time the story took place there was racism. Since Crooks is black he wasn?t able to socialize with the white men. When Steinbeck describes all of Crooks? possessions, it shows that Crooks has been at the ranch a long time and that his possessions are all the he cares about. In Crooks? room, Lennie comes to talk to him. Crooks is cautious at first, this was from the years of racism that Crooks endured, he learned not to associate with white folk.
“A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. Don’t make no difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you. ‘I tell ya’ he cried. ‘I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick.” (Page 72-73) As you can see, Crooks also spends most of his time alone because he is black. He is not allowed to enter the bunk house nor go to town with the guys. He is not allowed to enter the bunk house, he is not allowed to go to town with the guys and nobody likes him because he is black. This shows that he has no friendship and his whole life is filled with loneliness. His case is different from Lennie’s.
Curley’s wife, is the only one in the story that is given no actual name, she is just known as “Curley’s wife.” She is the only female on the ranch. The book speaks of how she is fare and beautiful, but is a bit of a tease. Throughout the whole novel she is always looking for Curley, all the men on the ranch view her as Curley’s property. Candy describes her to George and Lennie as a tart (Miller).This term “a tart” is just a way of saying that she is unfaithful to her marriage, and has a sexual way about her. She is always seeking for attention from all the other men. Towards the end of the story she sees Lennie in the barn sitting on the ground leaning over what was his puppy, so she goes in and sits next to him; she leans over and begins telling him about how her life would have been if she wasn’t on the ranch. She spoke highly of herself, telling how she would have been in movies and wore nice clothes (Steinbeck 89). Lennie had been mesmerized by her from the start; she began teasing him by describing how soft her hair was, only because she knew that he loved soft things, she takes Lennie’s hand and says “Here, feel right here.”(Steinbeck 90) At this point Lennie got carried away and wouldn’t let go of her hair, she began to scream telling him to let go. Lennie panics, He tries to tell her not to scream but all she does is gets louder; he had no clue what to do at this point, he ends up holding her down and killing her by snapping her neck. George told Lennie at the very beginning of the story that if anything happens and he gets in trouble to go and hide near the bushes at the pond until he arrives. Lennie in fear runs away from the scene to that exact
has the mental age of a child and does not see the reason why George
Crooks is a black man who has no family, and because he is black, all the other men want nothing to do with him. Very rare is he accepted to be with the other men. An example is when they play horseshoes. Of the lines in the book, one line expresses his loneliness greatly: “‘A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. Don’t make a difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with ya,” he cried, “I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick.’” (Steinbeck 73). Crooks has been alone for most of his life. All we have that remotely relates him to anyone, is when he talks about his family’s ranch as a child. He is vocal to Lennie overall about his experience with loneliness, throughout pages seventy to seventy-three.
The way Curley’s wife was treated changed the responsibility she had, the views of her, and being alone all the time. In life, women and those who are different aren’t seen as equal. They all have harder lives than the typical man does. Unfortunately, one of the characters who were different was outnumbered and was seen on a lower
John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men In the novel of, "Of Mice and Men," the setting of the story starts out when both George and Lennie arrive at a pool of the Salinas River in California. Both of them ran away from Weed, their previous location since Lennie made a terrible mistake. George and Lennie are totally different from one another in every aspect. Lennie tends to act like a demanding child, while on the other hand; George harasses him and is a very impatient father.
Curley's wife, introduced in chapter two as a "tart", is the only female on the ranch. Therefore, she receives plenty of attention from the migrant workers, but, ironically, Curley's wife also faces much isolation for being the only female. Because of this, she tries to attract attention and talk to the men to counteract her loneliness. An example of this, is when she comes to the bunkhouse "trying to find Curley". When Lennie is first introduced to Curley's wife, he sees that she is pretty, and stares at her, which satisfies her longing for attention: "Lennie's eyes moved down over her body, and though she did not seem to be looking at Lennie she bridled a little" (31). Because she knows Lennie is interested in her, while many of the other
Of Mice and Men is set along the Salinas River a few miles south of
Curley's wife tries to engage Lennie's attention toward herself by telling him about her American Dream and how she can't achieve it. " Coulda been in the movies, an' had nice clothes all them nice clothes like they wear," (Steinbeck 89). Curley's wife is so bored and lonely that she tries to get men’s attention, by doing that she pushes them further away. She is so lonely that she has given up on her dream of having a better life as a movie star and appears around men who would rather listen to her such as Lennie. She wants to feel like someone special. This loneliness prevents her from achieving her dream. Curley's wife has some hope and dream when she was younger and had her mom to talk to. She wasn't as lonely as she is today."He says; he was gonna put me in the movies. Says I was natural," (Steinbeck 88). She has hopes and future ahead of herself. After she married Curley she became lonely, because her husband ignores her and who, that doesn't allow her to have communication with other men, or go anywhere that she wants to go. This lead her spending time alone with Lennie and spending time alone with Lennie causes her unbelievable death. Because of her loneliness she loses all the opportunity that will help her to achieve her dream of being a superstar one day. Curley's wife loneliness
The characterization of George and Lennie’s friendship shows the importance of having a friend to be staunch for you. Here, when George and Lennie argue, they resolve to do whats best for eachother. “I was only foolin’, George. I don’t want no ketchup. I wouldn’t eat no ketchup if it was right here beside me.” Lennie later adds: “I’d leave it all for you. You could cover your beans with it and I wouldn’t touch none of it.”(Steinbeck 12) Lennie, although mentally disabled, still does what he can for George and only wants him to be happy because he knows how much George does for him. He can’t help himself, but when it comes to George he’ll do anything for him, because George gives him hope. Lennie gives George the ambition to succeed because George knows he has to succeed to support both of them. Lennie is later told by Crooks what it’s like to be lonely: “A guy needs somebody―to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya, I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick.” (Steinbeck 72) Without a friend, Crooks doesn’t have the brightest light for a great future because he has nobody to depend on like Lennie and Georg...