Lennie's Hope In OMAM, By John Steinbeck

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The book OMAM by John Steinbeck tells about how a person’s hopes can set their motives in life and when they don't have hope or a motive it can crush their want to be alive. This is very apparent in the motif of Lennie’s hope of tending the rabbits, and the characterization of Curly’s wife through how she never became an actor and that was her hope of being an actress, which made her fall for something much much less in Curley which made her forever be known as Curley’s wife. In OMAM, John Steinbeck really points out how hopes can influence people’s motives and will to live. Throughout the book this can be seen in Lennie’s hopes of tending the rabbits, and Curley's wife’s hope of becoming an actress. Lennie has had a big hope that one day …show more content…

When her and Lennie were talking towards the end of the book, she explains that an actor told her that she was really good at acting and that she “coulda been in the movies an’ coulda sat in them big hotels… [and] been in the radio,” (Steinbeck 44). Curley's wife’s was filled with joy as those were her hopes and was starting to set a motive of she’s gonna be famous and would do anything to get her there but what really happened is the actor used her for her being very good looking and never got the opportunity to make it big. Curly’s wife began to say that she “always thought [that] my ol’ lady stole it.… So I married Curly… I don’t like Curly. He ain’t a nice fella,” (Steinbeck 44). Curly’s wife was shattered by her hopes not coming true but rather that she got so shattered that she went and settled down with someone so mean and just a no good nasty guy, which was Curly and she doesn't like Curley but rather felt that she had too. This made her suffer tremendously. Her wanting to be an actress and getting told that she had it made it worse when she found out it wasn't true, like the saying the bigger they are the more they fall, this applies because her confidence was so high when it came crashing down so hard and so low. She was excited for her new life, that she didn't actually make any plan of if it didn't happen, which put her in a position to fail, and fail did

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