Major Themes in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men

Major Themes in Of Mice and Men

The theme of loneliness is manifested many times in the work, Of Mice and Men and is often the dominant theme. This theme occurs during many circumstances but is not present from start to finish. In my mind for a theme to be pervasive is must be present during every element of the story. There are many themes that are present most of the way through such as sacrifice, friendship and comradship. But in my opinion there is only one theme that is present from beginning to end, this theme is pursuit of dreams.

There are many characters where lonliness is evident throughout parts or all of their life. But all of these characters who appear to be lonely only tend to play a minor role in the story. This is not to say that they are insignificant but they help to convey the feelings and emotions that surround the major characters rather than their own. Characters like Curley's wife and Crooks are unmistakably lonely, but they show how their lonliness is the opposite of the two main characters, George and Lennie. Crooks actually states that George and Lennie have got each other but he hasn't got anyone. Curley's wife portrays the same message but under different circumstances. There are really no other main characters besides George and Lennie. From reading the novel and watching the film it is clearly evident in most cases that all of the support characters appear to be lonely. Therefore lonliness is quite a strong and influential theme in the story but it only features as a bakground theme and is not always present at critical stages.

Themes such as sacrifice, comradship and freindship feature under very similar circumstances as lonliness but are also evident within the main characters. Candy made a sacrifice when he decided to have his ageing debilitated dog killed. But afterwards he regreted not having killed the dog himself, possibly having killed it at all. Just as when George killed Lennie, he knew it had to be done but he just kept making up excuses to avoid the inevitable. George made that sacrifice but unlike Candy he knew that if Lennie was to be killed he had to do it himself. The issue is morals, if there is such a thing as a moraly correct way to kill somebody thats how George did it, because during that time period in America there was not the resources nor facilities to deal with characters such as Lennie so drastic measures had to be taken.