Mistakes In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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Everyone has made mistakes and nearly every aspect of our society is affected by the mistakes that we make. In John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men, George and Lennie try to find success in the harsh world of The Great Depression, but the mistakes they make along the way make their goals difficult to achieve. George and Lennie’s interactions show that some mistakes have unforeseeable consequences and if we don’t learn from them, we are doomed to repeat our mistakes. Lennie’s mistakes in Weed could have jeopardized the duo’s opportunity to work on the ranch. When Slim inquires why George and Lennie were run out of weed he promises to keep the reason a secret.(Steinbeck 41) Slim knows that if the boss heard about these events George and Lennie would at best be fired and at worst be handed off to the authorities and he also knows that Lennie didn’t think that trying to touch a woman’s dress would result in him being accused of a crime. Near the end of the novel, Lennie accidentally kills his puppy which puts him in the situation where he kills …show more content…

When George is telling the story of how they were ousted from of Weed he says, “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”(Steinbeck 42). This proves that George knows that when Lennie gets scared he stops being able to function, but despite knowing this George still lets Lennie go wherever he wants without any supervision. Later in the novel, George leaves Lennie alone in the barn to go play horseshoes with the other men. Lennie accidentally kills Curley’s wife because no one is present to stop him and he has proven that he can’t stop himself(Steinbeck 91). George left Lennie alone in the barn so that he wouldn’t have to supervise Lennie, making Curley’s wife’s death unnecessary and, at the same time,

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