Of Mice and Men

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“One day our descendants will think it incredible that we paid so much attention to things like the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape of our eyes or our gender instead of the unique identities of each of us as complex human beings” (QuoteGarden.com). This quote by Franklin Thomas is a great example of marginalization and mistreatment in the past, both issues that were made very evident in the books that were read during the summer. Throughout A Lesson Before Dying, Burned Alive, and Of Mice and Men, marginalization and maltreatment were immanent. In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, some of the characters experience several examples of both mistreatment and marginalization. Throughout the book Curley’s wife is mistreated due to her female gender. The farm hands were always calling her a ‘tramp’ and George once said, “I seen ‘em poison before, but I never seen no piece of jail bait worse than her” (Steinbeck, 32). When George says this, he is warning Lennie to stay away from Curley’s wife because he thinks that she is very effective at deceiving men to get what she wants. Lennie was also mistreated throughout the book, though not because of his gender but due to the fact that he was developmentally delayed. He was even neglected by his own friend, George, who would constantly be thinking of a life without Lennie. George continuously blamed Lennie for causing him to lose his jobs and having to move all around the country (Steinbeck, 11). Unlike Lennie, Crooks was discriminated against considering his race and color. One example from the book would be: “Where the hell is that God damn nigger” (Steinbeck, 29)? Just like in this example, throughout the book Curley would refer to Crooks as a ‘nigger’,... ... middle of paper ... ...k had many ideal examples of various types of marginalization and mistreatment including those about gender, race, and the Handicapped. Where Of Mice and Men had diverse examples of maltreatment, Burned Alive by Souad was based on just one case of maltreatment: the mistreatment of women in a Middle-Eastern society. The marginalization and exploitation of African-Americans was also made very apparent in the novel A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines through the treatment of Jefferson and his community. Many people throughout history have hoped for a better future free of marginalization and mistreatment, and one of those people was Martin Luther King Jr. He once said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” (BrainyQuote.com).

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