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Of mice and men characterization
What role does friendship play in the novel of mice and men evidence from book
Of mice and men characterization
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Lennie and George are two very different people. Lennie is childish and doesn’t act the way a normal adult acts. But Lennie is very strong and he doesn’t know it. George, on the other hand, is a small but wise man who takes care of Lennie and makes all of the big decisions for the two of them. Throughout the book, Lennie follows George and does his best to listen to him and do what he says and George is getting sick of Lennie but still sticks around to help him. Many would probably think that the reason why George stays with Lennie is because of Lennie’s disability problems. The real reason why George stays with Lennie isn’t because he “needs” to but infact he is lonely and needs a friend. At the beginning of the book George tells Lennie, “Guys
like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world... They ain't got nothing to look ahead to. With us it ain't like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us... If them other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us... because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why." (13) George deep down, won’t admit it but he needs Lennie. Even though out loud he claims, “God a’mighty if I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an’ work, an’ no trouble... An’ watta I got. I got you! You can’t keep a job and you lose me ever’ job I get.” At the very ending of the book, George shot Lennie in the back of his head and was very heart broken. But he was able to somewhat cope because of his new friends that he made.George's justification for shooting Lennie is to keep him from experiencing the pain that will follow the consequences of his actions. Lennie will be lynched, probably beaten and then killed when he is caught. George also knows that even if they were to escape, it would be just a matter of time before Lennie had another "accident" and killed someone else. He knows he can't protect him from society, as he also can't protect society from Lennie. From George's perspective, killing Lennie before he is caught is the only kind thing to do. It is a quick end--he even protects Lennie from seeing it coming. From George's perspective, it is an act of love. As to whether it is justifiable or not, that is difficult to say. From one perspective, killing is never acceptable. However, real life is seldom black and white, and sometimes love requires a shift from absolute morality to relative.
In chapter one, George and Lennie are introduced onto the scene and you get to know them a little bit and you get to see how they are related/ their relationship. When I read this first part, I could tell that George was pretty much Lennie’s caretaker and it was his job to find Lennie a job and make sure he ate enough and stayed a live. He kind of resented having to drag Lennie around (pg 11~12: “Well we ain’t got any!” George exploded. “Whatever we ain’t got, you want. If I was alone I could live so easy… But wadda I got? I got you. You can’t keep a job and you loose me every job I get.”), because Lennie’s a bit slow and he messes up a lot. He tries really hard to be good and listen to what George tells him to do, but in the end of every situation, Lennie forgets what George told him beforehand and sometimes it creates a little trouble (pg 45~46: “Well, he seen this girl in this red dress. Dumb like he is, he likes to touch ever’thing he likes. Just wants to feel it. So he reaches out to feel this red dress an’ the girl lets out a squawk, and that gets Lennie all mixed up, and he holds on ‘cause that’s the only thing he can think to do. Well, this girl just squawks and squawks. 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 do is jus’ hold on. I socked him over the head with a fence picket to make him let go. He was so scairt he couldn’t let go of the dress. And he’s so strong, you know… Well, that girl rabbits in an’ tells the law she’s been raped. The guys in Weed start a party out to lynch Lennie. So we sit in an irrigation ditch under water all the rest of that day.”). But when you look at them, you can tell that George is...
...e ever since they were children. Lennie knew that he owed George for all that he had done for him over the years. Other than that, Lennie just loved George and wanted to be with him. He hated the thought of making George angry. Often times Lennie said he could go by himself and live in a cave if George really did not want to be with him. It was obvious that Lennie could never really think of leaving George. Lennie stayed loyal to George until the very end, unaware of what would happen. Even though George did care for Lennie, he did not give Lennie the loyalty and friendship back like he deserved. It was easy for Lennie to be so loyal partially because of his simple mindedness. He almost acted like a puppy, following around its owner and trying to defend it. If only George realized what a good friend he had in Lennie.
George wanted to be alone, away from Lennie because he could earn a lot more money without worrying about Lennie. George wants Lennie gone so he could live life without getting into so much trouble like Lennie does. When Lennie gets into trouble then they both get into trouble. George needed Lennie gone in general weather he had to kill him or
John Steinbeck, an American novelist, is well-known for his familiar themes of depression and loneliness. He uses these themes throughout a majority of his novels. These themes come from his childhood and growing up during the stock market crash. A reader can see his depiction of his childhood era. In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck shows the prominent themes of loneliness, the need for relationships, and the loss of dreams in the 1930s through the novels’ character.
Lennie is broken and incomplete in many ways. He has a mental disability which differentiates him from the others. He depends on George for everything and cannot do things on his own even though he is a grown man.
Lennie has always been told what to do by George. George really helps him through problems that keep happening during the book. Lennie is incapable to live because he does not know his strength and George has to play the role as a living assistant for Lennie. Lennie does not mean to harm but because of his condition he essentially harms people. In the book it explains the
John Steinbeck, the author of the novel Of Mice and Men uses many stylistic devices and description in chapter one to give the reader a deeper understanding of what may occur throughout the novel. Firstly, the name of the city the two protagonists, Lennie and George, are heading to is called “Soledad,” which means loneliness in Spanish; this is symbolism and foreshadowing because it can mean that as they get closer to the city, their relationship as friends may deteriorate and they may end up alone towards the end. Furthermore, this could also mean that there can be major problems in further chapters because of Lennie’s unpredictable behaviour due to his mental disabilities. In relation to Robert Burns’s poem, “To a Mouse,” the author may be
The quote that inspired John Steinbeck was the best laid schemes often go off track can be seen in the novel of Mice and Men. When Curley's wife met a man in her childhood that offered her to be an actress but the chance went away and she later died. Then Curley wanted to be a professional boxer but the dream never happened and he became a farmer then got his hand broken for trying to be tough. George and Lennie were going to buy a farm to live off the fat of the land then Lennie had to get in trouble and George had to give up the dream and kill Lennie for what he had done.
We find out in the latter stages of the story that George has a weakness, specifically his dependency of Lennie. Lennie, intelligently, tries to manipulate George by stating that he will leave him and ?live in that cage?. This irritates George who is desperate to win Lennie?s friendship back: I want you to stay with me Lennie, no you stay with me?. This shows that he needs him just as much as Lennie needs him. In general the reader can see that George needs his mate, Lennie to be able to survive, regardless of how mentally retarded he is.
“I want you to stay with me, Lennie. Jesus Christ, somebody’d shoot you for a coyote if you was by yourself. No, you stay with me. Your Aunt Clara wouldn’t like you running off by yourself, even if she was dead.” (page 13). After Lennie and George fight over the dead mouse, Lennie tells him that George would be better off if Lennie went to the mountains to live in a cave. George doesn’t let him. He tells him that he wants him to stay because not only did George somewhat promise Lennie’s dead Aunt Clara that he would take care of him, but he also learned how to live and adjust with the fact that Lennie has kind of a childish mind.
There are many similarities and differences from the book and movie, Of Mice and Men, but they both share the same big dream; owning a piece of land together and making it into a ranch. While both the book and the movie primarily have the same characters, how they act and speak is portrayed different and some scenes are changed, or omitted.
John Steinbeck derived the title of his famous novel “Of Mice and Men” from the poem “To a Mouse” by Robert Burns and the two stories have much in common. The title specifically came from the sentence; “The best laid plans of mice and men can often go askew.”(paragraph 7 lines 3 and 4.) This sentence described the narrator of the poem destroying the mouse's nest and reflecting on how even the best of plans can go wrong. These stories contain many similarities as both speak of hope and dreams and how they can become crushed in one fell swoop.
In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, it also displays a deep need for important relationships, and someone who can care for you. Similarly to Of Mice and Men, the characters both only have one important relationship they cling to, but both seem unhealthy and borderline abusive. In Of Mice and Men, Lennie is dependent on George, but in that case, both George and Lennie are oppressed because they are migrant workers and have little money, moving from town to town. In “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the narrator is dependent on her husband, but she is the only one oppressed, because she is a woman, her state of wealth, or where she lives aren’t important. In the story, the narrator feels very isolated, which leads to further damage to her mental state. When she says “John does not know how much I really suffer.
Plans and dreams of animals and men can be destroyed without any reason. These people/animals plan ahead with the idea that they might be able to withstand nature and consequence, but their plans and dreams get destroyed. In the poem To A Mouse, Robert Burns describes a mouse whose plans of surviving winter were ruined by a farmer. He goes into detail about how this mouse has been making long plans, but chance ruined them without reason. This poem actually spawned the title for the book Of Mice And Men, by John Steinbeck. In Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck tells the tale of two ranchers who have a dream in their head. This dream is that they will be able to buy a farm and tend to the plants and rabbits, but their dream goes awry. In both these texts, plans and dreams can be ruined without
The two had heavy reliance on each other both physically and mentally. Throughout the story, Lennie is always relying on George to make sure that he is not doing something bad that might get him in trouble. This was shown in many instances, such as when Lennie scares the women at the old ranch. Instead of bailing on Lennie, George hid him to make sure that they were not found. This shows how committed George is to Lennie and the same goes for Lennie. Lennie almost always follows what George says. George is an idol to Lennie, almost like a father figure which is why Lennie is so obedient to George. In Of Mice and Men Steinbeck writes “Lennie, who had been watching, imitated George exactly. He pushed himself back, drew up his knees, embraced them, looked over to George to see whether he had it just right. He pulled his hat down a little more over his eyes, the way George's hat was” (3,4). Lennie repeats almost everything that George did and it shows Lennie’s strong connection to George. This may have not been much use if Lennie were like any ordinary guy, but he is far from it. Lennie is a large man which helps them throughout many parts in the story. Because of this, Lennie is very useful to George to the point that he can use Lennie in many situations, such as helping them get in a ranch to work or even fight as shown in Of Mice and Men; where Steinbeck