Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Common themes in literature
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Of Mice and Men vs. To a Mouse In the book Of Mice and Men, it relates issues of mice to problems of men. In the poem To a Mouse, a man ploughing a field turns up a mice nest and he feels very upset about it. The man realizes the hardships he is going to have to endure throughout winter and the mouse’s hardships as well because his home is ruined now. In the poem To a Mouse by Robert Burns and the novella Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck are both based upon the theme of dreams, hopes, and plans. In the poem, a farmer was ploughing his field and accidently turns up a mouse's nest. He feels bad for the mouse and sympathizes with him. The mouse didn’t plan on having his home ruined so he didn’t have a backup home and he will most likely …show more content…
They make plans to retire to their dream farm and have rabbits, acres of land, and a garden. Lennie shows his excitement about the farm when he says, “An' live off the fatta the lan'," Lennie shouted. "An' have rabbits. Go on, George! Tell about what we're gonna have in the garden and about the rabbits in the cages and about the rain in the winter and the stove, and how thick the cream is on the milk like you can hardly cut it. Tell about that George” (Steinbeck 14). Lennie, George, and Candy plan their dream farm very thoroughly, but like the mouse and the farmer, they didn’t plan for if something goes wrong. Lennie kills Curley’s wife accidently and Curley wants to go murder Lennie himself. To save him from a brutal murder, George finds Lennie and gives him happy thoughts of the dream farm to think about and he shoots Lennie. This makes a big impact on their dream farm plan. The moment that George shot Lennie, their dream of the farm was over. They couldn’t live on their dream farm without Lennie.George knew that the farm was unrealistic but he wanted to give Lennie something to look forward to. Candy realizes that the dream farm won’t work anymore because now he has to save up money for half of the ranch. When Lennie dies George almost feels relief because he no longer has the burden of Lennie or the dream farm. The burden of Lennie is a hardship like
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.
“The best laid schemes o’ mice and men, Gang aft agley often go wrong, And leave us nought but grief and pain, For promised joy!” Robert Burn’s quote makes us believe that even the best laid out plans for joy often go wrong and brings us grief and pain. George and Lennie’s plan was for a better future. The future where they didn’t take commands from someone; where they took care of themselves. As George and Lennie keep talking about the farm and more people joining in on the plan, it looks like it might happen. But with the foreshadowing through this quote: “Look, Lennie. I want you to look around here. You can remember this place, can’t you? The ranch is about a quarter mile up that way. Just follow the river. (15)” This quote foreshadows Lennie messing up and it creating a larger gap between the dream farm and them. When Lennie kills Curley's wife, the idea of the dream farm slowly starts to disappear. As George finds out about what had happen, he realizes that plan for a farm was just an idea, an illusion. “—I think I knowed from the very first. I think I knowed we’d never do her. He usta like to hear about it so much I got to thinking maybe we would”
Lennie dreams of living on a wide open ranch with George where he tends to the fluffy little rabbits he loves so much. Nevertheless, Lennie sadly never reaches his ultimate goal as his flaw finally becomes his fatal flaw. Lennie kills Curley 's wife by shaking her so hard that her neck breaks. He does not kill her on purpose but Lennie does not know his own strength. He is only shaking her like that because he wants her to stop yelling. Curley 's wife observes that Lennie is "jus ' like a big baby" (Steinbeck 99) and invites him to stroke her soft hair. Lennie begins to feel her hair and likes it very much indeed, which leads him to pet it too hard. When she started to complain, he panicked and started to try to silence her. He was afraid that George would not let him be part of the dream anymore if Curley 's wife got mad at what he did. So he 's shaking her to try to protect his part in the dream but he kills her and the dream too. Lennie observes that he has "done a bad thing" (Steinbeck 100) and covers her body with hay. Lennie is hiding in the brush where George had told him to hide when he got into trouble. George finally emerges to get Lennie while he is an emotional mess. He then tells Lennie to take off his hat as he continues to recount "how it will be" (Steinbeck 104) for them. He orders Lennie to kneel and pulls out Carlson 's Luger. As the voices of the other men in the search party near their location, George tells Lennie one more time "about the rabbits,"(Steinbeck 106) tells Lennie that they 're going to get the farm right away, and shoots his companion in the back of the
George's dream is to have a ranch of his own and Lennie's dream is to have, as mentioned earlier, a farm filled with rabbits. Lennie's hope for his dream is influenced whenever George starts describing his dream farm in explicit detail, such as how the fields are going to look, what animals they will own, what the daily routine will be etc. This farm symbolizes happiness and salvation, especially for Lennie, since he understands that the farm is his ticket to getting rabbits. In fact, the reason why he forgets George's orders is because he cannot stop thinking about his rabbits. A farm has basically become Lennie's version of heaven. This relates to how people always long for something to the point of where it becomes like heaven, a place where happiness lasts forever. Unfortunately, the rabbits symbolize false hope. For instance, Lennie holds a dead mouse and a dead puppy all for the same reason: he killed them. His love for petting soft creatures only causes trouble for himself. So if he owns a lot of rabbits, it is more than likely that they will all die because of Lennie. The rabbits, to Lennie, are things that seem like they will bring him true happiness, when they only create more sorrow. In other words, the rabbits symbolize sorrow disguised as salvation because in the end, Lennie goes suffers all because of his love for soft things. This is able to teach readers how dreams in the past
Everyone dreams about something. However, it is important to know when the right time to dream is, and when to wake up. A major theme that Steinbeck conveys in the book Of Mice and Men is the pursuit of the American Dream. The book tells the story of two men trying to earn a better life. Their American Dream was to get their own place somewhere and live together. Although, through the characterization of Lennie, the symbolism of rabbits, and the setting of the book, Steinbeck is trying to convey that people cannot continue to live in a dream.
Steinbeck describes Candy right after the men hear the shot that kills the dog. Candy's loneliness over the loss of his dog is short lived as he becomes part of George's and Lennie's plan to get their own farm. In fact, Candy makes the dream seem almost possible because he has saved $300 which he will contribute to the price of the property George can buy. The three men believe that one day they will up and leave the ranch and go live on their own "little piece of land." In the end, however, Candy is plunged back into despair and loneliness after he discovers Lennie has killed Curley's wife. The dream is shattered. He poignantly communicates his feelings over the loss at the end of chapter five: “You done it, di’n’t you? I s’pose you’re glad. Ever’body knowed you’d mess things up. You wasn’t no good. You ain’t no good now, you lousy tart.” He sniveled, and his voice shook. “I could of hoed in the garden and washed dishes for them guys.” He paused, and then went on in a singsong. And he repeated the old words: “If they was a circus or a baseball game .
George and Lennie need each other to achieve their dream of their own farm with rabbits to tend. Lennie could not take care of his rabbits or even survive without George.
To the average reader, “To a Mouse” by Robert Burns and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck may initially look very similar, but after carefully critiquing and comparing their abundance of differences, their opinion will change. Steinbeck found his inspiration for writing the novel after reading that poem. His novel is set in Salinas, CA during the 1900s and is about migrant farm wrokers while the poem is about the guilt felt by one man after he inadvertently ruins the “home” of a field mouse with his plow. Even though they are two different genres of literature, they share a similar intent. The poem is written in first person, while the novel is written in third person omniscient. The vocabulary used to provide imagery is also another subtle different. Being two different genres of literature, they are destined to have both differences and similarities, but the amount of differences outweighs the aspects that are the same.
The authors John Steinbeck and Robert Burns approach their ideas in very different ways, while having the same themes the reader comprehends key concepts in a different light. Throughout the short story “Of Mice and Men” and the poem “To a Mouse” the theme of hope is a key concept, even though while in both stories their hope did not bring them their happiness, friendship brought them together. Correspondingly while having similar themes of friendship, loneliness, and hope, this all takes place in different settings with different characters.
The biggest dream throughout the story is for George and Lennie to have enough money to go and buy a farm of their own. But then Lennie does something that he can’t change back or hide from, and all hope is lost for him and George to have a farm when George does what he never thought he’d do. “And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger… Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the sand, and he lay without quivering.” (page 106) This one final scene symbolized all of George’s aspirations, hopes, dreams, ambitions, anything he had, diminishing before his eyes. He made a point earlier in the book, “ I was feelin’ pretty smart. I turns to Lennie and says, ‘jump in.’... well I ain’t done nothin like that no more” (40). He promised himself he wouldn’t hurt Lennie again, he took it upon himself to keep Lennie safe. But George fired that last bullet and killed Lennie, stripping himself of all his hope and ambitions. The other main ambition that was crushed in this story has to do with Lennie and his rabbits. “We’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs… An’ have rabbits!...” (14) This is a recurring event throughout the book; they talk about their future dreams, and Lennie tells everyone he meets about the rabbits he's gonna have, but again that all changes when Lennie messes up badly and kills Curley’s wife. The story displays the reader the visual of, “She struggled violently under his hands… “Don’t you go yellin’,” he said, and he shook her; and her body flopped like a fish. And then she was still, for Lennie had broken her neck.” (91) This visual can help you see where Lennie’s dream of ever handling another living being again diminishes because if he can’t keep an
George and Lennie live in a hopeless present but they somehow try to keep a foot in an idealized future. They dream of one day running their own ranch, safe and answerable to no one. Others such as Curley's wife dreams of being a movie star, Crooks, of hoeing his own patch and Candy's couple of acres'.The dream ends with the death of Lennie.
Although there are many important passages in Of Mice and Men, this passage is particularly important to the novella as a whole for a number of reasons. Steinbeck uses this passage to describe, and build up hope for, the dream that George and Lennie have, displaying the hope and naivete hidden beneath George's rough-and-tumble countenance. One major point of information we can glean from this passage is a connection between the title and the events of the novella. This passage displays George acting as a protective guardian or parent figure, a recurring theme throughout the story. The simple, almost childlike, optimistic excitement about the “future” reveals a side of George he doesn't normally allow himself to show. The farm that George describes acts as a sort of catalyst for the rest of the action in the book.
Lennie is stuck in a childhood state, and is the main reason the farm exists. “Now Candy spoke his greatest fear, ‘You a’me can go there an’ live nice, can’t we, george?’...George said softly, ‘-I think I know from the very first, I think I knowed we’d never do her. He usta like to hear about it so much I got to thinking maybe we would.’” They realize that without Lennie, there is no farm. As Lennie dies, so does the dream of a farm.
George and Lennie have to continue to move around the country looking for work until Lennie screws up again. The instability of work only makes it that much harder for them to complete their dream of a farm of their own. Candy’s participation in the dream of the farm upgrades the dream into a possible reality. As the tending of rabbits comes closer to happening fate curses them with the accidental death of Curley’s wife. The end of their wishful thinking is summed up by Candy’s question on page 104, “Then-it’s all off?”
Steinbeck first introduces the power of fate in the underlying motif of impending disaster exhibited in the title and opening chapter. The title may be seen as a potent warning of the tragedy that will follow, ‘the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry’ is an excerpt from Robbie Burn’s poem ‘To A Mouse’. Steinbeck uses this title to reveal a harsh reality to the reader, of the grim nature of human existence at the time of The Great Depression; the characters seek power over their destinies yet rarely obtain it, due to external forces beyond their control. The dead mouse in Lennie’s pocket, serves as an ominous reiteration of the end that awaits the weak and unsuspecting creatures at the hand of fate, after all despite Lennie’s great size and strength his mental incapability’s render him as helpless as a mouse. Steinbeck further develops the power of fate in his repeated use of animal imagery which sees Lennie comparable with a bear, horse and terrier. Animals in the novell...