Society's Reflection in 'Of Mice and Men'

“Society is inside of man and man is inside society, and you cannot even create a truthfully drawn psychological entity on the stage until you understand his social relations and their power to make him what he is and to prevent him from being what he is not. The fish is in the water and the water is in the fish” (Miller, 47). Society forms a man, yet a man portrays the society. You cannot have one without the other as they are both connected and affected by each other. In the book Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck presents society in several characters. Those men showed the ways of society through their feelings, actions, and words. One of those men was Curley. Curley is a character who points out society’s most glaring flaws.

Curley, a short

“thin young man” (Steinbeck, 25), with lots of insecurities about his height depicted how society very often oppresses others due to its own lack of self-confidence. Short and small, Curley “hates big guys” (Steinbeck, 26), as Curley does not feel content with his own body he feels the need to always prove his worth. He believes that with his small stature people see him as useless so he constantly tries to show that he is not worthless despite his short body. This trait in his character especially comes into to play when he is around big people, as at those times he feels the most threatened. An example of this attribute can be when Curley first meets George and Lennie. At the moment when Curley first laid his eyes on Lennie “his glance was calculated and pugnacious” (Steinbeck, 25). While, Lennie had done nothing to deserve Curley’s anger that was exactly what he got as Curley felt intimidated by Lennie’s big stature. Constantly after that Curley picked on Lennie trying to show that even though he may be small he is just as strong if not stronger. Through this feature that Curley possessed John Steinbeck delineated a trait that society retains: The Napoleon complex. The Napoleon complex is condition when people of short stature are overly aggressive to others as a compensation for their own small height. Through that Napoleon complex shorter people try to make themselves appear larger by putting others down and making others “appear shorter.” This is fault that our society holds and we see it appear in Curley quite often when he insults Lennie. Curly represents this condition very well showing how flawed our society really is.
Authority is gained through different methods; Curley obtains his authority via his father.

Curley works on a ranch with all of the other men yet he acts as a superior to them and tries to hold control over them. This is seen through the way Curley acts, speaks, or even dresses as Curley “like the boss…wore high heeled boots” (Steinbeck, 25). It may seem simple, yet the fact that Curley wore boots like the boss shows he finds himself above the other workers. However, Curley did not gain dominance through hard work and respect; instead he had received it by using his father and the fact that he is “the boss’s son” (Steinbeck, 26). The other workers new that his Father was the boss and while they held no respect for him, they let him have authority due to fear of losing their own positions. They believed that Curley “won’t ever get canned ‘cause his old mans the boss” (Steinbeck, 27), because of this they understood that they had to let him have control of them or otherwise that could be in trouble with the boss. This is seen when one of the workers told George and Lennie information about Curley and then with fear in his voice said “don’t tell Curley I said none of this” (Steinbeck, 27). Same way in our society, people very often get authority or leadership not because they showed they deserve it through hard work and skill, but because others fear that if they don’t obey the person they may lose something valuable, as in the story the workers could have lost their jobs.

People who have gained authority by those methods are not held in great respect they are only feared. This brings very inadequate leaders into our society who often may be corrupt. It is a great flaw that our society owns.
Throughout the story, the reader is shown various scenes where Curley strives to control his wife.