In the book Of Mice and Men, the author,John Steinbeck, uses stereotype characters to convey his message. He wants to empathize with his characters as human beings. He uses stereotype characters such as Lennie, George, Curly, Slim, Candy, Crooks, and Curly's wife. Steinbeck's goal is to inform people how life was like for a migrant worker in the 1920's to 1930's. Migrant workers have the stereotype of hard workers that are desperate for money. They are usually not very well educated. Most of them were strong but some weren't. Take Lennie and George for example. George wasn't very strong but was smart and Lennie was strong but dumb as a fence post. Like Lennie and George, all migrant workers wanted their own land to farm. They had few possessions and were independent. The workers liked to cuss a lot, get drunk on Friday nights, and were usually very poor. Lennie was not very smart and couldn't do much by himself. He had to be told what to do or he wouldn't do anything at all. He fits all the profiles for a retarded person. He doesn't have any self-control. When he starts to panic he gets out of control and even kills Curly's wife because she starts to scream. Lennie loves animals and can't stop talking about them. He always says that when they get their own place that he wants lots of rabbits, his favorite animal. To him George is like his father figure, since Lennie never really had any parents. He is easily amused and panics quickly. George is pretty much in charge of Lennie and is the brains of the operation. He thinks very big of himself and thinks he's got the rest of his life planned out. He wants to own a farm someday with Lennie. He really likes to cuss and get drunk on Friday night. He always says to Lennie "If you weren't around I would have a job by now," but he really cares about him. At the end George puts Lennie out of his misery and shoots him. He said "it was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life." Curly is the bosses son and takes full advantage of it by picking on the other workers especially Lennie. He likes to lie and gets angry easily. He's not very confident especially in his wife because he thinks that she's cheating on him.
George has to tell everyone that Lennie is his cousin to protect him. Even though George knows it is not true he has to tell people that, so they don’t harm Lennie (22). Curly the boss son tries to bother Lennie and George tires to defend Lennie from Curly (26). He tells the swamper that Lennie has not done anything to get Curly to pick on him. Curly hates big guys because he is a small little guy, and he is not big like them (26). George warns Lennie to stay away from Curly because he knows that he will try to cause trouble. This is the only way he can protect him from doing something he will regret (29). The only thing that George tells Lennie to do if anything was to happen is hide where they had planned. This way if Lennie did something bad he could and hid where George told him ...
Lennie's stupidity and carelessness constantly causes him to unintentionally harm people and animals. When he gets into sticky situations, George is there to help him get out of them. Ever since Lennie's Aunt Clara died, George has felt that he has a sense of duty
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
George kills Lennie because he did not want to witness Lennie being hurt or killed carelessly, run off by in his own and not being able to take care for himself, and Lennie’s mental disorder will never change how Lennie reacts to certain situations. Many believe taking the life of another without consent is unacceptable but in certain situations like George’s, he has to decide due to Lennie’s mental disorder that was leading him into unpleasant situations. George is an admirable character who choose to protect and do justice to his distressed friend,
Due to child like qualities, Lennie is a person which would be easy prey and a vulnerable person. Lennie is a vulnerable person who is quite dumb. His has an obsession for touching soft thing and this will often lead him in to trouble. But poor Lennie is an innocent person who means no harm to anybody. When he and Curley get into a fight Lennie is too shocked to do any thing. He tries to be innocent but, when told to by George grabs Curley’s fist and crushes it. George is Lennie’s best friend and Lennie does every thing he tells him to do as demonstrated in the fight with “But you tol...
First, Lennie is a lonely outcast because he is retarded. One of the reasons he doesn?t fit in with the other ranch hands is because he doesn?t always understand what people are talking about. He doesn?t even always understand George. Lennie admits this when Crooks says to him, ?Sometimes he talks and and you don?t know what the hell he?s talkin? about.? (Steinbeck,77). But Lennie always needs companionship. He is never alone, even if he has a dead mouse or a puppy with him. George would sometimes punish Lenny by not letting him tend to the rabbits on the ranch. And Lennie?s biggest fear is of being abandoned by George:
John Steinbeck uses similes to build and create powerful characters that touch the hearts of readers. Throughout the story Lennie`s character grows to be stronger and stronger through Steinbeck`s use of similes. When George and Lennie arrive at the farm, George introduces himself and Lennie to the boss. George compliments on Lennie being a hell of a good worker and tells the boss Lennie was “Strong as a bull” (Steinbeck 22). Up till this quote, Lennie is thought to be a huge man, shapeless of face who walked very heavily until Steinbeck`s use of similes help uncover Lennie`s true character. John Steinbeck illustrates Lennie`s body and strength by comparing him to a large, heavy and physically powerful animal such as a bull. The use of similes helps in indirect characterization as well and adds to Lennie`s physical appearance and age. The use of similes in this quote helps to create a more powerful character and bring more ...
Of Mice and Men is a fiction novel written by John Steinbeck; the narrator tells the story knowing the thoughts and feelings of all of the characters, using third person omniscient point of view throughout the story. Sentimental, tragic, and moralistic are the most commonly used tones in the story, but they change as complications arise. The two protagonists, Lennie and George, experience both internal conflicts with their own disabilities and external conflicts with the world around them.
Even from the very start of John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, the uniqueness of George, as a character, is already noticeable. He is described as “small and quick, dark of face, with restless eyes and sharp strong features” and has an obvious dominance over the relationship between Lennie and himself. This lets the reader know from a very early stage in the book that George is different, and probably the essential character. George’s character seems to be used by Steinbeck to reflect the major themes of the novel: loneliness, prejudice, the importance of companionship, the danger of devoted companionships, and the harshness of Californian ranch life.
“Discrimination is alive and soaring.” (Jonathan Kozol) Discrimination has always been an issue but in the story, Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck shows how discrimination is an issue for a lot of people, even without colored skin. He shows how discrimination plagues society, there are multiple people who are victims of this. Those including Crooks, Lennie, and Curley’s Wife.
Lennie himself had problems such as mental illness which he suffered from causing him to do bad deeds. First in the beginning, George and Lennie was trying to escape weed because, Lennie killed a women from their. Lennie holds small and fragile things in his hand, and does not understand how weak and frail they are, which ends up hurting or killing them.”I like to put things with my fingers, sof’ things”(90). He doesn't have any understanding when he is hurting something when he squeezes it because, he is mentally challenged. The last thing that shows this is he killed Curley's wife as well around the end of the novel.
Society plays a large role in Steinbeck’s of Mice and Men. During the Great Depression, many migrant workers relied solely on themselves for travel; these times were very hard for one another to trust, so many people keep to themselves. When at supper on the first night, Slim questions George about his reliance to Lennie, “You guys travel around together?” (Steinbeck 34). Traveling together strikes the 'hands' as odd, because people didn't trust one another enough, in this fragile time, to become friends. Stereotypes are found all over this novel. George elaborates on stereotypes on page 13, "Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world." (Steinbeck 13). This passage suggests that migrant workers are very isolated
George understands that he can’t hide Lennie from the world forever and that the natural order of things is that the strong pick off the weak, and he will eventually have to let Lennie go. This motivates him to seize reality, meaning he had to kill Lennie, which itself was a sign of tremendous growth in himself. Killing Lennie had many effects on George; one of them being that he became one of the men he’d tell Lennie stories about. George believed that he and Lennie were not like the other migrant workers – travelling alone and spending all their earning on a whim. When George would te...
“When people rely on surface appearances and false racial stereotypes, rather than in-depth knowledge of others at the level of the heart, mind and spirit, their ability to assess and understand people accurately is compromised.” (James A. Forbes) In the world, many people label and stereotype other nationalities, races, or cultures. Some do this simply to compare their culture to others’, but some label people a certain way to make them feel bad about themselves. Occasionally, groups of people don’t like the way the are labeled or stereotyped, so they work together to change the way they are perceived. Steinbeck shows how labeling and stereotyping influence how people look at the world by making the characters quick to judge one another based on their actions.