The Portrayal of Society in Of Mice and Men and The Outsider

World literature; self taught language Hungarian:

After reading the two books for my world literature, of mice and men and the outsider I decided I will compare the two books on the topic choice; portrayal of society in the literature studied. This includes points such as: Meursault and Lenny not being accepted in society for who they are because they are different then others; another point would be there is a lot of violence within societies.

The rest will be presented further on in my essay. But before presenting my points id like to give you a brief idea of the two books and their writers.

The book of mice and men is a fiction written by john Steinbeck (1902-1968). John Steinbeck writes mainly short stories and novels, he was born in Salinas California, which is the same area where the book of mice and men is set. He is became widely known thanks to his peace: tequila flat. Steinbeck's novels have themes of social criticism in them, a lot about the economic problems in rural labor. Good examples of books written by John Steinbeck: dubious battle (1936), of mice and men (1937), the long valley (1938) and east of Eden (1952).

The story line is written in the beginning of the 1930’s during the great depression. George and Lenny are two drifters seeking for a job so they will have enough money to pursue their dream. They found a work on a farm in California's Salinas valley where their hopes and dreams were shattered as Lenny was struggling against extreme cruelty, misunderstanding and feelings of jealousy.

Lenny is a retarded person who is very strong and big in size and is quite innocent since many things in the world are new to him, especially new experiences. Lenny had a soft spot for petting animals and soft things and was totally oblivious to the fact that he was much too big and strong for such delicate creatures, and even some humans. "Lenny's fingers fell to stroking her hair... he stroked harder... "Let go!" she cried... She struggled violently... and then she was still; for Lenny had broken her neck." (Page 91 of mice and men). In innocence of his own strength, Lenny had killed a woman and suddenly traded his innocence for guilt.

Lenny however wasn’t the only main character in the book. His drifting companion George was always there to protect Lenny from people who were smarter then him. He was a smart person as well and k...

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...g our way through life. Some people choose to go the other direction and are trying to ruin our society by becoming criminals and lead a life of violence. In the outsider Meursault and his friend got caught in a fight with a bunch of Arabs who wanted to kill Meursaults' friend and Meursault himself for being there, the best solution Meursault and his friend had was to come back another day and try to do the same to those Arabs. Unluckily Meursault got caught and had to pay for his crime which according to society was also not showing any remorse to his moms death (and other things that are described in the book). In the case of the book of mice and men Lenny gets picked on by the husband of the bosses daughter because the guy was clearly jealous of Lenny and needed to make an excuse for wanting to fight with him, but this happened simply because the guy disliked Lenny, also for the reason that Lenny was retarded.

Both authors try to give us a view of some of the injustice in societies, both modern and old fashioned. The only difference is that people can practice their injustices with more advanced technology and a wider knowledge which could at one point lead to our extinction.