Theme Of Fate In Of Mice And Men

Fates Cannot Be Changed People think they can easily change their fates by just avoiding one thing or doing something else. However, that isn’t true; Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck shows that idea clearly within the novella. The story follows the main characters, Lennie and George, as they try to get their own land to live upon, by getting jobs at a ranch and hiding the evidence of Lennie’s mental challenges. But they’re also attempting to change a fate they didn’t know they were destined for. Although, they aren’t the only characters who either tried or is trying to change their fate at one point or another. Curley’s wife had also attempted to change her fate. While Lennie, George, and Curley’s wife attempt to control their own futures,

Lennie was probably the one person holding George back from attempting to achieve “The Dream”, because of how many predicaments he’d get George into. The first instance, is when George tells Lennie not to talk when the Boss interviews them, because George is afraid that Lennie will say something to make the Boss rethink the decision to hire them. However, George also attempts to change his fate by also keeping Lennie out of trouble; trouble gravitates towards Lennie like a child would gravitate towards being mischevious: its hard to avoid it. Because George takes so many drastic measures to keep Lennie out of trouble, its difficult for him to take the news of not being able to help when he finds out the last thing Lennie did before he was forced to do something George never saw himself doing: giving up. This leads into the final reason; George, despite trying to change his fate so many times, ending up proceeding to his fate anyways: having to shoot Lennie or risk Lennie suffering through something much worse than a clean shot to the back of the head, described by Steinbeck as “And George raised the gun and steadied it and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head….”(106). Only Slim understood how heartbroken George was that he had to do this, because he was forced to shoot someone he cared