, Research Paper

Of Mice and Men ( 1937 ) , written in the same genre as The Grapes of Wrath, that of a narrative about migratory farm workers and their lives as a contemplation on society, was the book that thrust Steinbeck into the spotlight as a national famous person. He won many awards and awards including being picked as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Year. Steinbeck & # 8217 ; s manner is what earned this congratulations, that of a natural flow of words which are simple in signifier but complex in their significance. He fastidiously describes each scene as the reader is introduced to it, demoing non merely the general layout but an & # 8220 ; insider & # 8217 ; s position & # 8221 ; detailing the centripetal perceptual experiences evoked by the country ( & # 8221 ; A few stat mis south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in stopping point to the hillside bank and runs deep and green. The H2O is warm excessively, for it has slipped flashing over the xanthous littorals in the sunshine before making the narrow pool. & # 8221 ; ) Feelingss evoked by Steinbeck & # 8217 ; s entrywaies are unable to be duplicated except by those who know the capable affair personally, a trait that he possesses holding grown up in an agricultural vale in Salinas, California. His upbringing on the background for many of his books enables Steinbeck to travel beyond the paper and print of a book and create life in his characters. He expresses their joys and strivings with such preciseness that the reader feels as if the characters were personal familiarities and non merely fabricated. The followers is a brief outline of Of Mice and Men. George, a little adult male with ungratified eyes and strongly defined characteristics, is taking his comrade Lennie, a big, gawky adult male with a amorphous face and broad sloping shoulders, down a way to a pool of H2O. There they drink and cantonment before heading to a spread the following twenty-four hours to get down work. George scolds Lennie for petting a dead mouse and overall dainties him as a parent would a kid. George tells Lennie that if anything bad happens while at the spread to conceal in the coppice by the pool. The following forenoon, they reach the spread and have an & # 8220 ; interview & # 8221 ; with the foreman who becomes leery of Lennie for non replying any inquiries until George reassure him that although Lennie is non bright, he is an first-class worker. Curley, the foreman & # 8217 ; s boy and a little & # 8220 ; ready to hand & # 8221 ; type of adult male, gives Lennie a difficult clip which an old swamper explains is on history of Curley disliking those who were bigger than he was. The swamper besides said that Curley had merely gotten married to a & # 8220 ; tart. & # 8221 ; George tells Lennie to remain off from Curley. Curley & # 8217 ; s married woman comes into the bunkhouse looking for Curley and Lennie thinks she is & # 8220 ; purty. & # 8221 ; George tells Lennie to remain off from her so they can & # 8220 ; turn over up a interest & # 8221 ; and purchase their dream of their ain land with harvests of their ain and coneies. George promises to inquire Slim, the jerkline Skinner, for one of his Canis familiaris & # 8217 ; s puppies for Lennie. Slim and George talk about Lennie while he pets his puppy in the barn. Carlson, another spread manus, convinces Candy, the swamper, that his old, half-blind Canis familiaris should be shot to maintain it from enduring. Carlson shoots it in the dorsum of the caput with his Luger. Curley comes looking for his married woman and hastes to the barn when he finds out Slim is at that place. George tells Lennie about their dream once more. Candy hears it and offers to give his $ 350 to portion in the dream. They plan on purchasing ten estates in a month. Candy thinks that he should hold shot his Canis familiaris himself. Lennie is smiling about their dream and his coneies when Curley and Slim come back with Curley on the defensive ready to flog out. He picks a battle with Lennie for smiling and beats on him until George tells Lennie to allow him hold it. Lennie mauls Curley & # 8217 ; s manus. Everyone but Lennie, Candy, and Crooks, the Negro stable vaulting horse, goes to Susy & # 8217 ; s for cocottes and whisky. All three end up in Crooks & # 8217 ; room with Crooks uncovering his solitariness and inquiring to be included in the dream. Curley & # 8217 ; s married woman Michigans by Crooks & # 8217 ; room out of solitariness and finds she is unwanted at that place. The following twenty-four hours, while everyone was playing quoitss, Lennie ballad in the barn with his now dead puppy. ( He killed it by thwacking it for seeking to seize with teeth him ) . He worries that George won & # 8217 ; t allow him be given the coneies now. Curley & # 8217 ; s married woman comes in out of solitariness and lets Lennie touch her soft hair. When she worries about him tussling it, she gets agitated and starts to shout. Lennie is scared by this and shakes her to do her halt, interrupting her cervix in the procedure. He realizes this is a bad thing and goes to the coppice George told him to travel to. When Curley & # 8217 ; s married woman & # 8217 ; s organic structure is found by Candy, George bargains Carlson & # 8217 ; s Luger and goes to the coppice. He shoots Lennie in the dorsum of the caput with it to avoid him enduring at the custodies of Curley and the

others who wanted to lynch him. The main theme of this novel is that “mean” people are not animals but are fragile, lonely people whose cynicism, regret, and confrontational attitude are the results of their rejection by the majority. Every character in this novel is depicted on a scale of “meanness.” This assessment is detailed as a recurring motif throughout the novel. “Meanness” directly correlates to loneliness or being an outcast and vice versa. The following descriptions of Crooks and Curley’s wife are examples of this connection. Crooks does his job well and “can pitch shoes” better than the others, but he is isolated from any friendship by his race. Being black, Crooks is forced to live in a small room off of the barn and is not allowed in the bunkhouse. Thus he keeps to himself and is perceived by the others to be “aloof.” He is so conditioned to his constant solitude that when Lennie tries to “set down with him” he rejects his unconditional friendship at first with harsh words and a “mean” attitude, scaring the simple-minded Lennie by suggesting that George might never come back. Eventually his “meanness” crumbles when he realizes Lennie’s uncorrupted views are sincere, revealing a lonely man who only wants someone to talk to. Curley’s wife is regarded by the men as a tart who is only a harbinger of trouble since she is married to Curley, the boss’s son and a very “handy” man. Due to this, she is put off whenever attempting a conversation with anyone and is seemingly always looking for Curley or companionship of any form throughout the book. She is “mean” to Crooks and Candy, a black man and an old swamper, pointing out their inequities, but when Crooks reverses the situation on to her, she plays the “race card” and reminds him that she “could get [him] strung up on a tree so easy it ain’t even funny.” She is the most pathetic character of this novel. Not only is she nameless, but she is stuck in a loveless marriage, isolated from all her former dreams of being in “pitchers,” and is so lonely that she must seek a relationship with Lennie, a man she thinks is “nuts” and would normally be below her standards. Her death at Lennie’s hands is ironic because it actually improves her well-being, allowing “the meanness and the plannings and the discontent and the ache for attention” to all leave her, making her “face sweet and young.” On the other hand, Lennie, a simple childlike man of enormous strength, is known by all as a guy who’s not mean at all. He kills everything he loves (the mouse, the puppy, Curley’s wife) yet is never thought to be mean. But without George’s constant mantra emphasizing that Lennie is not mean, Lennie would have been sent to the “booby hatch” where they would “tie [him] up with a collar, like a dog.” Thus, to not be considered “mean,” Lennie relies on his relationship with George to verify his “innocence.” But ironically, George has to kill Lennie and consequentially their relationship in order to maintain Lennie’s “innocence.” This pervading theme of “meanness” being a fragile shell of loneliness signifies Steinbeck’s sympathy for the outcasts of society, relating their demeanor to be a product of their environment and no fault to themselves. The title is also significant for it symbolizes the circular pattern of the novel. The “mice” of the novel, or the things Lennie loves to pet (the mouse, puppy, and Curley’s wife), are killed by being loved too much, while the men of the novel, George and Lennie, have their relationship and thus their lives destroyed by the “mice.” Overall, Of Mice and Men, is a masterpiece of American literature. Its simplicity of style in its freeflowing dialogue veils the complicated nature of the story, with its statement on society’s judgements. This book is a significant piece of American literature in that it reveals the basic truth that man needs companionship; without it he loses himself in a cloud of contempt, rejection, and loneliness. I loved reading this book. I was enticed by its abundance of analogous characters and was constantly thinking up new ways to interpret them. For me, this is the fun part of reading and it is what made this book great in my mind. Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is not so much a novel of two men and their friendship as it is a strong statement that society’s judgements of people are subject to the position that the majority shares. Thus only those who know the judged well, their friends, can make such judgements for otherwise we would all be thrown in the “booby hatch” and be “collared, like . . . dog[s].” Each one of us has irregularities, but if judged solely on those differences, without explanation of them, we would all be guilty.