Elements, Concepts, and Betrayal in John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men

Steinbeck upon creating the novel in the 1930’s seen and was experiencing some of the things he wrote on. In the beginning he introduced to us a friendship between two opposite men. One man, George Wilson, is a little man compared to his companion. His friend, on the other hand, was a giant who was naïve as a new born baby. His name was Lennie Smalls. Lennie Smalls was a character that Steinbeck used to allow his audience to see that although he had a good heart and was seemingly helpless, that one day his strength would be the cause of his downfall. Questions on whether or not Steinbeck’s readers should believe in the image in which it is given or primarily based it on the novel being written in a bad environment from the first of the novel. Steinbeck knew upon writing that readers tend to cling and fall for the caring, loving, and misunderstood bad guy trying to prove his innocence against all evil brought to him. So Steinbeck created Lennie to try and portray this character to his audience. Steinbeck had to be sure that all elements presented in the novel were able flow good and complete the recipe (Krutch 29-30).
The recipe consisted of a perfect combination of social criticism and realism that would surely get readers excited to read. Little did some not know or did know is that Steinbeck was using a technique that is very old and has work lots of times (Krutch 29-30).
Harry Thornton Moore, a scholar of D.H. Lawrence, views Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men dramatic elements as more of a play than a novel. Steinbeck after being told many times that his novel should be a play explained that it was written to soon become a play. Once produced into a play critics thought it was good but not so much suited for the stage. Steinbeck t...

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... friendship built around dreams of living off the fatt of the land (Sparknotes).
Hence, I feel as if John Steinbeck wrote a piece of art when he created this novel. It possessed many great characteristics that gave a good idea of how they were then. I felt as though the novel told a wonderful of two men trying to chase their dreams although temptations, heart ache, and pain may get in your way you just keep striving. When I read the book and the articles on the novel, I felt that George was somehow the epic hero in the novel. He used his own selfishness to his friend out of the misery that was sure to keep coming to him. All in all I think the novel told an excellent story.

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. John Steinbeck's Of mice and men. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1996. Print.
Bloom, Harold. John Steinbeck. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. Print.