Humans are Insignificant in the Cycle of Life
“I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity” said Ayn Rand. The earth is only a “speck of dust” in eternity and therefore insignificant to the universe. Humans are also insignificant when compared to the universe because they are less than the size of the earth and overall do not matter in the cycle of life. This quote relates to the topic of naturalism because naturalism is the theory that literary composition should be based on an objective or an observation of human beings. In the novella Of Mice and Men George and Lennie, two ranch workers dream to have their own piece of land and ranch. They face many obstacles in their attempt to achieve to American dream including loneliness and disability. In Of Mice and Men Steinbeck reveals the naturalistic structure and characterizations of his novella.
The novella comes full circle and ends like it begins in order to display a naturalist perspective. The setting in the beginning and the end of the novella are describing the same place, however, the setting is described differently. The description of the setting in the beginning of the novella is hopeful and serene while in the end of the novella the setting is hopeless and depressing. In the beginning of the novella Steinbeck describes the setting as “A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green...On the sand banks the rabbits sat as quietly as little gray, sculptured stones”(1-2). In comparison to the end of the novella when Steinbeck states “The deep green pool of the Salinas River was still in the late afternoon”(99), however there are no...
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...ny control over himself in order to let go of Curley’s wife’s hair. Lennie is an example of one of Steinbeck’s naturalistic characters because he does not have free will over his actions. These scenes are examples of indirect characterization through Lennie’s actions in order to emphasize naturalism.
Naturalism is used to demonstrate that humans are insignificant in the cycle of nature. Steinbeck demonstrates naturalism through the structure and characterizations of his novella. Steinbeck’s novella comes full circle and ends like it begins in order to demonstrate that humans are insignificant to the cycle of nature. As a naturalist writer Steinbeck regards human behavior as controlled by instinct, emotion, or social and economic conditions. Also Steinbeck emphasizes naturalistic qualities in his characters in order to demonstrate naturalisms effect on people.
In the novel Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck brings out the themes of Lonliness and companionship, and strengths and weaknesses through the actions, and quotations of the characters. Irony and foreshadowing play a large roll on how the story ends. Lennie and his habit of killing things not on purpose, but he is a victim of his own strength. George trying to pretend that his feelings for Lennie mean nothing. The entire novel is repetitive in themes and expressed views.
Before discussing how Steinbeck’s Eden in un-naturalistic, it is important to first examine naturalism as a movement of literature. Once naturalism is defined, it will be able to be compared to Steinbeck’s Eden. Naturalism spanned with American authors between the years of 1890 and 1920, some dates vary as some naturalistic ...
Steinbeck begins the story by creating a serene mood when describing the setting. He illustrates how the Salinas River looks, and stating that “the water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool. On one side of the river the golden foothill slopes curve up to the strong and rocky Gabilan mountains, but on the valley side the water is lined with trees—willows fresh and green with every spring, carrying in their lower leaf junctures the debris of the winter’s flooding; and sycamores with mottled, white, recumbent limbs and branches that arch over the pool” (1). Steinbeck’s word choice alone (“twinkling,” “golden,” and “fresh and green”) makes the setting appealing to the reader. The peaceful mood is created through the way he closely describes every detail; the images that the reader follows are animated and picturesque. He uses such a long sentence with semi-colons, commas, and dashes to make the passage flow smoothly, as opposed to choppy. The run-on like syntax he uses creates a comfortable feeling, showing that the Salinas River and everything surrounding it is an undisturbed area; the...
The saying “it’s a cruel world out there” is not far from reality in John Steinbeck’s, Of Mice and Men. The plot in the novel carries the reader through the world of two friends, Lennie and George, who have come to work as field hands at a ranch. Lennie, unfortunately, has a mental handicap, which forces George to keep a close eye on him. When Lennie accidentally kills Curley’s wife, the spouse to the boss’s hot-tempered son, George must put an end his friend’s life, in Lennie’s benefit. Steinbeck exposes the cruelty in the human existence through his use of the rhetorical devices foreshadowing, symbolism, and characterization.
To some extent, writers are the most powerful people in the world as they can use words to change people’s perceptions and ideas. Around the world, there are numerous writers who choose to convey their thoughts within their works, no matter fictions or poems. However, there are also some other representatives who prefer to be objective as a writer, and from my perspective, John Steinbeck should be one of them. Hence, I agree with the given quotation. In this essay, I will try to prove the quotation in three aspects. Firstly, I will discuss some characteristic of Of Mice and Men as well as John Steinbeck’s writing approach. Then, I will explore the fascinating and bewildering aspects of life in his fiction to demonstrate my statement. Finally, a conclusion will be given. During 1930s, the relationship between the suffered labors and the government is very tense as a type of remarkable social contradictions. Of Mice and Men, the book that Steinbeck wrote that period, is neither about the resistance of California’s newcomers nor their economic threat to the landed elite. (Shillinglaw, 1994) This book is about common people, their dreams, their ordinary life and their misfortune.
Lennie is day dreaming/laughing about the dream farm, but Curley gets the wrong idea from Lennie laughing. He thought that Lennie was laughing at him. The scene of everyone laughing at Curley made him furious and he went for the easiest target to take his anger out on. Lennie. We already know that Curley hates big guys and that he doesn’t joke around when he fights. As shown in the second part of the quote, Lennie “helplessly looked at George, and then he got up and tried to retreat” meaning that Lennie was confused and forlorn. Steinbeck uses “helplessly” to show how Lennie feels about Curley approaching to him and that he doesn’t know what to do thus looking at George. In other words, because of his size and his dream not being a reality, Curley can’t stand people that are bigger than him. Towards the end of the story, Curley’s wife comes inside the barn where Lennie was and tells him what her life was before she married Curley. “Well, a show come through, an’ I met one of the actors. He says I could go with that show. But my ol’ lady wouldn’ let me. She says
One of Lennie's many traits is his forgetfulness. He easily forgets what he is supposed to do, but he somehow never forgets what he is told. An example of how Lennie is forgetful is when he has the mice in his pocket and when he went to pet them they bit his finger. “Lennie picked up the dead mouse and looked at with a sad face. When they bit him he pinched them, and by doing that he crushed their heads” (page 5) . This is important because he knew that if he squeezed their heads they would die, but since he is forgetful, he squeezed anyway. Another example of how Lennie is forgetful is when he grabbed Curley's hand and crushed it. “ Curley’s fist was swinging when Lennie reached for it. Lennie squeezed on until George came running in shouting ‘let go’. The next moment Curley was on the ground wailing while he held his crushed hand” (page 64). This event is important because Lennie had held on, not knowing what to do next, until George told him what to do. A final exampl...
Naturalism includes stories based on movements by authors in my opinion. From what we learned in class and what the PowerPoints they were all based on this notion of panic and social change in America. We see issues that authors like Stephen Crane used in his stories that focused on nature, ambiguity and this relationship between Realism and Naturalism. His stories “The Blue Hotel” and “The Open Boat” are very much Naturalist works due to Crane’s kinship of mankind having ethical obligations. Crane used this opportunity to then toil with the human mind by instinctive human behavior when faced with life or death situations.
To go more in depth, Steinbeck formulates a novel that also incorporates the main characters such as George, who is irritable but, a committed friend to Lennie, wherein Lennie is without reasoning or questioning, dependent on George. The reason
The American Dream is an impractical feat to seize. In John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, two best friends discover the hardships of the Great Depression in Salinas Valley, California. George is a short, intelligent, hard worker. The foil to George’s character is his best friend, Lennie, who is tall, unintelligent, and mentally challenged. Lennie is holding George back from achieving the American Dream. As the novella continues, different views of individual’s dreams are revealed. Steinbeck uses a variety of themes throughout the novella but they all relate to the main theme; that the American Dream is unachievable.
One example of naturalism can be seen through the oiler, cook, correspondent, and captain all a lack of understanding in “The Open Boat” To prove this Stephen Crane points out in the very beginning of the story that the four men did not even know the color of the sky. I think that the men were worried about this form of nature because their
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is a novella that says a lot about human nature and what drives mankind. Through the use of personal relationships and dreams, Steinbeck shows the readers that the hope for something more motivates everyone to keep moving forward. Both of these themes are brought to life by the characters Lennie and George. Lennie is a rather big man with not much mental capacity and relies on George for a variety of basic human needs.
Naturalism is the theory that one's fate is determined by their surroundings. Antying that happnes to someone is due to everything around them. Such things as thier family, where they live, where they work, and so on. THE JUNGLE is an excellent example of a naturalistic piece of literature. Many of the characters fateswere determined by their surroundings.
Naturalism is the literary movement that directly followed, and was born from, the Realistic Movement. Unlike Realism, which focused on the middle class, Naturalism focused on the lower class. The characters of naturalist writers were usually poor, disenfranchised, living in impoverished conditions and struggling to survive hardships. This is how naturalism is explained according to The American Novel, “While it is strongly associated with realism, in the shared emphasis on depicting surface reality, naturalism is more than a literary technique, involving as it does the philosophy of determinism. Naturalism is antiromantic in emphasizing the limited ability of humans to impose will upon their own destiny, and also in devaluing the imagination's embellishment of reality. For the naturalist, it is the duty of the writer to present to the reader reality without illusion, to offer a scientific, detached view of it rather than to adorn or mislead or simply please the reader” (Matterson).
Naturalism does not simply present life as it really appears; emphasis is placed on taking a scientific view on how the natural world influences people and shapes their lives in a number of ways. People are not able create their own futures, and they can only “futilely [respond] to the things that [happen] to them” (Baym 548). Dreiser claims that the job of the novelist is to present these findings “honestly and without subterfuge” (562). Ignoring the vices of man and simply writing about the comfortable themes of life produces “some half-conceived notion of life that bears no honest relationship to either the whole of nature or to man” (Dreiser 563). According to Dreiser, nat...