John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men

Life is precious, but life is a one-time deal. What if that life were taken away at the extent of an award winning novel? Marvin Wilson, a mentally retarded man was sentenced to death after a breathtaking trial at the Supreme Court. In the trial, the lawyer for the opposition referenced the novella Of Mice of Men to support his side in the ruling. He stated, that Most Texas citizens might agree that Steinbeck’s Lennie, should, by virtue of his lack of reasoning ability and adaptive skills, be exempt. But does a consensus of Texas citizens agree that all persons who might legitimately qualify for assistance under the social services definition of mental retardation be exempt from an otherwise constitutional penalty? (NY Times, Mackey). This statement is basically saying, he’s I’m going to use this novel to condemn. Although it may seem that the information in a story is completely true due to the research that was done to create the novella, but it should not be used to kill a man. Every story contains some information that was made up by the author. The lives of the people and events that take place in stories are decided by the author and are often fictitious. Information in a book can be misinterpreted by the reader and therefore misused in a real-life situation.

When an author is writing a novel the ideas that are put forth are based on real-life factual evidence, but many of these facts are altered because of the author’s imagination. Essentially, every story that is not considered to be informational holds some truth as well as some fiction. Lennie and George are perfect examples of why this is true. The character known as Lennie Small is actually a real life person, according to Steinbeck’s son. “Lennie was a real person, ...

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...d are to happen in a sequential manner. In real life, serious events cannot be planned, but in the novella, something like the braking of Curley’s hand can be planned out because the story is being controlled by a single man. Lastly, the information provided by any piece of text can be interpreted differently. This means that one man could have understood something differently than someone else. For example, one person could think that Curley’s wife’s death was intentional, whereas the other does not. With all this in mind, how can one use literature to make real-world decisions? If the information provided by the book is not entirely true, and the interpretation of what is given is an opinion, then the decision being made is based off of something that is more likely to be incorrect. So how can a man’s life be based on information that is not always, entirely true.