Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck

Everyone’s felt like an outsider at some point in their lives. Because they are different in one way or another. That is why John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is an easy story to empathize with. It tells the story of two men, George Milton and Lennie Small. Having found work on a ranch, they form friendships with other men there, try to keep out of trouble until they receive their pay at the end of the month and work towards bringing their dream of owning and working their own piece of land into reality. Several characters including Candy, Lennie, Crooks and Curley’s wife are the outcasts of this story. Which in turn also makes them the most relatable. Steinbeck,through the story of Crooks and Curley’s wife,explains the relationship between the causes of loneliness, how it affects characters who suffer from it and how they strive for acceptance from or with other characters.
To start off, Crooks is a character who thinks very low of himself because he knows his skin color separates him from everyone else and puts his value lower than anyone else on the ranch. He shows this after Curley’s wife reprimands him for telling her to leave his room and threatening to tell the boss not to let her come in the barn anymore. He becomes powerless against her when the text shows him to “grow smaller and smaller as he pressed himself against the wall” (Steinbeck 80). He reduces himself to nothing when reminded that he’s a ‘nigger’. He thinks what he says does not matter because “This is just a nigger talkin’, an’ a busted-back nigger. So it don’t mean nothing, see?” (Steinbeck 71). He knows no one wants him around so he keeps his distance and demands people keep theirs. He’s hesitant about letting others into his bedroom and only does it when th...

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... it can be concluded that though both characters had very different methods of facing it, one being to push everyone away and the other to force their company on others, both Crooks and Curley’s wife had the same objective: to feel that somewhere, in someway, they belong. There’s lot to be learned from this story and it’s characters because, again, they all experience the emotions everyone has had to or will have to face. This story should teach us to be more empathetic, considerate of others feelings and above all to accept that everyone is unbelievably similar in some aspects and incredibly different in others but that none of their flaws, faults or quirks should make that big a difference in one’s approach to that individual.

Works Cited

Steinbeck,John. Of Mice and Men. New York: Penguin, 1993. Print.
Letter. Steinbeck, John to Luce, Claire. Los Gatos. 1938.