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essay on john steinbecks life
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Of Mice and Men
During the time of the depression, an author by the name of John Steinbeck wrote a novel called Of Mice and Men. The novel’s setting is in Southern California during the same time period. John Steinbeck shows us that friendship is a valuable thing to have in the novel Of Mice and Men. The book expresses how friendship can get you through hard times and help you keep going. Two of the characters in the novel named George and Lennie, have a relationship that describes the perfect friendship in my opinion. They are always there for each other and always have each others back.
George and Lennie and two very different types of people. Lennie is mental challenged, but he is a very large man, and is as strong as an ox. George is intelligent, a smaller built man, and definitely not as strong as Lennie. George promised Lennie’s aunt that he would look after Lennie when she past away. That is not the only reason George keeps Lennie around though, you can tell when reading the novel that George really cares about Lennie. George sometimes says some harsh words to Lennie like,”I could get along so easy and so nice if I didn’t have you on my tail. I could live so easy and maybe have a girl.”(7) When George says things like that though, he doesn’t say them to try and hurt Lennie’s feelings, I think he just gets frustrated at the things Lennie does and how he gets in trouble. George...
George and Lennie were lifelong friends and had varying personalities even from the start. Lennie thought about how his Aunt Clara said he should have been more like George. At the time when the story took place, the two men were travelling together, and had been for some time, working and then moving on to search for the next job they could find. They were like many other men in search for work, except it was rare for men to travel together. George felt a need to take care of Lennie because he was somewhat slow. George was an average man of the time. He was a good size, nice, but firm, and he had aspirations to be more than just a nomadic laborer. Lennie, on the other hand, had always been a little different. He was big, goofy, clumsy, but sweet. They were also both good workers. George was concerned with working and getting his money before they got into trouble and had to leave camp. Lennie was the one who normally started the trouble. He was a hard worker and lived to appease George, but he got distracted easily which angered George. George told about how they would own a house and a farm together and work for themselves. Lennie loved to hear the story and think about the possibilities, even though nobody knew if any of it was a possibility. George and Lennie's differences in part led to George's inclination to kill Lennie. Despite their dissimilarity, the two men needed each other probably more than they realized.
George’s love for Lennie is simply an unconscious effort to make up for Lennie’s mental weakness, yet at the same time his sentiment and kindness is out of sympathy. In chapter one, it is apparent to the reader that Lennie does have a slight mental impairment, but we do not yet know how acute it actually is. For example, when George asks Lennie what he has in his pocket, Lennie responded, “Ain’t a thing in my pocket,” (Steinbeck 5) as if he were intelligent. George knew something was in Lennie’s pocket, yet Lennie still tried to act as if there was nothing there. This gives the reader just a quick glimpse into the thought process of this complex character that is actually quite unpretentious.
One of John Steinbeck’s most famous works tells the tale of the continuing troubles of George and Lennie, two opposite personalities who form an unexpected relationship. The book takes place on a southern farm in the 1930’s where the two friends plan to save enough money to buy their dream—a piece of land for themselves. In the story, there are several characters with “disabilities,” both physical and figurative in the meaning of the word. Lennie is an ignorant, overweight gentleman, Crooks is black in a predominately white environment, Candy is crippled due to an accident on the farm, and Curly’s wife is accused of being overly provocative. Curly, the boss’ son, often quarantines his wife in their home because he wants to keep her his own; she is a very attractive young female on a farm with mostly male workers. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the characters in Chapter 4 are brought together in Crook’s room by the fact that they are all outcasts, but instead of taking the opportunity to become friends, they begin to take advantage of each other’s handicaps and hurl insults at one another.
Disappointment is someone being sad or mad about something they have done or failed to do. Disappointment can be caused by other people’s actions. In the book “Of Mice And Men” by John Steinbeck, the characters of Crooks, Candy, and Curly’s wife all suffer from disappointment of life. Crooks suffer from disappointment from how nobody wants to play or talk to him just because he is black. Also Curly’s Wife suffers because women don’t have that much of rights so she gets treated badly. Candy gets also treated badly because he is old and only has one hand to use so he can’t do that much work. All of the people in the book get treated badly because the book “Of Mice and Men” is made during the time period that the great depression was so there wasn’t that much of rights towards women and black people.
"Of Mice and Men" is a skillful novel, which deals with the theme of `outsiders', that is, individuals who do not fit into the mainstream of society. The novel portrays this idea of loneliness throughout John Steinbeck's stimulating and exciting novel.
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.
During the era of the Great Depression in the 1930’s, many people lost their jobs and became very lonely. This was around the time when John Steinbeck released his famous book about these “bindle stiffs”. The book was called, Of Mice and Men. Loneliness is one of the major themes of this novel. Several of the characters in the book are alone. In this novel, John Steinbeck shows how being alone affects different characters. Each is affected in a different way. Throughout the novel, the theme of loneliness is mostly expressed in the important characters of Candy, Curley’s wife and Crooks.
Warren French writes, “The world just hasn’t been made right, so that dreams are the only things that can keep men going.” Agree or disagree with this statement.
The daily struggle of the working class, fear of loneliness and the reality of putting all your energy into plans that fail are the different themes relating to John Steinbeck's novel, "Of Mice and Men". The characters depicted by the author are individuals who are constantly facing one obstacle after another. The book illustrates different conflicts such as man versus society, man versus man, man versus himself and idealism versus reality. The book's backdrop is set in the Salinas, California during the depression. The two main characters include two men, George and Lennie. Supportive characters include a few ranch hands, Candy, Crooks, Curly, Slim and Carlson.
I have been analysing the novella ‘Of Mice and men’ by John Steinbeck, which was published in 1937. Steinbeck wrote the novel based on his own experiences as a bindle stiff in the 1920’s, around the same time when the great Wall Street crash happened, causing an immense depression in America. Throughout the novel he uses a recurring theme of loneliness in his writing, which may have reflected his own experiences at this time. This is evident in his writing by the way he describes the characters, setting and language in the novel.
The novel Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, is about two ranch hands, George and Lennie. George is a small, smart-witted man, while Lennie is a large, mentally- handicapped man. They are trying to raise enough money to buy their own ranch, by working as ranch hands. During the setting of the story, they are at a ranch whose owner’s name is Curley. It is in this setting that the novel reveals that the main theme is death and loss.
images he leaves the reader with is George and Slim walking off as Curly says “ Now
Of Mice and Men is a novel written by John Steinbeck. It is set in California during the great depression. The story follows two ranch hands who travel together and are very poor. Throughout the novel we witness many different philosophical references. Many different types of characters from this novel are reused in today’s society. Steinbeck also writes eloquently about the many different emotions, aspirations, and dreams of man.
Should George have shot his friend Lennie? George probably did the right thing by shooting Lennie. How can we condemn George for sparing his friend Lennie the pain and fear of being killed by someone else? He did something society sees as wrong, but he did it for a good reason. Lennie didn’t deserve to die, but there was no other alternative. Curley wanted to kill Lennie, and since George cared for Lennie, he figured the best thing would be for him to put Lennie out of his misery.
In Aristotelian times logos, ethos, pathos, kairos, and telos were used to explain rhetoric functions. These rhetoric modes were used in a variety of different ways to describe speeches and plays. I will be using these modes to evaluate the movie Of Mice and Men, a movie about two men who travel together yet always seem to be getting into trouble because one of the men’s lack of common sense and intelligence.