Characters in Of Mice and Men

Choose three characters from Of Mice And Men. What do you learn of

these characters and they're personalities, and what seems to be their

role inthe novel?

The novel Of Mice And Men is set in Soledad, California. John

Steinbeck, the author of the novel grew up by the Salinas River and

the setting of the story is that of his childhood memories. Steinbeck

wanted to explore the social problems and hardships that existed in

his native rural environment during the Great Depression years.

This essay will examine Curley's wife, Candy and Crooks. Curley's wife

is the only woman in the novel who has recently got married to Curley

for two weeks and already despises him. Candy is lonely and his only

friend is a dog. He is disabled as he only has one hand. Crooks does

not fit in as he is an African American, at that time all Negroes were

despised by most white men. He lived by himself on the ranch in the

barn by the horses and mules, mainly to keep check on the animals, as

he is the stable buck. He is classed as the lowest form of life on the

ranch, even lower than the animals by all the other characters in the

novel.

All the characters in the novel have some kind of a dream,

all-different in their own way e.g. why the dream, is important to the

character . Curley's Wife is a very interesting character although

appears a few times in the novel Steinbeck uses her to make specific

points a few examples are how flirtatious she is with the other

characters mostly slim, George and right at the end not exactly

flirting but she is in the barn with Lennie, the way Steinbeck

interprets her in these scenes is to show how lonely she is. She also

dresses in the most inappropriate way for life on a ranch, she dresses

in attractive clothes and plasters on make-up:

"Red dress, plastered with make up"

Which is to be in the movies as an actress as a man approached her

when she was fifteen and she apparently had what it takes. The

writer's intention here is to show how Curley's wife could have lived

instead of being on the ranch. It can be argued that Curley's wife is

not lonely as she has Curley as her husband. The reader feels sympathy

for Curley's wife as all the characters in the novel are interpreted

by John Steinbeck as misogynist

Candy, like all other characters, also has a dream, this dream is not

entirely recognised by the reader until part four of the essay when