Even the town that the novel takes place in is Soledad, which is Spanish for loneliness. Of Mice and Men accurately shows the hardships that loneliness can inflict on people in the Great Depression and even today and is a topic that a myriad of readers can connect with and sympathies for. Candy, an aging swamper and former ranch worker, is a character that experiences the heartbreak of becoming lonely. Many can attest to having an extremely good friend that they lose whether it be because of work, personal reasons, and in Candy’s case death. When occurrences like Candy’s incident transpire one can feel as if the world is crumbling all around them.
It clearly portrays the uncertainty and struggle associated with living during the Great Depression. Thus, both the novella and the poem explain that human dreams for a great future are subject to circumstance and fate, which most of the time collude against human success in life leaving only a trace of broken dreams, pain and misery. Steinbeck inclines to unravel the plight of two migrant workers with a dream to purchase their own land in the future, where they plan to rear rabbits and keep livestock. As reality dawns on the two men, their lifestyle proves not to be as easy as they think. George states, “Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world.
. (p. 2). George looks after Lennie as the latter has a mental health condition or learning needs, which were not recognised in those days. At the time the book was written Lennie would have just been seen as dumb. Lennie got himself into all sorts of trouble, but ... ... middle of paper ... ...e's beans without ketchup is a metaphor of their lives, all work and function but no luxury and fun.
Web. 21 May 2014. Reith, Duncan. "Futile dreams and stagnation: politics in Of Mice and Men: the American novelist John Steinbeck has sometimes been criticised as a sentimentalist. Duncan Reith uncovers the bleak political pessimism behind his novel of ranch life during the Great Depression, Of Mice and Men."
In John Steinheck’s novel Of Mice and Men, one of the protagonists, George Milton, struggles with this very concept. Stuck with his disabled best friend, Lennie Small, he feels a sense of responsibility towards Lennie, but also acknowledges how much easier his life would be without Lennie. Although George is an incredibly clever and compassionate man, his morals come into question as his conflicted thoughts over Lennie come to a climax. From the beginning of the novel, it is very obvious that George is incredibly clever and street smart. Lennie is constantly getting into trouble and thus, George has had to come up with some “creative solutions” to solve their many predicaments.
The characters are so vivid and impressive, that the setting and scene change rarely. The detail given to the main characters creates a history: a peek into each of their lives. But the lives that the characters lead are not so appealing. There was often negative criticism toward the characters, calling them barbaric and subhuman. Critic Mark Van Doren wrote, "All but one of the persons in Mr. Steinbeck's extremely brief novel [Of Mice and Men] are subhuman … Two of them are evil, one of them is dangerous without meaning to be, and all of them are ignorant…(Van Doren, 275)."
Racism is widespread throughout the book. Of Mice and Men tells the story of two ranchers, Lennie and George, wandering the country in search of suitable jobs during the Great Depression. George and the somewhat mentally disabled giant Lennie struggled to reach the dream of owning a farm together, after accepting a job in California. Because of this book’s vivid descriptions of life during the Great Depression and universal themes, Of Mice and Men should be taught in Antonian’s English II honors course. From reading this book students get a sense of what it was like during this time period thus giving this book a student friendly as well as teacher friendly appeal.
The story is also about the loneliness of most of these workers, and this is why the fact that George and Lennie travel together is strange to most of the ranch hands. The name of the novella comes from a famous poem by Robert Burns which is called, “To a Mouse” – “...the best laid schemes o’ Mice and Men, Gang aft agley”. This basically means that however much you plan something out and figure out in detail what you will do, the future is unpredictable and plans can easily go wrong. The main characters of the novella are people who face challenges in life. The major themes which are expressed throughout the novella are loneliness, friendship and racism.
It also showed that love and hate between Heathcliff and Catherine made their relationships quite intense. Like the Wuthering Heights, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck portrayed George and Lennie's one dream that one day they will own their own farm. It also described in detail the various ways of prejudice of Crooks and the white population. Finally, it manifested the love and hatred George had for Lennie. Wuthering Heights and Of Mice and Men are two very different but in the same time identical in the general theme of potential of dreams for good and evil, and love and hate between friends and lovers, and finally that of prejudice of the minority.
In fact, due to these insequrities he later picks a fight with Lennie, causing his physical disability with his hand. In an environment like the ranch, it is easy to find a disability in almost everyone. Such is the case in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Many main characters have some sort of disability and incompleteness that works aginst them in their working-class lives. These disabilities represent the significance of how during the Great Depression many people who had disabilities were said to be an added cost or “weaknesses.