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Symbolism of mice and men essay
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	The same gun is used in the same manner to kill two beings, a smelly, old dog and a man named Lennie, in the novel "Of Mice And Men." This story deals with love and death while displaying an everyday scenario about friends and isolation. The symbols in this book represent the basic elements of human love.
	
Some of the characters in this novel, such as Lennie, Crooks, and Curley’s wife, epitomize loneliness. Lennie, bearing his retardation, has trouble fitting in with the current workers at the ranch. Even though all the ranch hands praise Lennie for his hard work, they leave him out of nightly activities such as horseshoes. George, Lennie’s traveling buddy, is smart and fits right in with all of the employees of the ranch, adding to Lennie’s isolation. The black stable hand, Crooks, sleeps alone in a tiny room in the stable and is disliked by everyone except for Lennie. Since he is black, segregation is the ultimate reason why no one tries to like or befriend Crooks. Lennie, who, as an innocent person, has no bigotry in him, visits Crooks one night when everyone else is in town. Even thought Crooks does not show it, he enjoys Lennie’s company, and it seems that he and Lennie form a small friendship that would had developed more has the book been longer. Another soul not included with the ranch clique, Curley’s wife, whose name is not mentioned in the book, is new to the ranch as well. She married Curley just weeks before Lennie and George arrived. The ranch hands do not accept this lonely soul into their social group because she is new. However, the ranch hands also do not accept Curley’s wife because she obviously is so lonely that the only way she can get attention is by flirting. The only one who does not dismiss her when she flirts is Lennie who is obviously trying to make a friend with another lonely person. These lonely individuals make this novel into a very sad story of real life situations of when people really do not "fit in."
	
The idea of obtaining a little farm with animals and crops raised by George and Lennie, and later joined by Candy, an old man, shows how dreams may cause a man to do anything to fulfill that dream. Lennie is the most enthusiastic and determined to gain the small farm and the all-important things -- the rabbits.
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.
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.
George's dream is to have a ranch of his own and Lennie's dream is to have, as mentioned earlier, a farm filled with rabbits. Lennie's hope for his dream is influenced whenever George starts describing his dream farm in explicit detail, such as how the fields are going to look, what animals they will own, what the daily routine will be etc. This farm symbolizes happiness and salvation, especially for Lennie, since he understands that the farm is his ticket to getting rabbits. In fact, the reason why he forgets George's orders is because he cannot stop thinking about his rabbits. A farm has basically become Lennie's version of heaven. This relates to how people always long for something to the point of where it becomes like heaven, a place where happiness lasts forever. Unfortunately, the rabbits symbolize false hope. For instance, Lennie holds a dead mouse and a dead puppy all for the same reason: he killed them. His love for petting soft creatures only causes trouble for himself. So if he owns a lot of rabbits, it is more than likely that they will all die because of Lennie. The rabbits, to Lennie, are things that seem like they will bring him true happiness, when they only create more sorrow. In other words, the rabbits symbolize sorrow disguised as salvation because in the end, Lennie goes suffers all because of his love for soft things. This is able to teach readers how dreams in the past
George and Lennie have to continue to move around the country looking for work until Lennie screws up again. The instability of work only makes it that much harder for them to complete their dream of a farm of their own. Candy’s participation in the dream of the farm upgrades the dream into a possible reality. As the tending of rabbits comes closer to happening fate curses them with the accidental death of Curley’s wife. The end of their wishful thinking is summed up by Candy’s question on page 104, “Then-it’s all off?”
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.
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.
Because of Crooks, Curley’s wife, and Lennie’s differences from most people on the ranch; these people are considered to be the main outcasts on the ranch in California. As the novel shows, an outcast can be any person who stands out from the crowd. Although everyone is somewhat an outcast; because they are all different from each other, these three characters in the story are
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.
George and Lennie have a dream, even before they arrive at their new job on the ranch, to make enough money to live “off the fatta the land” and be their own bosses. Lennie will then be permitted to tend the rabbits. Candy, upon hearing about the dream, wants to join them so that he will not be left alone, especially after they killed his dog. From the 17th Century, when the first settlers arrived, immigrants dreamed of a better life in America. People went there to escape from persecution or poverty, and to make a new life for themselves.
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.
Hamlet is a normal person which brillant ideas. He waited so long to kill Claudius because he wanted people to be able to know the story of really happened and did not want to seem like a bad guy. Hamlet’s soliloquy, “To be or not to be” (Act 3,Scene 1 Line 64) also means should he live to do as his father or or die to betray him. Hamlet knew everything that was going on in the kingdom but wanted to act as if he did not to get even further in and have more information. He did this because he wanted to think a more brilliant plan to kill Claudius and anyone else that was dealing with it, that is how he killed
The movie of Of Mice and Men had many differences while still giving the same message that the book was portrayed to have. One of the major differences was that Candy never came into the room when Lennie and Crooks were talking to each other. This was major because Crooks never found out that the plan was true about the little house. In the book after he heard Candy talk about it he wanted to get in on the deal. Also the movie it never showed Lennie have his illusions of his Aunt Carla and the rabbits when he was waiting by the pond.
Hamlet has had several things in his life trigger his madness. Hamlet feigns madness in order to discover the truth behind his father’s death. Upon Hamlets arrival home from Denmark he learns of his father’s death and his mother’s remarriage to Claudius, the late Kings brother. All of these things are enough to make a person mad. Later on he meets with the ghost of his father and learns that his father was murdered by his own brother, in Claudius’s attempt to take the throne and become the new King of Denmark. All of this news overwhelms ...
The biggest dream throughout the story is for George and Lennie to have enough money to go and buy a farm of their own. But then Lennie does something that he can’t change back or hide from, and all hope is lost for him and George to have a farm when George does what he never thought he’d do. “And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle of it close to the back of Lennie’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger… Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the sand, and he lay without quivering.” (page 106) This one final scene symbolized all of George’s aspirations, hopes, dreams, ambitions, anything he had, diminishing before his eyes. He made a point earlier in the book, “ I was feelin’ pretty smart. I turns to Lennie and says, ‘jump in.’... well I ain’t done nothin like that no more” (40). He promised himself he wouldn’t hurt Lennie again, he took it upon himself to keep Lennie safe. But George fired that last bullet and killed Lennie, stripping himself of all his hope and ambitions. The other main ambition that was crushed in this story has to do with Lennie and his rabbits. “We’re gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an’ a cow and some pigs… An’ have rabbits!...” (14) This is a recurring event throughout the book; they talk about their future dreams, and Lennie tells everyone he meets about the rabbits he's gonna have, but again that all changes when Lennie messes up badly and kills Curley’s wife. The story displays the reader the visual of, “She struggled violently under his hands… “Don’t you go yellin’,” he said, and he shook her; and her body flopped like a fish. And then she was still, for Lennie had broken her neck.” (91) This visual can help you see where Lennie’s dream of ever handling another living being again diminishes because if he can’t keep an