The book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Essay Example for Free

The book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Essay John Steinbeck wrote the book Of Mice and Men in 1936 after Wall Street crashed in 1929 and overnight the great depression set in, in America. Everyone lost all their money after investing in the stock market and no one had any money and jobs because company collapsed due to the knock on affect of the crash. As a result, people forgot about trying to settle down with a family and just thought about trying to stay alive. But still in the back of their minds the American Dream still lived on and at some point would all like to have their own plot of land living a carefree life. To stay alive though to do this they had to get any money they could. They travel around the country as migrant workers just looking after themselves going for any job that came up. They had to keep going, from job to job, people had no time to make friends. There were two special characters though, two men who traveled around together and were both very close friends. Although you could call them the odd-couple, due to the fact that they were both very different. But they looked and cared after each other, were together for a long time and learned they were so close they had to keep travelling together and try to go at it wit each other. These two guys didnt really have much before the Wall Street crash and didnt need to care about making it all back. The story is about two people who dont just care about themselves but want to look after each other. These two people were Lennie and George. In the book George says Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world, they got no family. They dont belong no placebut us! An why? Because I got you to look after me and you got me to look after you John Steinbecks style carries a lot of symbolism. Even the town Soledad where its set means loneliness. All this shows that the lifestyle after the Wall Street crash forced people to go at it alone and the American Dream was getting further and further away. Steinbeck wrote this book because he saw the USA as a lonely place at the time. Even though Lennie and George have each other and arent as lonely as everyone else, there are still times wee they are lonely. When Lennie was younger all he had was his Aunt Clara who was the only one who looked after him and then she died. Until George came to live all the time with Lennie, all he had was his soft mice that he liked to pet. He had nothing else and was very lonely. Then when George came Lennie must have seen him as a savior and would do anything for him and listens to everything he does. But because he is mentally challenged he cant sometimes go through with his promises. When saying all this, John Steinbeck is expressing that Lennie and George are no two ordinary migrant workers doing it alone moving from place to place. Lennie and George are different because they stay together. But when Lennie acts like he does, George gets very annoyed and says God a mighty, if I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an work, an no trouble. No mess at all, and when the end of the month came, I could take my fifty bucks and go into town ant get whatever I want. This makes Lennie sad, but really George wouldnt do this because he cares too much about Lennie. Lennie gets upset when people talk about leaving as he has had a lot of that happen to him in his life, with not knowing his parents and his Aunt Clara dying he has become sensitive to that happening and apologizes for whatever has made George say this very quickly. In the Book Candy is another very lonely character he is also symbolized through his dog who just goes through life then he gets quite old without making much significance and just kill him or send him off without say when hes worthless and dont care about his feelings. He is extra worthless as he got his hand lopped off in one of the farm machines and makes him not as useful as he was. This will happen to Candy, hell get fired and he knows this because he starts to get left out of everything. He knows time is not on his side and hell get canned before too long. This is why when he hears George and Lennie have a plan to get a farm and he had money to make this plan happen for all of them, (from compensation when he got his hand chopped off) he wants to be in on it so he cant be fired and would just do the easy jobs. Then he could stay with shelter and not get chucked out to die. I also think that he wants something to show for his life and the farm would be something good as the money he has wouldnt be a good indication for a successful life as he has no one to pass it on to. I think Steinbeck has put Candy into the book so there was another extreme of loneliness. The character shows that in America in the 30s no one had any respect or sympathy for old folk and when they get too old they are just sent out for the vultures not caring about feelings. This shows in Candy and when they are speaking to the stable buck and he says Nobody listen to you, Candy then says No he agreed Knowbody listen to us. This shows that Candy knows whats going on and his time is approaching fast. Crooks is also another extreme of loneliness just because he is black. He isnt even allowed to sleep in the same bunkhouse. They say I stink, but I say they stink. He says this, not because they smell but because he thinks the way they treat him stinks. Even on special occasions, for fun they beat him up. They dont treat him like a fellow human at times and dont like speaking to him. He gets lonely because he doesnt get to talk to anyone all day. This shows the racism of the time and how in America they still had the ideals of the slave trades and the black were nailed to the bottom of the social pile. Then in the book he wants to join in with the ranch plan as he thinks its his way out of hatred and the stereotypes. But eventually he rejected the ranch because he knew that he was also useless because he had a crooked back and he would be not respected, and he told Lennie that because he was mentally retarded that George might leave him. He says this because he is thinking about the thoughts of the times, but doesnt know that George would never leave Lennie. Another character is Curleys wife. She is very lonely and seeks for attention. This is because she is a woman and they just think she is someone who is just there to cure Curleys needs. But also she is a person. She said, Im stuck in the house all day and no one to talk to. People see her as a Tart because she seeks attention and flirts with all the workers on the ranch behind Curleys back, but Curly knows it is going on and gets very jealous and protective. She says when she was younger she met a man who could have put her in the movies, but when he sent her a letter saying she was in, her mum hid the letters because she was too young to leave. But maybe she had thought up these ideas that the man was actually interested in putting her in the movies or just trying to chat her up and then Curleys wife when she didnt hear anything might have blamed it on her mum and wanted to believe she was good enough to be in the movies. Then she left home to try and make her dream come true but never really had a plan. Then she met Curly and thought maybe this was the key to getting to the top, but now she is stuck on the ranch. She knows she will never fulfill her dreams. Steinbeck always refers to her as Curleys Wife and she never has a name all through the book. This is because no one needs or thinks it is necessary to get to know her because she is a woman. This character shows hatred of women at this time and how they meant nothing. All of the Characters, Crooks, Lennie, Candy and Curlys wife, have personalities that are lonely and in America at this time these personalities were outcasts. In the book they were excluded from everything because they were different. I also see Carlson as someone who thinks as a community and not for peoples feelings. For example at the end of the book when George has killed Lennie, then Slim is comforting him, he says Now what ya suppose is eatin them two guys? Not considering that George has just killed his old best friend who has traveled with for a long time. He cant understand why they feel this way, as he thinks as the community thinks at the time in how everyone has to try to do it for themselves and you cant have friends in this time but Lennie and George did. In the Book Slim and George get to know each other a bit. George likes to get to people and he thinks everybody is stupid not making any friends and being cautious of Everyone: -Maybe everbody in the whole damn world is scared of each other? He thinks everyone thinks they cant get to know anyone but he doesnt see this in George. John Steinbeck wrote this book in the 1030s when all these prejudiced feelings to people who are different were going on. He recognized this, what people were doing and how they were making everyone else lonely, but at the same time making themselves lonely too. When he wrote this he had a different character for all different aspects of loneliness and prejudice he could see in America at the time. He described it through migrant workers due to how on the farms it was capitalist with the boss looking down on his workers and by doing this, also people wanted to be the boss and not have to look up to people. To do it, they couldnt really do it with everyone else because than he couldnt have anyone else to look down on, so they had to go alone. Owning a farm somewhere and being your own boss was back than the American Dream. But by going alone they would never have enough money, so as their dream fails, along with it, so does their spirit. These 3 points show hoe different aspects of life all culminated to kill their spirit and make them lonely. It all spirited from themselves.