Of Mice And Men

Of Mice and Men

     John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, depicts a sad reality of the great depression and the toll it had on people. This novella explains a story about two men, one being a careless optimistic child-at-heart-man who is controlled and ruled by, second, a man that has no other interest in life than too make money. The first man is named Lennie Small and the second is George Milton; both of whom are migrant workers. Because of this, they are outcasts of society and are unable to fit in. However, the conflict remains within them selves, which is highly influenced by society. Society makes them self conscious and aware of what people say about you.  Throughout the book, the central theme is the relationship between society and self dignity and how that affects two main migrant workers.  

     Society vs. self and how that can affect two workers is shown in mostly all of pg 11. However, here, we have George fantasizing about a life without Lennie, and Lennie feeling bad about making George’s life miserable. “You can’t keep a job…” (11). This quote shows how society thinks of, specifically, Lennie. As I said before, Lennie is a tender giant, optimistic and unable to see the “evil” in people/things. This can play both a positive and a negative outcome of society’s toll on people. The story goes on to tell that Lennie begins to feel bad and decides to run away off into the hills and live by himself and leave George alone. He is full of unsettled conflicts in him like what is he doing wrong in the first place and what should he do about George? He is much undecided and very not-cautious about his own moves in the game of life.

     Perhaps one of the better examples of the central theme lies in a quote made by Lennie to himself. Here, Lennie runs away back to their (George and him) secret hiding spot. George told him to run there when they might be in trouble. Now, Lennie congratulates himself on remembering to come. “I’d di’n’t forget, you bet, God damn. Hide in the brush an’ wait for George.”(100) Here, You can get a sense that he is scared of how George will react towards Lennie’s killing of Curley’s wife, but reassures him self by saying that he did a good job of remembering to come back here in case of an emergency. He is full of uncertainty because he has always been taken care of by others, like George. Now that he does something right, he needs reassurance of “everything is going to be ok”. The main reason for this unsure state of Lennie is because society has been a motivating and convincing factor that people like Lennie (maybe a low grade form of autism) are incapable of taking care of themselves mentally and physically. This is what I see Lennie has inside him, an urge/dream unable to be answered because society has built a fence around this concept…freedom.    

     One final quote is an overall representative of the main theme. Here, Lennie is still in the hiding spot but is hallucinating Aunt Clara and rabbits coming out of the brush. They speak in his voice too! “Aunt Clara was gone, and from out of Lennie’s head there came a gigantic rabbit. It sat on it’s haunches in front of him, and waggled its ears and crinkled its nose at him. And it spoke in Lennie’s voice too.”(101-102) Lennie begins this hallucinating by feeling guilty about messing up with George. He worries that George will be so angry with him, that he will not want Lennie tending the rabbits. The rabbits represent a dream, a dream that will never come true because of reality and because of him, Lennie.

     In conclusion, I believe that the main theme of this story would be the idea of society affecting your integrity and how that affects the person (in this case Lennie or George) them selves. Dreams unaccomplished would play a big role in supporting this theme. Both Lennie and George have dreams that will never be answered due to society making them lower their dignity and integrity. Society plays a big role because it makes you believe all the crap of ways people should be or act and how differences make you “different” instead unique. So, in conclusion, we are mice among men; living as different, separated people among the “norm”, society’s definition of an individual.