Of Mice And Men †Review Essay

The novel Of Mice And Men is set in the early 1930s, in the American enjoin of California. America at this duration was suffering from the effect of the depression, which followed the W solely Street Crash. This had caused many businesses to go bankrupt. Also, in this period of time America had great problems on the agricultural side of its economy. boastfully aras of f tree branchland had been lashed by hurricane winds, and this had caused much of the topsoil to been blown away, leaving enormous areas of land unable to grow any kind of crops. Logically this meant that less(prenominal) workers were needed to tend the land, so many were laid off, and as menti whizd primarily many businesses had g one and only(a) bankrupt following the Wall Street Crash, the have effect of these both events led to vast numbers of raft organism left jobless.This gave rise to a new group of society drifters people who would travel from place to place doing manual labour, or working in the field s. This worked to the advant term of the business owners who managed to survive the crisis, (many of these were in California, a rich state which had not been hit as badly by the depression) because it meant that there were scads of workers for few jobs.Employers could make working conditions awful, populateing that if anyone compl personaled they could fire them and there would be five people eager to fill the place. We do not know if John Steinbecks recital is based on true characters or not, but we do know that he gives a very hi-fi depiction of what life was like at the time, as he himself was a drifter for a period of time. One thing that becomes evident during the study is that most of the characters suffer from loneliness. One of the ways in which they coped with the loneliness was by holding onto a belief in the American ambitiousness, the hallucination that each man can better himself through his own efforts, and live a long and happy life.The first two characters t hat we meet are George and Lennie, two drifters. George comes across as the leader of the two his job is to remark Lennie step up of trouble. He shows great patience in dealing with Lennie whose mental age is the equivalent of a small child. During the book we do see George digest his temper with Lennie because it come forths that he is always messing things up for George. For example when they are on their way to the new bed covering Lennie produces a dead mouse from his grievous bodily harm and George make its angry, You crazy fool, You gonna give me that mouse or do I have to sock you? and Blubberin like a baby? Jesus messiah A mountainous guy like you.George claims he only keeps Lennie rough because he made a promise to his Aunt Clara that he would. fifty-fifty if this is true she is now dead, and so George has no real reason to keep facial expressioning afterward Lennie, in particular as Lennie bes to mess up everything that goes safe for George. However, George lifelessness puts up with Lennie and this, it would seem, is mainly to avoid the loneliness that is caused by all the travelling. man Lennie may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, he is still someone to converse with on long lonely walks.We key out from early on in the book that George and Lennie alike share the American dream, they dream of one day having, a little house and a couple of acres an a cow and some pigs.This ambition highlights one big difference between George and Lennies grasp on ingenuousness, whilst George says he dreams of this, he must know deep down inside of him that they allow never fulfil the dream. Lennie on the other hand is completely divers(prenominal) he believes so deeply in the dream that at one point George actually threatens to not let Lennie tend the rabbits when they achieve their dream. The dream that these two share leads us to meet the next character that also suffers great loneliness.We first meet sweeten when Lennie and George a rrive at the ranch. He is the first person they meet. He is also the one who takes them to see the boss. glass only has one arm and we ensure out later that he lost his arm in a machinery accident in the fields. However, the ranch still employs him and he was given compensation for his injury. Due to the loss of his arm he cannot work in the fields, instead he has to stay cornerstone and sweep up. This causes him great loneliness because he has no one to converse to, his best friend is his dog, but tragically later in the story the other workers convince stubdy to shoot him because he is old and useless.While the other workers can go into town at the end of the month, cock-a-hoop them the opportunity go out and have a good time, Candy cannot join them because he is too old to be out alcoholism until late in the night. His circumstances cause him to suffer from great loneliness, so it is not surprising that when he over hears Lennie and George peaching about their dream, he t ries to buy in to it. With the money that Candy got in compensation for his arm, it begins to look as though the dream may become a reality more rapidly than George or Lennie imagined.The next character that we meet is Crooks the fixed buck. He suffers from loneliness because he is black. This means he has to sleep in his own manse and is not allowed to stay in the same dorm as the other workers. He is lonely purely because he is totally all the time and has no one to talk to. Crooks is also a cripple as a horse kicked him when he was working, leaving him with a crooked buttocks, this prevents him from joining in many activities. He pretends, when Lennie goes into his dorm to be really angry, I aint wanted in the bunk-house, and you aint wanted in my room.But as time goes on he begins to warm to Lennie, Come on in and set a while, Long as you wont get out and kick in me alone you might as well sit down. I recover this is mainly because he was just glad to have someone to talk to, after being on his own for so long. Even after this though he could not resist getting revenge on the white folk, he teases Lennie asking him, Spose George dont come back no more. And he persists and begins to scare Lennie until finally Lennie gets so scared he decides to go and check if George was back yet. But Crooks quickly apologises at the thought of being left all alone again. A few minutes later Candy turns up and although Crooks acts as though he is resentful he still invites him in.The next character to appear at Crooks door is Curleys wife. She is the only womanhood on the ranch, and the guys refuse to talk to her because of Curley. He is very protective and avaricious of her and will try and beat up anyone who he speculates might be making a move on her. When the guys in Crooks dorm seem to shut her out she begins to insult them, Standin here talking to a pack of bindle stiffs- a nigger an a dum-dum and a lousy ol sheep. Showing a spiteful side to her character. She only married Curley to spite her mother in the first place. One night in a bar she met a man who claimed he could make her a great star actress. We are not told how the man took advantage of her. He said that he would commove a letter to her, but she never received it and blamed her mother, impeach her of destroying the letter, then to spite her she ran off and married Curley.The story has a tragic ending, all the way through the story George had warned Lennie about getting to abutting to Curleys wife. But this turned out to be the downfall of their dream, which had seemed so much more likely since the addition of Candy to the plot. Lennie is in the atomic number 5 when she appears and starts talking to him. They start sharing stories, and she asks him why he is so ghost with rabbits. He tells her about his obsession with stroking nice things, and she allows him to stroke her hair.She starts to kvetch that he will, muss it up, but when she pulls away Lennies enchant tight ens and she begins to scream. He puts his hand over her mouth and begs her not to because George will get angry. Her body, flopped like a fish, Lennie had broken her neck. The first people to find the body were Candy and George. They new it had to be Lennie. It is at that point that the dream is thrown into real jeopardy. Candy recognising this, immediately tries to convince George that they can still achieve their hopes, You an me can get that little place, cant we, George? Cant we? But Candy already knew the answer. George knows that Lennie was such a big part of the dream, it could not continue without him, it would almost be disloyal.George knows that the other workers, especially Curley would not allow Lennie to live after this. George goes off to find the other workers. Candy is now alone with the body of Curleys wife in the barn, he blames her for destroying the dreams of three men, himself, George and Lennie. He actually begins to shout at her, You paragon damn tramp. spose youre glad. George follows the other workers into the barn. He acts as though it is the first time he has seen the body. The other workers assure him that they think he had nothing to do with it, and they set off in hunting of Lennie.The story ends with George and Carson, one of the ranch hands, standing over Lennie. George has the gun to the back off Lennies head. He and Lennie have been talking about the dream, in advance Lennie knows it George pulls the trigger and Lennie is dead. The last thing we see is George way out to the highway with Carson, Curley and Slim. He and Slim walk away to get a drink, George knowing that its all over. The dreams that he and Candy have shared, and that have kept them going have been destroyed.