Self Limitations In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

“Lennie never done it in meanness...All the time he done bad things, but he never done one of ‘em mean”(95). John Steinbeck’s novella, Of Mice and Men, tells the story of George and Lennie, two migrant workers in 1930’s California. Lennie is a large, cognitively disabled man who often forgets things and when scared, freezes or becomes very violent. George is a man who travels with Lennie and watches out for him. After an incident involving Lennie at their previous jobs in Weed, California, they must seek out a new place of employment. They end up on a ranch in Salinas, California, and they plan to work there as ranch hands for as long as possible. The men there suspect that there is something wrong with Lennie, and it gets him in trouble with with the boss’s son, Curley. Lennie’s obsession with soft things and his tendency to get violent when he is scared leads him to kill small animals, and eventually a woman on the ranch. Throughout the novella, Of Mice and Men, the theme of characters being destroyed by their own limitations is shown through …show more content…
Through Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck was able to raise awareness of the lack of mental health treatment during the 1930’s through the character of Lennie. Through Curley’s wife, he showed how women could be while trying to live up to the expectations of their society. Finally, Curley exemplified the strong expectations of men and how they must have power to be a real man. These issues are all still relevant today; mental health is highly unrecognized, women feel that they need to fit a certain expectation based on the rest of society, and men often become violent in order to gain power and be a real man. All people should read this book in order to understand the stereotypes and prejudices, both past and present, that face the people of