Social Justice In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Of Mice and Men begins with two migrant workers named Lennie Small and George Milton, who are trying to survive by looking for a job at the ranch. Lennie faces social justice since he commits errors due to his mental illness and does not receive consequences as other employees would. George learns to tolerate Lennie at every moment from acting like a child to becoming a criminal, and lastly, another employee named Candy faces equal despair from others along with his pet dog. Along their journey they meet new people with many different perspectives or lifestyles together, but at the end to realize they lose the one they have always been close too. Steinbeck is trying to show the reader about social justice, tolerance, and equality for many workers …show more content…
In the same way, everyone on the ranch understands Lennie's difficulties with working with one another and learning the ability to control his actions with his anger and love for soft things and have social justice for only him. The novel describes to us, “George yelled again, ‘I said get him.’ Curley’s fist was swinging when Lennie reached for it. The next minute Curley was flopping like a fish on a line, and his closed fist was lost in Lennie's big hand. George ran down the room. ‘Leggo of him, Lennie. Let go’” (62). In other words the author's outlook on social justice is Lennie gets treated like everyone else but with no consequences or even secrets to keep cover. The writer also tells us, “Slim went on. ‘I think you got your han’ caught in a machine. If you don’t tell nobody what happened, we ain’t going to’”(63). basically he uses imagery for the audience to focus on Lennie's performance of violence and how many of the workers are able to cover up for him since Lennie does not know his own strength as someone normal would in the